The more regularly adults aged 50 and over played puzzles such as crosswords and Sudoku, the better their brain function, according to research in more than 19,000 participants, led by the University of Exeter and King's College London.
The findings emerge from two linked papers published today (May 16th) in the International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry. The researchers have previously presented their findings on word puzzles at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in 2018. The new research builds on these findings and also reports the same effect in people who regularly complete number puzzles.
[...] researchers calculate that people who engage in word puzzles have brain function equivalent to ten years younger than their age, on tests assessing grammatical reasoning and eight years younger than their age on tests measuring short term memory.
Dr Anne Corbett, of the University of Exeter Medical School, who led the research, said: "We've found that the more regularly people engage with puzzles such as crosswords and Sudoku, the sharper their performance is across a range of tasks assessing memory, attention and reasoning. The improvements are particularly clear in the speed and accuracy of their performance. In some areas the improvement was quite dramatic -- on measures of problem-solving, people who regularly do these puzzles performed equivalent to an average of eight years younger compared to those who don't. We can't say that playing these puzzles necessarily reduces the risk of dementia in later life but this research supports previous findings that indicate regular use of word and number puzzles helps keep our brains working better for longer."
Engineers and scientists solve puzzles every day for a living. How does their brain function compare in old age?
(Score: 0, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @03:50AM (4 children)
It's all dictionary game. Pathetic.
Try this: go out and watch the wildlife, their patterns, go out in the field how the grass grows, how the lizards and insects dare you to stomp them. How the rattlesnakes wait for you to pass before crossing the trail. How the hummingbirds threatened you with wing wrap, because they know you are not a threat.
Imma add on later because alcohol is a hell of drug.
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @03:57AM
The galaxy brained drunken naturalist.
(Score: 5, Touché) by Bot on Friday May 17 2019, @04:19AM
Spotted the guy who loses at sudoku...
Account abandoned.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Friday May 17 2019, @06:58PM
Dictionary, like, remembering a bunch of words?
Who could have imagined that remembering a bunch of things might help you not forget things!
(Score: 2) by Bot on Saturday May 18 2019, @07:15AM
I joked on parent comment, but why is -2 overrated? AC's right, you know.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0, Redundant) by islisis on Friday May 17 2019, @04:01AM
For this class of problems it's not just relevant to engineers and scientists... if we could accept such an self-managed image of technology, the practice of simple concepts in managing devices and online services could a play a part of this brain upkeep. Shouldn't the value of basic common information management practice to society supercede the offerings tha corporations invest so hard to maintain?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @05:05AM (6 children)
Maybe people with sharper brains like to do puzzles. They need to take a controlled group of people who don't do puzzles regularly and then have half of them start doing puzzles. Then track their brain function over several decades, let me know when its done...
(Score: 2) by MostCynical on Friday May 17 2019, @07:03AM (1 child)
But, first you'd have to teach them howw to do the puzzles, then, somehow, make them do the puzzles "regularly"
Would that work?
"I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @11:43AM
All it takes is a GF who is a dedicated puzzler. When we connected (~20 years ago, I was in my 40s) I'd tried a few crosswords but didn't have the bug. She got me started doing the easy, daily crosswords while she spent several days working through harder ones like the NY/LA Times weekend puzzles.
Now it's part of my morning ritual, I see how fast I can do the easy ones (two in our morning newspaper), I'm usually at about 1/2 the time printed with the puzzle. All this practice on the easy ones, means that if I get to the Saturday NY Times puzzle before her, I have a 50:50 chance of completing it (or nearly all of it).
She claimed from the start that it was good for maintaining mental acuity. In another 20 years we'll see if I start to have some dementia, like my parents did at a similar age...maybe it will push off the onset, maybe not. In the meantime, I like the daily challenge.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @09:36AM
Could very well be, as anecdotal as it might be I find that when walking by the maths department I see teachers doing Sudoku puzzles in their offices at lunch time or in the afternoon. I never see that over in the humanities buildings. Perhaps they just hide it better or they just don't care.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Hyperturtle on Friday May 17 2019, @03:23PM (2 children)
I've found that many exceedingly smart people end up with body and mind problems as they advance into their golden years... because they were too smart to eat healthy.
I've known a few to have heart attacks, strokes, and in several cases, Altzeimer's. Puzzles do not stave off dietary damage, although in the case of the Altzeimer's, it is likely due to their intelligence that their disease progressed so far that they died shortly after the diagnosis suspected it as the cause of their issues.
Other people with memory issues caused by dementia or Altzeimer's and related disesases seem to seek out help earlier, perhaps because they are unable to compensate for cognitive losses.
I'm no medical researcher, but I've met a lot of people that believe they don't have to diet or exercise or worry about their pizza intake because "that won't happen to me because I am smarter than the regular person". (Just to be clear, I'm deluded in much the same way!)
I've read that green tea and carrots, of all things, have a combination of nutrients that significantly help stave off cognitive decline. Broccoli sprouts also help; there is something in them that help normalize brain signaling in regards to people with various neuroses. I imagine that as part of a regular diet, some dietary disasters years in the making can be less damaging. There is also a recent study about glucosamine chondroiton also reducing the risk of strokes and heart attacks. Considering "mini-strokes" can cause cognitive decline, changing one's diet modestly might bring about major gains--that are hard to measure as prevented outcomes is difficult to identify objectively as to the causes.
