Alzheimer's Progresses Faster in Educated People

Nrbelex writes "Bloomberg news is reporting that 'High levels of education speeds up the progression of Alzheimer's disease, according to a study published in next month's issue of the Journal of Neurology, Neurosurgery and Psychiatry. Mental agility dropped every year among Alzheimer's disease patients with each additional year of education, leading to an additional 0.3 percent deterioration, the researchers from the Columbia University Medical Center in New York found. The speed of thought processes and memory were particularly affected.'"

Comments

Have the statistics been properly done here?

[Anonymous Coward]

The first thought that came into my mind when I read this: if you have more (mental ability) and the end result of Alzheimer is the same for all people, then you will lose it (mental ability) faster...

Re:Have the statistics been properly done here?

[Anonymous Coward]

Alzheimer's is not the deterioration of intelligence, and education isn't a metric for gauging intelligence. Education is a metric of knowledge aggregation. The disease affects the memory of the patient. I think it's pretty clear why it would be more noticeable if your ability to retain information was impeded if you dealt with a lot of information.

Re:Have the statistics been properly done here?

[Hatta]

The first thought that came into my mind when I read this: if you have more (mental ability) and the end result of Alzheimer is the same for all people, then you will lose it (mental ability) faster...

That's assuming they get to the end point at the same time, which may not be true.

Re:Have the statistics been properly done here?

[AKAImBatman]

After I read this story, I couldn't get a line from Blade Runner out of my head: "A candle that burns twice as bright, burns half as long."

I guess there was more truth there than the authors realized. /somber

Re:Have the statistics been properly done here?

[Nakarti]

Same thought that I had, although I worded it as follows:
If you have more to lose, and you are set to the same level as someone with less to lose, you have lost more.

The statistics are probably fine, but the analysis seems flawed.

Re:Have the statistics been properly done here?

[kaiidth]

Actually it seems to be a little weirder than that.

The researchers said one possible explanation is what has been dubbed the "cognitive reserve" theory.

This holds that highly educated people either have a greater number of nerve connections in their brains, or the nerve connections that they have are more efficient.

Therefore, when the damaging changes associated with Alzheimer's - such as the deposition of toxic protein clumps - start to take place, educated people are better placed to resist their effect at first.

However, the subsequent impact is likely to be greater than it would be in less educated brains, because of the higher levels of accumulated damage.

In other words (I think), educated people simply don't show the effects of Alzheimers as fast. By the time anybody notices that anything is wrong, a great deal of damage already exists. So since it is already at a later stage when you first notice it, it looks from the outside as though the person has very quickly reached an advanced stage of Alzheimers. Instead, they have been resisting Alzheimers for ages.

There was a New Scientist article about this...

Makes Sense

[jimbolauski]

The more you put in the more you can lose. I for one am calling for a general ban on learning.

Re:Makes Sense

[smooth wombat]

I for one am calling for a general ban on learning.

This administration is doing its best to make that a reality

Maybe...

[se2schul]

...educated people have more to forget.

A Disease for Stupid People...?

[__aaclcg7560]

So the disease is less damaging if you're more stupid than the average college graduate. Is that why they been dumbing down K-12 education for years to protect the general public's health?

Re:A Disease for Stupid People...?

[Billosaur]

From Bloomberg UK: Previous studies have shown that people with high levels of education are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. The new study shows that the brains of more educated people can tolerate changes for longer periods of time, meaning signs of decreased mental agility typical of Alzheimer's disease appear later. When those signs do appear, the disease progresses faster than it does in less educated patients.

So the results of this one study don't mean much. If all previous research shows the opposite, then either a) this study is flawed and the conclusions inaccurate or b) this study uses new methodology, breaks new ground, and has discovered a new series of conditions for Alzheimer's propogation. The results won't be conclusive until more studies of this same type are produced verifying these results.

Re:A Disease for Stupid People...?

[Bacon Bits]

No, read what you quoted again. The new study doesn't contradict previous studies at all. Indeed, it's not even studying the same thing.

