Staying mentally active unlikely to protect most against Alzheimer’s

Crossword puzzles, serious reading material and stimulating conversation are unlikely to protect most people from Alzheimer's, a study has found. But keeping the brain active in older age can reduce the risk of dementia in the 20 per cent of individuals who carry a gene linked to the disease, the research suggests. The findings help explain why past studies looking at the mental benefits of staying mentally and physically active have produced conflicting results. Researchers in the US looked at 393 dementia-free people over 70 who were divided into different groups according to their education history, the extent to which they kept mentally active, and whether or not they had the APoE4 gene. Brain scans were carried out to identify biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease, including accumulations of sticky beta-amyloid protein fragments. Participants with the gene and at least 14 years of education, and who ensured they kept mentally active in middle age, had lower levels of beta-amyloid in their brains than did APoE4 carriers who had not exercised their brains. But for the study group as a whole, education, occupation and mental and physical activity appeared to have little or no...

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