Alzheimer’s risk cut by intellectual stimulation, study finds

ACTIVITIES like reading, writing or learning languages can cut the risk of Alzheimer’s disease by nearly 40%, research suggests.

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Experts found that people can stave off a decline in thinking skills and memory by keeping the brain active through lifelong learning.

‘They examined data for 1,939 people (75% women) with an average age of 80 who did not have dementia at the start of the study, and followed them for around eight years.

Asking about their childhoods, researchers looked at whether people had access to encyclopaedias, globes or atlases and books, whether they were read to or learned a language, and if parents were educated and bought newspapers.

In midlife, researchers looked at income level, whether people had reading material or were a member of a library, and whether they undertook activities such as visiting museums.