Alzheimer Advances Rapidly for the Highly Educated

Recent research suggested that the Alzheimer disease appears to develop more rapidly for the highly-educated individuals than for the low-educated. Studies were conducted in New York, at the Columbia University Medical Centre, on 312 subjects over 65 years old, all diagnosed with the illness and monitored for five years.

The participants had about 7 years of education; the ones with a poorer education were mainly Hispanics, with about 5 years of education because of the limited opportunities they faced. Also, afro-Americans took part, with close to 9 years of education and Caucasians, non-Hispanic, with about 10 years.

The studies showed that the mental agility declined yearly, with 9%; however, each additional year of education added 0.3% to these odds. The most evident decline was of 0.5% drop per year in memory and of 0.6% drop in processes which involved speed of thought.

Research tries to account for why some people with Alzheimer can delay the clinical manifestations of the disease. In other words, people with higher education have a higher brain and more active brain cells; this things helps them supply for the eventual loss of information from a certain side of the brain.

After the disease starts to set in, the decline of the brain starts to accelerate because, as researchers suspect, the disease was delayed for some time and the brain cannot deal any more with any sort of crash.

Maria Carrillo, director of medical and scientific affairs for the Alzheimer's Association, stated: "By staying mentally active, you can delay the onset of Alzheimer's by a few years; promoting mental agility can be protective."