This is just one article about the Altzeimer's research; do a search engine query and you can find a great deal of published articles about the recent discoveries.
https://nutritionreview.org/2019/03/green-tea-and-carrot-compounds-reverse-alzheimers-like-symptoms-in-mouse-study/ [nutritionreview.org]
Here's one on the broccoli, regarding addressing schizophrenia.
https://neurosciencenews.com/broccoli-sprout-schizophrenia-13051/ [neurosciencenews.com]
And here's a link about the glucosamine study
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-48256759 [bbc.com]
That said... I'm at least trying to incorporate these into my diet (among other things) and at the very worst I'll end up eating a few more vegetables and getting caffinated, too..
(Score: 1) by VacuumTube on Friday May 17 2019, @08:36PM (1 child)
It's becoming increasingly clear that the major cause of obesity, heart disease, strokes dementia and many other diseases associated with aging is poor diet. The foundation of a poor diet is consumption of sugar and processed carbohydrates. Most people become increasingly insulin tolerant in their 40's, and although diabetes may never be diagnosed it doesn't mean that damage isn't taking place. This damage results in systemic inflammation, which leads to atherosclerosis and other problems. The old food pyramid, it turns out, is a prescription for common problems associated with aging, and it's taking a surprisingly long time for word to get out. The evidence and studies are in, however, and can easily be found, but not in government recommendations.
VT
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Sunday June 02 2019, @01:00AM
Canada changed its food recommendations recently.
(Score: 5, Funny) by aristarchus on Friday May 17 2019, @07:27AM (2 children)
I find that calculating the Lunar eclipses keeps my mind sharp, and amazes the less scientifically inclined. What is really cool, is being able to bring up Heavens Above, [heavens-above.com] and being able to pretend you made an ISS pass happen! Magic!
(Score: 2) by PiMuNu on Friday May 17 2019, @08:08AM
Great for the kids around christmas as well...
(Score: -1, Redundant) by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 17 2019, @08:12AM
My god, the people here who pretend to be scientists, or at least some sort of engineer or tech wannabe. You know, Just wanting to be smart is not enough. You actually have to do the math, understand the principles, and be able to do the philosophy. That means not just being able to predict, but to be able to explain the prediction. JR is no scientist, he is only a tech. Meaning, not able to explain. So sad.
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Friday May 17 2019, @01:54PM (3 children)
Probably another instance where the researchers got it backwards. It is more likely that people with sharper minds like to do puzzle games in the first place, rather than people who do puzzle games develop sharper minds later in life. I recall the same backwards "findings" regarding math and music, where the conclusion is that studying music develops math skills, when it is more likely that people with an affinity towards math do well in music.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Friday May 17 2019, @05:32PM (2 children)
I agree that there are likely correlation/causation issues here, but why can't it be both? That's also possible. Maybe those who have a proclivity for doing puzzles have sharper minds, but perhaps those who actually keep doing them also keep their minds active, which has positive effects? For example, I have gone through phases in my life where I have done such puzzles regularly, and other times when I simply find them boring or don't have time for them. In general, I try to keep my mind active, but I could imagine some people who like puzzle games ending up doing other things -- like binging lots of TV in retirement or something.
Why is it "more likely"? Note that I agree with you that the research so far I've seen hasn't been conclusive, but why is it "more likely" that math influences music rather than reverse? Playing music is very procedural, requires intensive focus to learn an instrument, often requires understanding pattern organization, etc. These are all cognitive tasks and personality traits that are necessary for engagingin math. Again, I'm not saying I agree with the "Mozart effect" studies where if you play your toddler Mozart, he/she will become a math genius -- obviously that's preposterous.
But why couldn't musical skills influence math skills? Just because math is definite while music is an "art"? Personally, I feel like there are more cross-domain and cross-disciplinary connections that help people develop skills than some people like to think. Exercising one's brain doing something creative or artistic or whatever certainly could help develop the brain for other cognitive tasks in other areas. (And certainly math skills might help musicians too in some way -- I just don't think it has to be a one-way thing, or that findings are necessarily "backwards." The relationship could just be more complex.)
(Score: 2) by donkeyhotay on Friday May 17 2019, @06:20PM (1 child)
I agree that it could also be "both", as you say.
The only reason I am saying "more likely" in the case of math/music is merely because I am applying Occam's razor to the idea. For instance, when my daughter was in grade school, they looked at the high math grades of kids who played strings and concluded that because they played an instrument, they were good at math. Then they used that conclusion to create a requirement that all children had to play an instrument, whether they wanted to or not. I found the whole assumption rather dubious.
Yes, music skills COULD influence math skills, but it probably has more to do with the discipline it takes to learn both. I mean, music is usually mastered through repetition ("scales! scales! scales!") and math, traditionally, is taught the same way (though in the US we seem to be getting away from that, with terrible results).
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday May 24 2019, @11:27AM
Actually, it's arithmetic that's taught the same way, not math.
(Score: 2) by All Your Lawn Are Belong To Us on Friday May 17 2019, @04:14PM
For the purposes of these findings I'd bet it doesn't matter if one was an engineer or scientist pre-retirement. What matters is what one keeps doing after retirement - let your brain slow and it will atrophy. Physical exercise is the same thing - to keep enjoying the benefits one has to keep at it. Maybe you get a benefit from having been an athlete or having worked ahead of retirement, but far more important is what one does now. That's my theory, anyway, and I could be wrong.
This sig for rent.