Dancing reduces risk of Alzheimer's
2003-06-19 12:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
archershipshttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10893-2003Jun18.html
Mind Games May Trump Alzheimer's
Study Cites Effects Of Bridge, Chess
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 19, 2003; Page A01
Playing chess, bridge or a musical instrument significantly
lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or other
forms of dementia, according to the most comprehensive study
to examine the benefits of challenging intellectual activity
among the elderly.
Seniors who regularly engaged in pastimes that stretched
their minds -- sorry, watching TV doesn't count -- lowered
their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and other
dementias by as much as 75 percent, compared with those who
didn't exercise their minds, researchers said yesterday.
The report bolsters a growing body of evidence that
exercising the mind through board games, social activities
and education offers powerful protection against mental
deterioration and disease.
"I see a lot of elderly patients -- a lot come with memory
complaints," said Joe Verghese, a neurologist at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, who led the study
team. "They have so-called senior moments -- they go in a
room and forget why they are there. One thing I advise is for
them to increase their participation in cognitively
stimulating activities."
Some mental activity appears to be better than none, said
Verghese. And the more hours seniors spent doing challenging
tasks, the more protection they gained against brain decline.
The day may not be far off, he said, when doctors recommend a
game of chess and the daily crossword along with physical
exercise and a healthy diet.
The benefits of such activities -- widely available and
inexpensive -- appear to benefit those at all levels of
education and IQ.
The finding comes as researchers race to find ways to slow or
prevent disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, which afflicts
4 million Americans. As the large number of people in the
baby boom generation age, dementia-related disease is expected
to rise, and reducing its toll could have enormous ramifications.
Equally intriguing from a scientific standpoint is the idea
that mental activity such as playing bridge can alter the
molecular march of a neurological process.
"How can the molecular determinism of Alzheimer's disease be
trumped by elderly people's card-playing?" asked Joseph Coyle,
a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Harvard Medical
School, in an analysis of Verghese's study. Both papers are
being published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"The apparent conflict is between biology and psychology," Coyle
said in an interview. But neuroscientists are finding that in
many ways the brain is "plastic" -- thoughts and experiences
change neural structure and chemistry.
"Using the mind actually causes rewiring of the brain, sprouting
new synapses -- it may even cause the generation of new neurons,"
Coyle said. "So psychology trumps biology."
The new study tracked 469 people over age 75, starting in 1980.
The researchers measured how often they participated in leisure
activities such as reading, walking, dancing and board games.
As people aged, researchers tracked how many people developed
dementia.
Verghese's team also solved a chicken-and-egg problem that
dogged previous research: Do mental activities really prevent
dementia, or does dementia cause people to lose interest in
mental activities? By screening out anyone who might have had
dementia at the outset from their analysis, the researchers
showed that leisure activities influenced dementia in their
study, and not the other way around.
Those who played board games had a 74 percent lower risk and
those who played an instrument had a 69 percent lower risk.
Doing crossword puzzles cut the risk by 38 percent.
Purely physical activities failed to lower the risk, said
Verghese, except for dancing, which lowered the risk by a
dramatic 76 percent. Of all the physical activities, dancing
involved the most mental effort, the researchers noted. A
previous study found benefits for gardening, which also
involves both mental and physical effort.
Andrea Farbman, executive director of the American Music Therapy
Association, noted that music therapy is being widely used in
Alzheimer's disease care.
"These are people who would not know what day it is, what their
name is or where they are, but they can recall the songs, the
chord and music," she said.
Lon S. Schneider, professor of psychiatry, neurology and
gerontology at the University of Southern California, said
that while final proof of the benefits of mental activity would
require a study that compared people who systematically
increased mental activity against a group that did not, the
current results were promising.
"Use it or lose it -- exercise your mind," he said. Schneider
said that because participants in Verghese's study had probably
been involved in leisure activities their whole lives, it would
be unwise to advise 80-year-olds who had never been mentally
active to solve a crossword puzzle every day.
Rather, he said, people should find ways to stretch their minds
doing things they already enjoy: "If you are interested in
sports, learn the box scores," he said. "Learning the statistics
is learning and memory."
2003 The Washington Post Company
Mind Games May Trump Alzheimer's
Study Cites Effects Of Bridge, Chess
By Shankar Vedantam
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 19, 2003; Page A01
Playing chess, bridge or a musical instrument significantly
lowers the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease or other
forms of dementia, according to the most comprehensive study
to examine the benefits of challenging intellectual activity
among the elderly.
Seniors who regularly engaged in pastimes that stretched
their minds -- sorry, watching TV doesn't count -- lowered
their risk of developing Alzheimer's disease and other
dementias by as much as 75 percent, compared with those who
didn't exercise their minds, researchers said yesterday.
The report bolsters a growing body of evidence that
exercising the mind through board games, social activities
and education offers powerful protection against mental
deterioration and disease.
