Preventing dementia

The aging society is one of the biggest problems in the modern world. We will have to maintain our body and mind by ourselves because caregivers of ours will also be old. Healthy life in elderly should be prioritized in most developed countries.

Among several issues in this area, keep your brain active is crucial. It is said that one-fourth of the people over 80 have dementia. Preventing dementia is a key of prolonged life expectancy and high quality of life.

However, how to keep your cognitive function intact is yet to be clarified in spite of several hypotheses. Recently, so-called "brain training" was proven not to be effective in the prevention of dementia.

The result of a recent study suggests that solving crossword puzzles is associated with better brain function. The researchers believe that such habits can keep your brain young.

Hindustan Times: Playing crossword puzzles keeps dementia away. Here’s how

In this article above, how this study was conducted is not described in detail. It is unclear even whether the study was published in an academic journal.

Therefore, I am skeptical about this outcome. It is possible that simply crossword lovers have a good cognitive function.

Rather, physical exercise may be a better habit than brain sports in keeping your mind young. There is richer evidence suggesting the association between exercise and cognitive function, while the causal relationship is hardly proven.

Perhaps, there are some confounders or mediators between them. Active people may have many friends, including pets. An emotional interaction with your mates can be a positive stimulus to the brain.

Independent: Owning a dog could be key to keeping older people healthy and active, study finds

On the other hand, oxidative stress is potentially harmful to your body. Excessive physical movement with deep breathing can damage you, theoretically. Complicated!