Alzheimer's in the News: What Does it Mean?

"Want to protect against the effects of Alzheimer's? Learn another language. That's the takeaway from recent brain research ... " was the lead into recent "CBS Evening News" and "Fox News" reports.

Should we immediately go out and enroll in a French class? A headline in 2006 announced "Cabernet Sauvignon Red Wine Reduces the Risk of Alzheimer's Disease." Should those of us who like Pinot Grigio switch to Cabernet Sauvignon? After reading that people who drink 3 to 5 cups of coffee a day are 65 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's, should tea drinkers who want to avoid dementia switch to coffee?

It is hard to interpret Alzheimer's research news. Perhaps researchers, while presenting their data accurately, also hope positive results will lead to future funding. Maybe fair and honest news reporters or their editors want to make the front page with startling headlines. For sure all news readers really want to hear good Alzheimer's news whenever possible.

In the case of the link between bilingualism and dementia, we have a unique opportunity to compare news reports -- from February 2011 -- to the actual research. In May 2011, the New York Times carried an interview with the author of the research, Dr. Ellen Bialystok. The first news report didn't say whether bilingualism protected only a small group, or whether all multilingual people -- which would include most residents of Canada, most immigrants to the US from non-English speaking countries and many people around the world who speak English, Spanish or Chinese as a second language -- were "protected."

My parents moved to New York from Austria and Hungary and spoke German as well as English, and in the case of my mother, Hungarian. They wrote and spoke English most of the time but spoke to each other in German when they didn't want us children to understand -- until we ourselves became multilingual. Is this why neither of my parents developed dementia symptoms? I doubt it. I speak French and German now and am trying to learn Spanish. Will this help me avoid dementia? The news implies this, but not the facts that Dr. Bialystok reports in her interview.

The bilingual research seems to reflect a modified "use it or lose it" philosophy -- applied not only to frequently using several languages but to frequently engaging in any activity that makes your brain jump between alternative ideation systems like French and English, words and music, and math and language, giving it something to fall back on when faced with cognitive challenges. The main implication of this research to me is that if you live a full and rich life with your mind continually switching between brain systems, your brain is likely to withstand some specific cognitive losses associated with Alzheimer's a few years longer than most people. This is not a "cognitive reserve" as some people like to think, nor a buildup of extra brain power that takes plaques and tangles longer to attack, but rather a rewiring that makes some brains more able than others to withstand physical change.

What can you do?

If you are a person living with mild cognitive impairment, a very early stage of memory loss, you might figure out what skills like bilingualism you already have and exercise those -- every day. A retired engineer would continue to build and repair things, maybe even asking friends and family to bring over broken, small appliances to be taken apart and put back together. Richard Taylor, a retired professor, keeps his mind active by emailing his cogent thoughts almost daily to thousands of friends and colleagues. Since his diagnosis, he has even written a book called "Alzheimer's From the Inside Out."

If you are someone who cares for a person with dementia, especially in the early years, make sure the person continues to practice what interests him or her for as long as possible. Don't let them get depressed, stop using the skills they have and give in to their negative thoughts: "I can't paint, photograph, play the violin the way I used to, so I will just stop altogether."

But remember, you have to have done this all your life to have any effect. The takeaway is not "learn another language," it's use every skill you have from a very early age and don't be afraid to multi-task. As the recession continues and academic courses suffer, classics professor Kristina Chew is justifiably "dismayed at the number of foreign language classes and programs that have been cut in public schools and also at colleges and universities in the face of budget issues." Training more language teachers for the young might well be one of the best national dementia-delaying social investments. Our children and their children, all of us, need to use all the skills we have to develop and use our multilingual "translating" systems -- visiting museums, attending concerts, playing an instrument -- early in life and throughout our lives, so we have something to fall back on when we face those same cognitive challenges.

