Brain Health and Alzheimer’s disease

Here is ques­tion 14 of 25 from Brain Fit­ness 101: Answers to Your Top 25 Ques­tions. To down­load the com­plete ver­sion, please click here.

Ques­tion:
Does a brain fit­ness pro­gram pre­vent Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of dementia?

Key Points:

• Stud­ies have shown men­tal­ly active peo­ple have low­er rates and lat­er onset of symp­toms for Alzheimer’s dis­ease and oth­er forms of demen­tia. These dis­eases involve a num­ber of vari­ables like fam­i­ly his­to­ry, phys­i­cal fit­ness, nutri­tion, and brain fitness.
• Peo­ple who remain intel­lec­tu­al­ly active and engage in hob­bies reduce the risk of Alzheimer’s dis­ease by one third.

Answer:

No spe­cif­ic pro­gram has been shown to pre­vent Alzheimer’s. How­ev­er, reg­u­lar brain exer­cise can slow the appear­ance of dis­ease relat­ed symp­toms. Stud­ies have shown that par­tic­u­lar­ly in the ear­ly stages of these dis­eases, the brain is still able to learn and change.

Learn­ing is neu­ro­pro­tec­tive by increas­ing neu­ronal con­nec­tions between neu­rons, increas­ing cel­lu­lar metab­o­lism, and increas­ing the pro­duc­tion of nerve growth fac­tor, a sub­stance pro­duced by your body to help main­tain and repair neurons.

Build­ing up your cog­ni­tive reserve while you’re young, aging well, or even are in the ear­ly stages of dis­ease will most like­ly improve your qual­i­ty of life even as the dis­ease pro­gress­es. A larg­er reserve gives you a back­up of neu­rons to help you con­tin­ue to be self-suf­fi­cient for longer.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, noth­ing avail­able today can ful­ly pre­vent these dis­eases from occur­ring. How­ev­er, reg­u­lar train­ing with a cog­ni­tive fit­ness pro­gram can post­pone the appear­ance of the cog­ni­tive symp­toms and build up your cog­ni­tive reserve.

Fur­ther Reading:

• Ball LJ, Birge SJ. Pre­ven­tion of brain aging and demen­tia. Clin Geri­atr Med. 2002;18:485–503.
• Billings LM, Green KN, McGaugh JL, LaFer­la FM. Learn­ing decreas­es Abeta*56 and tau pathol­o­gy and ame­lio­rates behav­ioral decline in 3xTg-AD mice. J Neu­rosci. 2007;27:751–761.
• Hultsch D, et al. Use it or lose it: Engaged lifestyle as a buffer of cog­ni­tive decline in aging? Psy­chol­o­gy and Aging. 1999;14:245–263.
• McDaniel MA, Maier SF, Ein­stein GO. “Brain-spe­cif­ic” nutri­ents: a mem­o­ry cure? Nutri­tion. 2003;19:957–75.
• Scarmeas N, Stern Y. Cog­ni­tive reserve and lifestyle. J Clin Exp Neu­ropsy­chol. 2003;25:625–33.
• Tar­ra­ga L, Boa­da M, Modi­nos G, et al. A ran­domised pilot study to assess the effi­ca­cy of an inter­ac­tive, mul­ti­me­dia tool of cog­ni­tive stim­u­la­tion in Alzheimer’s dis­ease. J Neu­rol Neu­ro­surg Psy­chi­a­try. 2006;77:1116–21.
• Willis SL, Tennst­edt SL, Mar­siske M, et al. Long-term effects of cog­ni­tive train­ing on every­day func­tion­al out­comes in old­er adults. JAMA. 2006;296:2805–14.
• Wil­son RS, Ben­nett DA, Bienias JL, et al. Cog­ni­tive activ­i­ty and inci­dent AD in a pop­u­la­tion-based sam­ple of old­er per­sons. Neu­rol­o­gy. 2002;59:1910–4.
• Wil­son RS, Mendes De Leon CF, Barnes LL, Schnei­der JA, Bienias JL, Evans DA, Ben­nett DA. Par­tic­i­pa­tion in Cog­ni­tive­ly Stim­u­lat­ing Activ­i­ties and Risk of Inci­dent Alzheimer Dis­ease. JAMA. 2002;287:742–748
• Wolf SA, Kro­nen­berg G, Lehmann K, et al. Cog­ni­tive and Phys­i­cal Activ­i­ty Dif­fer­ent­ly Mod­u­late Dis­ease Pro­gres­sion in the Amy­loid Pre­cur­sor Pro­tein (APP)-23 Mod­el of Alzheimer’s Dis­ease. Biol Psy­chi­a­try. 2006;60:1314–23.
• Wolin­sky FD, Unverza­gt FW, Smith DM, Jones R, Stod­dard A, Tennst­edt SL. The ACTIVE Cog­ni­tive Train­ing Tri­al and Health-Relat­ed Qual­i­ty of Life: Pro­tec­tion That Lasts for 5 Years. J Geron­tol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 2006;61:1324–9.