Work your way to preventing Alzheimer’s
updated the 17 August 2015 à 11:26It is now proven that the more you work, the lower your risk of developing the disease.
It’s not a conspiracy between the men in white coats and your boss, it seems that working past your retirement age can protect against Alzheimer’s Disease.
Research carried out in Boston showed that raising the age of retirement from 60 to 65 years old could decrease the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia by as much as 15%.
And while its great news for your employer – who will no doubt use this to keep you going past retirement age – there is also good news for us blue collar types.
This study enables us to guard against neurodegenerative diseases. Besides working after the age of 65, reading, writing, thinking and discussions, basically keeping our brains busy, can affect our neurological health.
Carole Dufouil, head researcher at Paris’s,National Institutre of Health and Medical Research explained: “For each additional year of work, we found that the risk of dementia decreased by 3.2%.”
She and her colleagues had studied data from 429,000 people, mostly traders or artisans, aged 74 years on average who had been retired for about twelve years.
One sure way to keep the brain cells ticking over is to regularly do mental exercise. Websites like Memtrax offer a quick measurement to test your memory and give you exercises to keep you agile.
Mathieu Rached