 

 

 

Follow John Zeisel, Ph.D. on Twitter: www.twitter.com/johnzeisel

Comments

[Bobolini]

09:30 PM on 09/06/2011

Hi John,

Professor Shifra Goldmund's story is amazing. She has finally succumbed to Alzheimer's, was multilingual (a professor of Mexican art history at UCLA) and is in the last moments of her life. While she has not been able to communicate well, her son, who learned music from his mother and is a great musician in his own right used music to communicate with his mother over the last years. While this is not about hard data or science, it is about language. The language they shared was music. Here is the rest of the story - http://www.ericgarciamusic.com/

[Brett Tonaille]

04:50 PM on 09/01/2011

And people thought I was just being pretentious when I spoke French....
I've been deciphering a lot of Latin lately. That should give me MAJOR anti-Alzheimer points. But if a Westerner really wants to challenge their paradigms, they should work on tonal languages - Chinese, Vietnamese, etc. A real mind-bender.

[dlo2]

04:19 PM on 09/01/2011

This is not evidence based research, it is pop research and something I would expect from Fox news venue. Show some systematic reviews, some cumulative meta-analysis without significant bias and then write on this topic. Genetics may well be a major part of Alzheimer's in certain populations and there is so much work to be done. Still it is important to keep the brain active and involved in problem solving and human interaction. This is good for all of us.

[visualbasicide]

06:24 PM on 08/30/2011

Want to see magic? Get rosetta stone and put a 5 yr old in front of it, then try to keep up with them. I'm not a sales person nor do I speak another language, sadly but if you could see this in action it is awesome. Besides giving your child something safe and productive to do I'm sure it will help broaden employment opportunities for them down the road. Just my 2 cents.

[Marc NL]

07:49 PM on 08/17/2011

Wohoo, I am bilingual. (Trilingual if you count my rusty German vocabulary )

Now where did I put my keys..

[timezone]

02:34 PM on 07/26/2011

As I get older (I'm sixty), I do find I get a little more forgetful. To help keep my mind sharper, I do things like listen to language cd's (I'm not fluent in french and spanish but at least studied both, so listening to verb cd's and practicing along and writing them out helps). I also play what some may see as a child's game, Bookworm Adventures Deluxe, where you have to combine letters to make words. You're just really challenging yourself, but I find it useful to help keep my focus. I also work on remembering things like repeating something ten or twenty times to myself, whether a password or someone's name, to help me remember. For example, I was having trouble remembering a neighbor lady's name. It's Joan, but she didn't look like a Joan to me, so now I associate her with Joan Crawford when I see her! :-) I find that just repeating something to myself over and over really helps. I continute to challenge myself with learning new things and continued to study long past my university days (I took some more college courses in my fifties and did extremely well, which made me feel good and showed me my brain hadn't turned to jello lol). Also Great Courses that are on cd's or dvd's and often at libraries to check out are GREAT ways to learn about almost any topic, without having to worry about a grade!

[Kirti Khalsa]

05:59 PM on 07/25/2011

Staying mentally and physically active is a very important to aging healthy. The power of a walking 20 minutes a day 3 times a week is huge! It maintains muscle mass and flexibility as well as increasing blood flow throughout the body and crucial areas like the brain. The Alzheimer's Research and Prevention Foundation has done various research studies on how mental exercise, in the form of Kirtan Kriya meditation has improved brain function and decreased stress in people with memory loss and their caregivers. Go to www.alzheimersprevention.org for more information on those studies

[ttrexxx]

01:07 PM on 07/25/2011

i use that excuse when's suits my purpose..lol

[amhosage]

12:42 PM on 07/25/2011

H.u.f.f.p.o. Your inside track to the latest junk science.

[Scholastica8]

12:04 PM on 07/25/2011

The "Use it or Lose it" philosophy is not quite what it seems.

Thus far research seems to be indicating that those people who remain more intellectually engaged show signficant symptoms of Alzheimers later. However, when the major symptoms become evident, the decline is much more rapid.

