Brain Gymnastics

Some days all I want to do when I get home is plop down in front of the TV set and let my brain go blank. You probably know the feeling. But if two groups of neurologists--from University Hospitals and Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio--are right, we may all live to regret our tube-trolling ways. At a meeting of the American Academy of Neurology last week, they reported that people who remain active outside of work by taking up such stimulating activities as painting, gardening or playing a musical instrument are three times less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease as they age than their more intellectually passive peers. I always suspected that the box would turn my mind to mush, and here's the proof.

Or is it? While I would never suggest that watching a lot of television is good for you, there are several limitations to this study. For one thing, it's preliminary--a kind of scientific first draft. Also, it depends on the failing memory of its subjects or the secondhand reports of their families. Even so, it's just the start of what could be a flood of such reports. Not only is Alzheimer's research picking up, but also in 50 years, 14 million Americans could have the disorder, up from 4 million today. So any new twist is bound to get plenty of news coverage.

There isn't much data about whether lifestyle choices, like the ones the Cleveland groups investigated, can help delay the onset of Alzheimer's. A French study five years ago found that older folks who travel, do odd jobs and garden are less likely to have Alzheimer's than more sedentary seniors. But those results could just as easily indicate that people in the earliest stages of Alzheimer's are less likely to be active.

That's why the Cleveland doctors focused on their subjects from ages 20 to 60--most likely long before they developed any symptoms. The researchers looked at 193 men and women with Alzheimer's and asked them, or their caregivers, how they spent their free time when they were younger. The scientists compared the answers with those given by 358 people of roughly the same age and background who had similar occupations but didn't have Alzheimer's. "We found that intellectual activities were relatively more protective than physical ones," says Dr. Robert Friedland, who led the study. The results may still be skewed, Friedland notes, because caregivers may have subconsciously exaggerated their charges' passivity. And, of course, there are plenty of musicians and gardeners who develop Alzheimer's no matter how stimulating their lives.

But the idea that Alzheimer's might be at least somewhat preventable--if not by mental gymnastics, then by chemistry--has attracted lots of interest. The National Institute on Aging launched a research trial to see if anti-inflammatory drugs, such as naproxen or the COX-2 inhibitor Vioxx, can delay onset. Another study compares the Alzheimer's drug Aricept with vitamin E to see if the latter can ease cognitive problems. But these are all preliminary explorations of intriguing clues and don't yet apply to everyday life.

In the meantime, it certainly doesn't hurt to turn off the TV and take up the piano or checkers or gardening. But do it because you enjoy these activities, not because anything has been proved about their effect on Alzheimer's disease, one way or the other.

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