The battle against Alzheimer's disease may start in the classroom,
according to recent research that finds that additional years of
education weaken the impact of the disease. The findings suggest that the
additional schooltime increases the brain's flexibility and its ability
to work without those parts damaged by the disorder.
Alzheimer's disease causes two types of progressive brain damage.
Broken fragments of protein and cellular material accumulate in the
brain, causing amyloid plaques to build up. Additionally, threads of the
tau protein become intertwined into neurofibrillary tangles, damaging
important nerve cells. Both types of damage bring on memory loss,
language deterioration, impaired and poor judgment,
New findings from the Religious Orders Study, a major national
study on aging, found a split in their subjects with Alzheimer's.
David Bennett, M.D., a neurologist from Rush Presbyterian-St.
Luke's Medical Center in Chicago, Illinois, found that subjects without
Alzheimer's showed only minor variations in their cognitive ability. Yet
when plaques begin to build, those with less formal education lost
cognitive skills markedly faster.
The relationship between cognitive abilities and education did not
hold true in the case of neurofibrillary tangles.
The Religious Orders Study is made up of a group of more than 900
nuns, priests and brothers from across the nation. They agree to annual
clinical evaluations and donate their brains to science upon their death.
An autopsy is the only way to find how many plaques and tangles are in
the brain.
The study was recently published in
Neurology.
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