"I see a lot of elderly patients -- a lot come with memory
complaints," said Joe Verghese, a neurologist at the Albert
Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, who led the study
team. "They have so-called senior moments -- they go in a
room and forget why they are there. One thing I advise is for
them to increase their participation in cognitively
stimulating activities."
Some mental activity appears to be better than none, said
Verghese. And the more hours seniors spent doing challenging
tasks, the more protection they gained against brain decline.
The day may not be far off, he said, when doctors recommend a
game of chess and the daily crossword along with physical
exercise and a healthy diet.
The benefits of such activities -- widely available and
inexpensive -- appear to benefit those at all levels of
education and IQ.
The finding comes as researchers race to find ways to slow or
prevent disorders such as Alzheimer's disease, which afflicts
4 million Americans. As the large number of people in the
baby boom generation age, dementia-related disease is expected
to rise, and reducing its toll could have enormous ramifications.
Equally intriguing from a scientific standpoint is the idea
that mental activity such as playing bridge can alter the
molecular march of a neurological process.
"How can the molecular determinism of Alzheimer's disease be
trumped by elderly people's card-playing?" asked Joseph Coyle,
a professor of psychiatry and neuroscience at Harvard Medical
School, in an analysis of Verghese's study. Both papers are
being published today in the New England Journal of Medicine.
"The apparent conflict is between biology and psychology," Coyle
said in an interview. But neuroscientists are finding that in
many ways the brain is "plastic" -- thoughts and experiences
change neural structure and chemistry.
"Using the mind actually causes rewiring of the brain, sprouting
new synapses -- it may even cause the generation of new neurons,"
Coyle said. "So psychology trumps biology."
The new study tracked 469 people over age 75, starting in 1980.
The researchers measured how often they participated in leisure
activities such as reading, walking, dancing and board games.
As people aged, researchers tracked how many people developed
dementia.
Verghese's team also solved a chicken-and-egg problem that
dogged previous research: Do mental activities really prevent
dementia, or does dementia cause people to lose interest in
mental activities? By screening out anyone who might have had
dementia at the outset from their analysis, the researchers
showed that leisure activities influenced dementia in their
study, and not the other way around.
Those who played board games had a 74 percent lower risk and
those who played an instrument had a 69 percent lower risk.
Doing crossword puzzles cut the risk by 38 percent.
Purely physical activities failed to lower the risk, said
Verghese, except for dancing, which lowered the risk by a
dramatic 76 percent. Of all the physical activities, dancing
involved the most mental effort, the researchers noted. A
previous study found benefits for gardening, which also
involves both mental and physical effort.
Andrea Farbman, executive director of the American Music Therapy
Association, noted that music therapy is being widely used in
Alzheimer's disease care.
"These are people who would not know what day it is, what their
name is or where they are, but they can recall the songs, the
chord and music," she said.
Lon S. Schneider, professor of psychiatry, neurology and
gerontology at the University of Southern California, said
that while final proof of the benefits of mental activity would
require a study that compared people who systematically
increased mental activity against a group that did not, the
current results were promising.
"Use it or lose it -- exercise your mind," he said. Schneider
said that because participants in Verghese's study had probably
been involved in leisure activities their whole lives, it would
be unwise to advise 80-year-olds who had never been mentally
active to solve a crossword puzzle every day.
Rather, he said, people should find ways to stretch their minds
doing things they already enjoy: "If you are interested in
sports, learn the box scores," he said. "Learning the statistics
is learning and memory."
2003 The Washington Post Company
no subject
Date: 2003-06-19 09:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2003-06-19 12:56 pm (UTC)Anti-aging medicine, cryonics, and uploading are the only things that are going to significantly delay the diseases of old age and death. But dancing/bridge may help one to live long enough for these technologies to help.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-19 10:49 am (UTC)http://charlesmurtaugh.blogspot.com/2003_06_01_charlesmurtaugh_archive.html#105597535901965462
no subject
Date: 2003-06-19 12:48 pm (UTC)"C'mon, shake it, baby -- let's go cure some Alzheimer's."
Now if I could only find my gold chains....
no subject
Date: 2003-06-19 11:47 am (UTC)A lot of the old people who play cite it as something they do to keep their minds active; and it's taken as an empirical truth that keeping your mind active helps keep it sharp.
Usually the very elderly are not particularly competitive players, though, for whatever that's worth.
I have to agree that correlation doesn't prove causality. If I may be permitted the further faux pas of an anecdotal example, certainly Reagan had as active a mind as anyone during his Presidency, and he still got Alzheimer's.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-19 12:51 pm (UTC)Only something like cryonics, anti-aging medicine, and uploading are going to significantly affect that. But assuming causation, dancing may help you live long enough for those technologies to advance enough.
no subject
Date: 2003-06-19 07:38 pm (UTC)Not a surprise.
Date: 2003-06-22 09:26 pm (UTC)use it, you lose it.