Can Language Skills Ward Off Alzheimer's Disease?
An interesting article here from Yahoo News: Can Language Skills Ward Off Alzheimer's Disease? An excerpt:
The leading theory to explain this fortunate disconnect is the brain-reserve hypothesis, which suggests that people who have more cognitive ability and more neural tissue to start with - sharper minds, broadly - may be better able to withstand the ravages of age. "In some ways, you could think of it like a trained athlete who might be able to resist some atherosclerosis of the heart," explains Dr. Bradley Hyman, director of the Massachusetts Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Past studies have shown that patients who have so-called asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease - those who have the hallmark brain lesions and plaques of Alzheimer's disease but no memory loss - also have enlarged neurons, compared with patients who suffer cognitive impairment.
The finding adds to a collection of studies suggesting that the greater one's initial mental fitness - measured variously as higher educational achievement or high IQ, for example - the better it may be safeguarded in old age. "It's broadly consistent with the notion that if someone starts out with the ability, however their brain is organized, to have a greater set of skills in language and performing other complicated tasks, then maybe that brain is more resistant [later in life]."
It is not yet clear whether highly developed language skills actually play a role in fending off Alzheimer's disease or whether the correlation is merely a side effect of other protective processes. Indeed, Iacono's study, which involved 38 nuns, only 14 of whom he had writing samples from, is too small to show a definitive effect. But the way Iacono looks at it, no one knows how much of the risk of dementia is hardwired into our DNA and how much is determined by environmental factors like physical exercise and social activity, so while the jury is still out, brushing up on your Shakespeare certainly can't hurt.
Click here for the whole article.
Yes, I do know that writer Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer's. I wish him well and hope for nothing but the best for him; but this may emphasize what's stated in the piece's last paragraph, that other factors may be involved and not just linguistic skills. Still, I do not see anything wrong with keeping the mind active as one gets older, and reading, which enhances one's language skills, can only help keep the brain active.
Adding to the deep body of research associating mental acuity with a lower risk of Alzheimer's disease, a study published online on July 8 by the journal Neurology suggests that people who possess sophisticated linguistic skills early in life may be protected from developing dementia in old age - even when their brains show the physical signs, like lesions and plaques, of memory disorders.
That discrepancy is not unheard of: many elderly patients develop the brain lesions, plaques and tangled neurological-tissue fibers that are indicative of dementia and Alzheimer's disease, but not all of them exhibit the memory loss and confusion that typically characterize these disorders.The leading theory to explain this fortunate disconnect is the brain-reserve hypothesis, which suggests that people who have more cognitive ability and more neural tissue to start with - sharper minds, broadly - may be better able to withstand the ravages of age. "In some ways, you could think of it like a trained athlete who might be able to resist some atherosclerosis of the heart," explains Dr. Bradley Hyman, director of the Massachusetts Alzheimer's Disease Research Center and a professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School.
Past studies have shown that patients who have so-called asymptomatic Alzheimer's disease - those who have the hallmark brain lesions and plaques of Alzheimer's disease but no memory loss - also have enlarged neurons, compared with patients who suffer cognitive impairment.
The finding adds to a collection of studies suggesting that the greater one's initial mental fitness - measured variously as higher educational achievement or high IQ, for example - the better it may be safeguarded in old age. "It's broadly consistent with the notion that if someone starts out with the ability, however their brain is organized, to have a greater set of skills in language and performing other complicated tasks, then maybe that brain is more resistant [later in life]."
It is not yet clear whether highly developed language skills actually play a role in fending off Alzheimer's disease or whether the correlation is merely a side effect of other protective processes. Indeed, Iacono's study, which involved 38 nuns, only 14 of whom he had writing samples from, is too small to show a definitive effect. But the way Iacono looks at it, no one knows how much of the risk of dementia is hardwired into our DNA and how much is determined by environmental factors like physical exercise and social activity, so while the jury is still out, brushing up on your Shakespeare certainly can't hurt.
Click here for the whole article.
Yes, I do know that writer Terry Pratchett has early onset Alzheimer's. I wish him well and hope for nothing but the best for him; but this may emphasize what's stated in the piece's last paragraph, that other factors may be involved and not just linguistic skills. Still, I do not see anything wrong with keeping the mind active as one gets older, and reading, which enhances one's language skills, can only help keep the brain active.
posted by pgenrestories at 8:39 PM
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