So much for the health benefits of modern Western society. Residents of Ibadan, Nigeria, are mostly poor and 85 percent are illiterate. Yet although poverty and lack of education are risk factors for Alzheimer's, the disease is only a fourth as common in Nigeria as it is among genetically similar blacks living in Indianapolis, Indiana, an international team of researchers reports in the American Journal of Psychiatry (Vol. 152, No. 10).
The finding points to environment as the significant player in most cases of Alzheimer's. But researchers still don't know whether Nigerians consume a more brain-friendly diet than Americans, or whether some other aspect of African life wards off mental deterioration.
