This Enjoyable Activity Defeats Dementia

The traditional medical system has no solution for Alzheimer’s and other types of dementia. There are no drugs that cure it or stop it from progressing.

That’s why we celebrate a new study in the Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences.

It reveals how a quite pleasant activity can change your brain’s microstructure to tackle dementia.

The scientists from the University of Pittsburgh Graduate School of Public Health recruited 293 people with an average age of 83 years.

The data were originally collected by something called the Health, Aging, and Body Composition (Health ABC) study.

They specifically collected information regarding social interaction and the frequency of their social interaction, such as whether they were married, lived alone, worked, volunteered in church, or engaged in other activities, such as regularly getting together with friends or relatives, and so forth.

They also gave their subjects a new sensitive brain scan called diffusion tensor imaging MRI, which measures the cellular integrity of the brain cells that make up several parts of the grey matter in the brain.

In particular, the scientists were interested in the gray matter in parts of the brain that had previously been associated with both social engagement and dementia.

They found exactly what they expected: that greater social engagement helped maintain the microstructure of the gray matter, thereby maintaining the cells that need to stay alive to prevent dementia.

The researchers attributed this finding to the fact that social interaction activates regions of the brain required for emotional processing, decision-making, and the recognition of faces and relationship histories.

Best of all, seniors don’t have to turn into social butterflies to receive this benefit. Once or twice per week is enough.

Nor do they have to go out and meet large groups of people in busy environments. Merely interacting with one or two relatives at home is sufficient.

Being social is helpful, but it’s probably not going to be enough to completely reverse dementia, especially if you’re already experiencing some memory loss. For that, you need to load up on one free ingredient explained here…