Think about this: Keeping your brain active may delay Alzheimer’s dementia 5 years
Positive trends in global education access are expected to decrease dementia prevalence worldwide by 6.2 million cases by the year 2050. Meanwhile, anticipated trends in smoking, high body mass index and high blood sugar are predicted to increase prevalence by nearly the same number: 6.8 million cases. [Ref. 1]
“Improvements in lifestyle in adults in developed countries and other places — including increasing access to education and greater attention to heart health issues — have reduced incidence in recent years, but total numbers with dementia are still going up because of the aging of the population,” said Maria C. Carrillo, Ph.D., Alzheimer’s Association chief science officer. “In addition, obesity, diabetes and sedentary lifestyles in younger people are rising quickly, and these are risk factors for dementia.” [Ref. 1]
The U.S. National Institute on Aging estimates people over the age of 65 will make up 16% of the world’s population by 2050 — up from 8% in 2010. [Ref. 1]
“Frontotemporal dementia is a devastating disease for patients and their loved ones. Understanding the causes of dementia can be difficult, as most of the damage to the brain occurs well before any symptoms appear. It’s like trying to unravel the events that created a crime scene. In this study, we were able to model many aspects of the pathology seen in the brains of patients who carry the V337M mutation in tau,” said Alison M. Goate, DPhil, Director, Ronald M. Loeb Center for Alzheimer’s Disease at Mount Sinai, and a senior author of the study. “Our results identified several very early transcriptomic and proteomic changes that lead to the formation of tau pathology and neuronal death. Our goal is to help researchers develop novel treatments against frontotemporal dementias and prevent the suffering experienced by patients and their families.” Frontotemporal dementia is a rare form of dementia that usually begins between ages 40 and 60. It affects the front and side (temporal) areas of the brain, leading to behavior changes and difficulty with speaking and thinking. [Ref. 2]
Induced pluripotent stem cells are created by genetically and chemically reprogramming a person’s skin or blood cells into newborn stem cells, which have the potential to become any cell in the body. From these stem cells, the Neural Stem Cell Institute (NSCI) created thousands of tiny, 3D cerebral organoids, which mimic the early growth and development of the cerebral cortex for intensive study by collaborating scientific groups. “Induced pluripotent stem cells are powerful tools. They allow researchers to study each patient’s personalized disease in a petri dish,” said Sally Temple, PhD, Scientific Director of the NSCI and a senior author of the study. “In this study we were able to take this idea to the next level. By combining iPSC-organoid technology with high-throughput, single cell gene activity analysis, we were able to get a better look at what might be going on in a patient’s brain at early stages of disease development, even before symptoms emerge.” [Ref. 2]
Keeping your brain active in old age has always been a smart idea, but a new study suggests that reading, writing letters and playing card games or puzzles in later life may delay the onset of Alzheimer’s dementia by up to five years. [Ref. 3]
“The good news is that it’s never too late to start doing the kinds of inexpensive, accessible activities we looked at in our study,” said study author Robert S. Wilson, PhD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “Our findings suggest it may be beneficial to start doing these things, even in your 80s, to delay the onset of Alzheimer’s dementia.” The study looked at 1,978 people with an average age of 80 who did not have dementia at the start of the study. The people were followed for an average of seven years. To determine if they had developed dementia, participants were given annual examinations, which included a number of cognitive tests. When the study began, people rated their participation in seven activities on a five-point scale. The questions included: “During the past year, how often did you read books?” and “During the past year, how often did you play games like checkers, board games, cards or puzzles?” [Ref. 3]
Participants also answered questions about cognitive activity in childhood, adulthood and middle age. Researchers then averaged each person’s responses, with a score of one meaning once a year or less and score of five meaning every day or almost every day. People in the group with high cognitive activity scored an average of 4.0 which meant activities several times per week, compared to an average score of 2.1 for those with low cognitive activity, which meant activities several times per year. During the study follow-up period, 457 people with an average age of 89 were diagnosed with Alzheimer’s dementia. People with the highest levels of activity, on average, developed dementia at age 94. The people with the lowest cognitive activity, on average, developed dementia at age 89, a difference of five years. The results were similar when researchers adjusted for other factors that could affect dementia risk, such as education level and sex. To test the idea that low cognitive activity may be an early sign of dementia, not the other way around, researchers also looked at the brains of 695 people who died during the study. Brain tissue was examined for markers of Alzheimer’s like amyloid and tau protein deposits, but researchers found no association between how active they were cognitively and markers of Alzheimer’s disease and related disorders in their brains. “Our study shows that people who engage in more cognitively stimulating activities may be delaying the age at which they develop dementia,” Wilson said. “It is important to note, after we accounted for late life level of cognitive activity, neither education nor early life cognitive activity were associated with the age at which a person developed Alzheimer’s dementia. Our research suggests that the link between cognitive activity and the age at which a person developed dementia is mainly driven by the activities you do later in life.” A limitation of the study is that it was based on a group of mainly white people who had high levels of education. Further research will be needed to determine if the findings apply to the general population. [Ref. 3]
References:
[1] Emma Nichols, Theo Vos. Estimating the global mortality from Alzheimer’s disease and other dementias: A new method and results from the Global Burden of Disease study 2019. Alzheimer’s & Dementia, 2020 [2] Kathryn R. Bowles, et al. ELAVL4, splicing, and glutamatergic dysfunction precede neuron loss in MAPT mutation cerebral organoids. Cell, 2021 [3] Think about this: Keeping your brain active may delay Alzheimer’s dementia 5 years. American Academy of Neurology. 14 July 2021
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