clan who regularly read books, do c...

clan who regularly read books, do crossword complicates or otherwise exercise their brains are significantly les likely to make known Alzheimer's disease, reports a reflection involving 801 elderly Catholic priests, nun and brothers.

Researchers at Rush-Presbyterian-St. Luke's Medical Center in Chicago studied participants aged 65 and older from 40 religious orders and societies. The subdues were tested to determine to what degree often they took part in various brain-stimulating activities: listening to the radio; reading newspapers, magazines or books; playing cards or board games; doing puzzles; and going to museums. They were followed for almost four years, annually taking a battery of experiments to evaluate memory, language and other indications of brain function.

Researchers reported in the February 13 2002 Journal of the American Medical Association that, forward average, those who said they not rarely take part in mentally stimulating activities were 47 percent les likely to unravel Alzheimer's disease than those who rarely do so

studious mood director David Bennett says researchers also place that the rate of decline of brain function was faster among those who rarely took part in activities that involve thinking. "It appears that keeping your mind active can, in fact, dull the rate at which you let slip mental ability," he says.

Whether brain stimulation obstructs disease or only reflects its absence has still to be proved, says Elisabeth Kos assistant director of the Alzheimer's Disease Center Program at the National Institute forward Aging, which funded the application of mind It's possible that people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's disease may be les likely to take part in brain-exercising activities because they're already slightly impaired, she says. Or, it may be that stimulating the brain allows it to compensate for damage caused at disease or normal aging.

"The elderly idea that you're born with a certain number of brain solitary abode; squalids and you lose them, like hair, diverts out not to be the case," Kos says. There is evidence that mental calisthenics help create healthy might paths in the brain, which could replace those thrown away or impaired by disease.

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