Brain Fitness and Alzheimer's Disease
Studies have shown that keeping your brain in shape may help to ward off dementia and Alzheimer's disease.
By Dave Bunnell
Tuesday, July 01, 2008
Jim Jacobs
Betty Eiler checkmates Dave Bunnell.
Enjoying the Sunny Side of the Street
Seniors tend to emphasize the positive more than younger people do, and for good reason. As people age, they gain not only life experience but better emotional balance.
Music: It's Play Time!
The ways to get involved making music are as varied as the instruments in a symphony orchestra.
The American Academy of Neurology recently published the result of a study of more than 700 older people in Chicago that concluded, "a cognitive active person in old age was 2.6 times less likely to develop dementia and Alzheimer's disease than a cognitively inactive person in old age."
According to Dr. Merzenich, there is "not a terribly strict correlation between the behavioral changes that lead to an A.D. diagnosis and the state of brain pathology."
He further explains, "People who have been exercising their brain machinery can still be doing fine behaviorally, while a brain image can show that this is despite significant brain damage. Sustaining your brain fitness to protect yourself from Alzheimer's is a much safer strategy than waiting for the word [that] you're now eligible to wear the A.D. badge!"
The Heart-Brain Connection
"Being fat has a detrimental impact on the brain," says Kaiser Permanente research scientist Rachel Whitmer. She is the co-author of a nine-year study of 10,276 people in Northern California that found people who are obese in middle age (body mass index of 30 or more) are 74% more likely to have dementia than people of healthy weights. (Of course, obesity is also detrimental to the heart.)
Other studies, including one that followed 1,500 elderly subjects in Sweden for more than 20 years, have found that typical heart disease risk factors such as high cholesterol and high blood pressure can more than double the risk of Alzheimer's disease.
On the flip side, researchers at Harvard Medical School have found that women in the Nurse's Health Study who regularly ate eight or more servings per week of cruciferous vegetables (such as cabbage) and other leafy greens were "1.7 years younger in terms of cognitive age" than those who ate only two or fewer servings per week.
Study after study has shown that people who regularly exercise are less likely to develop either heart disease or dementia. Thus, maintaining a healthy heart is essential to maintaining a healthy brain. So when you're between crossword puzzles, start jogging!
« back | continue reading: Brain Benefits of Aerobic Exercise »
'I Like to Be a Protagonist' 
Delicious
Digg
Reddit
Magnoliacom
Newsvine
