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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: 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.