Alzheimer’s Risk Cut by Nearly 40% for People Who Did This One Thing

NEED TO KNOW

• Engaging in mentally stimulating activities over your lifetime may cut your Alzheimer’s risk by nearly 40%, research says

• A new study published in the medical journal Neurology examined the lifetime cognitive enrichment of nearly 2,000 people

• “Consistently engaging in a variety of mentally stimulating activities throughout life may make a difference in cognition,” the study author says

The risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease may be cut by nearly 40%, new research says, simply by engaging in mentally stimulating activities throughout your lifetime.

“Cognitive health in later life is in part the product of lifetime exposure to cognitive enrichment,” new research, published in the medical journal Neurology, says. For the study, researchers followed 1,939 older adults for about eight years. During the course of the study, 551 participants developed Alzheimer’s disease and 719 developed mild cognitive impairment.

“Our study looked at cognitive enrichment from childhood to later life, focusing on activities and resources that stimulate the mind,” study author Dr. Andrea Zammit, of Chicago’s Rush University Medical Center, said in an American Academy of Neurology press release. “Our findings suggest that cognitive health in later life is strongly influenced by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments.”

Researchers found that those who consistently engaged in mentally stimulating activities had a lower risk of Alzheimer’s dementia, or developed it roughly five years later than peers who didn’t engage in cognitively enriching activities.

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The types of activities were split into three stages and categories — before age 18, activities include reading books, learning a foreign language for more than five years and having access to newspapers and atlases. For those under age 40, researchers considered access to libraries and museums.  After age 80, enriching activities included reading, writing and playing games.

Researchers gave each participant scores for how often they engaged in these activities, finding that those with a higher lifetime score had a 38% lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and a 36% lower risk of mild cognitive impairment.

“Our findings are encouraging, suggesting that consistently engaging in a variety of mentally stimulating activities throughout life may make a difference in cognition,” Zammit said.

“Public investments that expand access to enriching environments, like libraries and early education programs designed to spark a lifelong love of learning, may help reduce the incidence of dementia,” she added.

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