"Previous studies have shown that people with high levels of education are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease."

In other words, there is a negative correlation between education level and developing Alzheimer's.

"The new study shows that the brains of more educated people can tolerate changes for longer periods of time, meaning signs of decreased mental agility typical of Alzheimer's disease appear later."

The new study suggests that, among persons who already have Alzheimer's, persons with higher education have a much longer "incubation period" (meaning the time from initial infection to onset of symptoms -- placed in quotes because no parasite causes Alzheimer's and it's just conceptual here).

That is, there is a positive correleation between education level and duration of pre-symptomatic Alzheimer's.

"When those signs do appear, the disease progresses faster than it does in less educated patients."

All this says is that once symptoms appear -- the conceptual "incubation period" has ended -- persons with higher education levels progress more quickly. That is, there is a positive correlation between education level and rate of progression of symptom severity.

So if you're highly educated, you appear to be less likely to get it. And if you do get it, it takes a long time to develop into something that affects you. But if you do get it, once it does affect you, you're going downhill pretty fast.

Does it really mean

[Wolfier]

Regardless of education, the disease takes the same amount of time to degrade you to a mindless, insensitive clod with the same lower mental ability?

Braking from 100 km/h to 0 in 5 seconds is a harder deceleration than from 30 km/h to 0 in 5 seconds, for sure.

A bit misleading title

[dcw3]

From TFA:
Previous studies have shown that people with high levels of education are less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease. The new study shows that the brains of more educated people can tolerate changes for longer periods of time, meaning signs of decreased mental agility typical of Alzheimer's disease appear later. When those signs do appear, the disease progresses faster than it does in less educated patients.

So, the more educated are actually less likely to have symptoms at the same age. I'm curious how they measured the drop off in ability, and the article doesn't say.

Re:A bit misleading title

[cyriustek]

If you look further into the study, you will notice that educated people tend to to manifest symptoms of Alzheimers later. So, if it progresses at a faster rate, is that really any worse? Additional consideration are studies that indicate people who keep their minds active slow down the progression of Alzheimers. A good article that discusses nuns who packed more ideas into the sentences of their early autobiographies were less likely to get Alzheimer's disease six decades later is at:

http://www.neuroanatomy.wisc.edu/selflearn/Nuns&al zheimers.htm [Neroanatomy)

Happy Morons

[slyborg]

How happy is a moron
No need to understand
I wish I was a moron
My God! perhaps I am!

Bogus

[Capt'n Hector]

The findings are bogus: they cite a 0.3% difference between more highly educated Alzheimer's patients and their counterparts. The counterargument is that plenty of people who wound normally go to grad school insead choose to work in industry. This small lifestyle difference for four years in a subject's late twenties should not effect tests given at age 65+. More likely is that some other factor is introduced by lifestyle differences between the two major career paths.

Re:Bogus

[blakestah]

The findings are bogus: they cite a 0.3% difference between more highly educated Alzheimer's patients and their counterparts. The counterargument is that plenty of people who wound normally go to grad school insead choose to work in industry. This small lifestyle difference for four years in a subject's late twenties should not effect tests given at age 65+. More likely is that some other factor is introduced by lifestyle differences between the two major career paths.

Well, it is already established that more educated people have a lower risk of Alzheimer's, and a later onset. This study, however, follows a few hundred already diagnosed patients for five years, and notes that the rate of cognitive decline is faster in the more educated patients. Probably they just didn't have enough coffee Be a little more interesting when the study itself is available instead of the press release.

0.3%??

[phlegmofdiscontent]

That's hardly significant. Statistically, you can't really call that a correlation. If you were told that high water intake causes .3% more cancer, you'd laugh. That's the problem with medical studies in the media. A slight increase in disease due to some factor is greeted with all kinds of FUD. Hell, even placebos typically have a 5 to 10% effect on things.

Re:0.3%??

[Otter]

Beyond the fact that the news here isn't the 0.3%, it's the fact that a significant effect in the opposite direction was expected...