IMHO... it is probable that those people who are not as intellectually engaged prior to what seems to be the onset of Alzheimers may already be experiencing Alzheimers symptoms. It could be that the disease is at work limiting intellectual curiosity, etc... producing more brief periods of what might be called vegetative states.... staring at the TV, for example, or losing their sense of direction.... or what many may perceive as mild depression... .losing interest in hobbies.

On the other hand, those people who remain intellectually active, may simply have Alzheimers occurring in a part of the brain that goes unnoticed. It is when Alzheimers begins to affect those portions of the brain that they rely on and are the most obvious, that we become aware of the problem.... and it's possible that Alzheimers is already well advanced in other portions of the brain, so the decline is much more rapid.

I believe that they will continue to find signs of this disease earlier and earlier. Perhaps, the people who do not get it are the abnormality.

[zazubotts]

11:42 AM on 07/25/2011

I am so sick of all the claptrap about how to prevent Alzheimer's. My mother was a bright, well educated woman who was an avid reader, she read 3 newspapers a day not to mention books. She was a great walker, walked everywhere, ate a very healthy diet, did not smoke, kept her house as neat as a pin and went back to work, at the age of 50. She worked for the warranty dept of Sony for 15 years and could reel off the model number of everything they made. She was diagnosed with Alzheimer's dementia! My father was a leading commercial artist who designed his own motors for motion displays, which were used at the time. He had Alzheimers, although he did not have dementia. I took care of both of them...and then, after they passed, I worked for an attorney who specialized in Family Planning and Estate Law. My specialty was Medicaid. This disease doesn't care who you are...a teacher, a judge, if you recall, even a President..Ronald Reagan have had this insidious disease. So PLEASE, stop telling us what will prevent it...and find a cure.

[chartrandmax]

06:53 AM on 07/25/2011

As a research and educator in this field I can attest that indeed the interpretation of findings may be inconclusive as to causal factors. Each of the subject populations in question have far less AD, cancer, CDC, and diabetes than the US population, in general, so that it could be the prevalence of higher quality Omega-3 in their diet rather than the wine. In the US, we need to look at our diet more closely--which has been so genetically modified, degereminated, irradiated, synthetically fortified, over-pastuerized and microwaved so thoroughly rendering it DOA before reaching starving bodies, that it is no wonder we are the chronically sickest people in the industrialized world. -- Dr. Max Chartrand

[forensicb]

08:57 AM on 07/25/2011

Almost everything suggested is close to total baloney...the NIH near the end of 2010 appointed a panel of independent medical experts...a jury of 15 medical specialist who spent days listentring to testimony, reading studies and reports concluded that there is nothing (Diets, drugs, brain exercises, social factors, etc. etc.) that will slow down, prevent or cure Alzheimer's....they looked at them all, Everything that has been suggested here was reviewd. They also conclued that there was not even a moderate amount of scienctific evidence to support any of them...Here is a link to the report on their findings:

http://www.junebergalzheimers.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=169&Itemid=286

But this has not slowed down the continual trumpeting all this nonsense, time after time after time!

[chartrandmax]

06:35 PM on 07/26/2011

I am not sure what specifically you are calling "total baloney", but Alzheimer's is NOT caused by amyloid plaques, period. The model upon which this whole AD treatment protocol is built is fallacious at best, and hurting patient's health at worst. You will not want it for yourself or for your family. Dehydration is a big element, as is acidosis, and medications that turn chronic conditions into acute ones over time. Testing of mental acuity without first removing and/or correcting auditory component in older adults only brings over-diagnosis. As a general rule, no one's hearing is tested before diagnosis is rendered, and what's worse, the meds do absolutely nothning but coompromise immunology. Keeping an older adult's blood pressure too low, or treating diabetes mellitus as if it is an insulin problem also contribute to overdiagnosis of dementias, as well, not to mention failing to chelate for a lifetime of heavy metal accumulations. Until mainstream medicine faces up to these inconvenient elephants in the living room, all categories of chronic disease will continue to skyrocket in the U.S.--no matter how many conflict-of-interest panels are convened to say otherwise. -- Dr. Max Chartrand