The common New Year’s resolution that could protect against dementia
FROM working out more to learning a new skill, January is the time for New Year’s resolutions.
You might have already fallen to the wayside with some of your goals, but sticking to one may improve your odds against dementia, scientists say.
If you’ve made a resolution to learn a new language in 2025, keep reading.
Scientists say that speaking more than one language could help your brain stay resilient against damage caused by Alzheimer’s disease or other forms of dementia.
Bilingualism – speaking two languages – could help delay the onset of Alzheimer’s by up to five years compared to people who only speak one language, researchers from Concordia University suggest.
In a study published in the journal Bilingualism: Language and Cognition, researchers used scans to examine brain resilience in regions of the brain linked to language and ageing.
They found that the hippocampus in bilinguals with Alzheimer’s disease was noticeably larger than in monolingual with the same age education, cognitive function and memory.
PhD candidate Kristina Coulter – who co-wrote the study with Prof Natalie Phillips – said: “There was greater brain matter in the hippocampus, which is the main region in the brain for learning and memory and is highly affected by Alzheimer’s.”
Researchers compared brain scans of monolingual and bilingual older adults who were either cognitively normal, who were at risk of cognitive decline or mild cognitive impairment, or had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s.
In people who were monolingual and had mild cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s, they observed a reduction in size of the hippocampus.
But there was no change in hippocampal volume in bilinguals, whatever the stage of their Alzheimer’s.
Ms Coulter said: “The brain volume in the Alzheimer’s-related area was the same across the healthy older adults, the two risk states and the Alzheimer’s disease group in the bilingual participants.
“This suggests that there may be some form of brain maintenance related to bilingualism.”
Previous research has suggested that brain resilience can provide some protection against dementia.
“Certain lifestyle factors and experiences are thought to contribute to the development of greater resilience,” study authors wrote.
“Bilinguals have been reported to show a four to five year delay in Alzheimer’s disease symptom onset compared to monolinguals.”
Resilience refers to the brain’s ability to cope with changes associated with ageing, and it’s made up of three main components: brain maintenance, brain reserve and cognitive reserve.
Brain maintenance is the organ’s continued ability to maintain its form and function as it ages.
Mental stimulation – such speaking more than one language – along with a healthy diet, regular exercise, good sleep and good eye and ear health are believed to help protect the brain from deteriorating.
Brain reserve refers to the size and structure of the brain.
Brains with greater reserve can maintain normal functions because of the extra volume and capacity of brain matter even when experiencing damage or atrophy because of ageing – this includes Alzheimer’s disease.
Cognitive reserve refers to the way a brain can use alternative pathways to maintain function even when it has been damaged or experienced shrinkage linked to ageing.
Brains with greater cognitive reserve can use other parts of the brain than those usually associated with a particular function, such as language or memory, thanks to a lifetime of gaining cognitive flexibility.
The researchers analysed scans from 356 people with Alzheimer’s disease, as well as those from 175 individuals with, or at risk for, various types of dementia.
Ways to lower your risk of Alzheimer's
There are things you can do to reduce your own risk of developing dementia, including Alzheimer’s.
No single behaviour is guaranteed to prevent dementia – but there’s lots of evidence to suggest that making tweaks to your lifestyle choices could affect your risk.
Dementia risk is lowest in people who have healthy behaviours in mid-life – from the age of 40 to 65 – according Alzheimer’s Society.
Here are a few easy changes you can make:
- Exercise regularly to boost your heart health and circulation and help maintain a healthy weight.
- Drink less alcohol – try to have no more than 14 units of alcohol a week, about one pint of beer or a small glass of wine each day. If you regularly drink much more than this, you are increasing your risk of damage to your brain and other organs, and so increasing your risk of dementia.
- Don’t smoke – it does a lot of harm to the circulation of blood around the body, particularly the blood vessels in the brain, as well as the heart and lungs.
- Engaging in social activities to help to build up your brain’s ability to relieve stress and improve your mood – depression and social isolation have both been linked to dementia.
- Manage health conditions, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol or diabetes, which can increase the risk of getting dementia.
- Protect your eyesight and hearing – vision loss increases a person’s risk of developing dementia. The same goes for hearing loss, which can also be an early symptom of dementia.
- Wear a helmet – as traumatic brain injuries can start a process in the brain where the substances that cause Alzheimer’s disease build up around the injured area.
Source: Alzheimer’s Society
Study participants also reported their native language and the number of languages they spoke.
Among those who only spoke one langue, 71 per cent reported speaking English.
Bilingual participants mostly spoke English (38 per cent) and French (39 per cent).
Sixty eight per cent of them spoke two languages, 22 per cent knew three languages, and the remaining participants spoke between four and seven languages.
In contrast to previous studies, researchers didn’t find greater brain reserve in the language-related areas of the brain or cognitive reserve in the Alzheimer’s-related areas of the brain in bilinguals.
But they did observe differences in hippocampal volume between monolingual and bilingual participants.
Prof Phillips said: “Speaking more than one language is one of several ways to be cognitively and socially engaged, which promotes brain health.
“This research study was unique in that it was able to look at the potential influence of being bilingual on brain structure across the continuum of dementia risk, ranging from individuals who were cognitively normal, to those who are at higher risk of developing Alzheimer’s, to those who actually have the disease.”