Every 69 seconds, another American develops Alzheimer's Disease. According to the Alzheimer's Association, of the top 10 causes of death in America, Alzheimer's Disease is the only cause of death with no known treatment or cure.
The cause of Alzheimer's Disease is a mystery as well, but a leading suspect is the protein beta-amyloid that accumulates and appears to cause brain cell death. The combination of degenerating brain cells and the amyloid forms plaque.
A medicine to stop the amyloid buildup would be welcome, but today, U.C. Berkeley researchers say they have potentially identified a simpler approach.
Writing in the Archives of Neurology, researchers found a link between people who engage in lifelong "cognitively stimulating activities" and reduced formation of beta-amyloid.
"This is the first study that's linked a lifestyle factor, something that people practice over the course of their lifetime, to amyloid on the brain," said Susan Landau, Ph.D., of U.C. Berkeley's Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. "What that means is that people who said that they did activities like reading, writing, playing games, every day, almost every day or a few times a week and who reported that over the course of their lifetime, that they were more likely to have a lower level of this pathological, amyloid protein in their brains which is associated with Alzheimer's Disease."