These Everyday Activities Could Lower Your Risk of Alzheimer’s, New Study Finds

Staying active to maintain your health doesn't just apply to your body but your mind, too.

New research found that engaging in a variety of "intellectually stimulating" activities throughout life, such as reading, writing, and learning a language, was associated with a lower risk of Alzheimer’s disease and slower cognitive decline.

Published in Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology, the findings show that people with the highest amount of lifelong learning developed Alzheimer’s disease five years later and mild cognitive impairment seven years later than those with the lowest amount of lifelong learning. The study involved 1,939 people with an average age of 80 who did not have dementia at the start of the study.

To measure the impact of the mentally stimulating activities, researchers looked at the participants' activities across three stages of life, including the frequency at which they were read to before age 18, as well as their access to newspapers and atlases in the home, and whether they learned a foreign language for more than five years early in life.

During middle age, researchers considered household resources like magazine subscriptions, dictionaries, and library cards, and how often the participants visited a museum or library. Time spent reading, writing, and playing games was then measured later in life, starting at the average age of 80. Income was also a factor.

Over eight years of follow-up, the researchers determined that subjects in the top 10 percent of lifetime cognitive enrichment had a 38 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s and a 36 percent lower risk of developing mild cognitive impairment compared with people in the lowest 10 percent.

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The researchers found that people with the highest lifetime enrichment developed Alzheimer’s disease at an average age of 94 and mild cognitive impairment at an average age of 85, compared to age 88 and age 78, respectively, for those with the lowest level of enrichment.

“Our study looked at cognitive enrichment from childhood to later life, focusing on activities and resources that stimulate the mind,” study author Andrea Zammit, PhD, of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago, told the American Academy of Neurology. “Our findings suggest that cognitive health in later life is strongly influenced by lifelong exposure to intellectually stimulating environments.”

Bear in mind, the participants reported details about their early and midlife experiences later in life, so they may not have remembered everything accurately. The study also does not prove that lifelong learning decreases the risk of Alzheimer’s disease; it only shows an association.

But the results are still promising and could affect public health initiatives. “Our findings are encouraging, suggesting that consistently engaging in a variety of mentally stimulating activities throughout life may make a difference in cognition,” Zammit said. “Public investments that expand access to enriching environments, like libraries and early education programs designed to spark a lifelong love of learning, may help reduce the incidence of dementia.”