proteins and dementia risk among more than 13,600 participants in two other studies.
Researchers measured mental stimulation at work at the outset and tracked participants for an average of 17 years.
They found that people with mentally stimulating jobs were less likely to develop dementia than those with whose jobs were not stimulating — a finding that held true for men and women alike. And the association was stronger for Alzheimer’s disease than for other types of dementia, the study found.
Mental stimulation was also associated with lower levels of three proteins linked to dementia risk.
These findings remained even after researchers accounted for dementia risk factors, as well as sex, education and lifestyle. The benefits of education were less than the other factors.
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Serhiy Dekhtyar, an assistant professor at the Aging Research Center at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, wrote an editorial that accompanied the findings, which were published online Aug. 19 in the BMJ.
He says the need to understand the biological basis of these findings is urgent.
“However, the effect size of work stimulation is not large, and appears to be weakened when educational attainment is further taken into account,” Dekhtyar says, adding that dementia is not inevitable.
“There are modifiable aspects of our lives that have the potential to reduce our risk of the disease,” he adds. “Continued engagement in mentally stimulating activities, starting from education and through occupational life, could be one such preventive strategy.”
Dr. Sam Gandy, director of the Mount Sinai Center for Cognitive Health in New York City, says he isn’t sure the new findings can be directly tied with a reduced risk of dementia.
This study is the first pass aimed at identifying associations between work stimulation, circulating proteins and brain function to see if work stimulation can be “prescribed” the same way that physical exercise has been to reduced dementia risk, he shares.
Ultimately, the problem is far too challenging to