Every time a study is linked here, somebody starts spouting off about a sample of N people can't be significant or how some small effect size can't be significant. That's not how statistical significance works.

For the youngsters here, I'd strongly recommend taking time out from your CS classes to take an introductory stat class....

yeah ok

[Lawrence_Bird]

anything that claims to measure "an additional 0.3% deterioration" can't be taken seriously.  Please come back when your measure of 'mental ability' is so precise you can make a claim like this. 

Not so fast....

[mustafap]

I also watched an interview on the BBC where another group of researchers pointed out that these results *may* be because the onset of deterioration is more easy to spot in educated people, simply because they have 'further to fall' so to speak.

The actual rate of decline, they claimed, is no different.

Additional 0.3% deterioration?

[hal2814]

So how exactly is this being measured? From what I can find, all the story mentions is:

"All the patients underwent around four neurological assessments, each of which comprised a dozen separate tests of brain function."

Given that Alzheimers affects everyone in different ways, I guess I'm just a little leery of a study that's claiming that it can quantitatively compare the mental facilities of one victim to another.

Re:A bit misleading title (MOD PARENT UP)

[Omnifarious]

The most worthwhile comment so far on the whole thread.

The previous studies have shown that people with high levels of education are less likely to develop the disease, which was interesting and a bit mystifying.

This study shows that perhaps that's not really what's going on. Perhaps something about education that makes you more resistant to the disease and more able to compensate for the slow decline it induces, but once you do start declining, it happens faster. The two studies together make a lot of sense and point to a mechanism. Either taken alone seems a bit strange.

How could you possibly know that?

[flyinwhitey]

"That's hardly significant. Statistically, you can't really call that a correlation."

Ok, Statty Mc Statenstein, do the math for us. I've included a handy link to test for significance, all you have to do is plug in the numbers and give us your answers.

http://www.coolth.com/siginsig.htm
http://www.infoworks.ride.uri.edu/2000/techbrief/t echbrief5.htm
http://www.visualstatistics.net/Visual%20Statistic s%20Multimedia/z_square_ratio.htm

Since we all like to have facts that support our arguments, all you have to do is present your math so we can verify that the is "hardly significant".

Reflection of Rote Memorization?

[Bob9113]

This is interesting. I would love to see a comparison between those with traditional American educations (which I assume is what this study focused on) and those who are similarly capable (perhaps who hold similar titles in similarly challenging fields), but who have followed less traditional paths in learning.

For example, I can point to five people at my current job - each a very skilled software engineer, and each very skilled in debating other topics in current events; among those five people are 1 PhD, 2 Masters, 1 college drop-out, and 1 high school drop out. The one thing we all agree on? Much of traditional American education has become primarily a matter of rote memorization - there is very little teaching of theory and problem solving involved.

Further, I saw a different study some years ago that showed a strong correlation between studying the arts late in life and delaying the onset of Alzheimers. Proficiency in the arts tends to require lots of understanding of abstract concepts, akin to studying theory in more technical fields, and requires little rote memorization.

That is to say, is it possible that the study hit on people whose minds have become less plastic as a result of education? People whose brains have been conditioned to be crystalizable by massive repetition instead of adaptable to new situations? Or, to take the nature instead of nurture angle, was the study skewed heavy on people with more crystaline brains, because such people are more proficient in an educational environment heavy on rote memorization?

Re:Reflection of Rote Memorization?

[freeweed]

Much of traditional American education has become primarily a matter of rote memorization

Has become? When did you go to school, 1875?

I've been out of grade school for nearly 20 years now, and back then it was mostly rote memorization. My parents went to school nearly 50 years ago and it was even MORESO rote learning.

How many kids today drill on multiplication tables? Learn physics primarily by memorizing 3,000 different formulae? Write book reports based soley on the ability to remember the events in the story? Those were the core of education for decades if not longer. Education in North America, for the past century, has revolved around rote learning.

One of my university professors would tell stories of "final exams" back in the 40s in the more pretigious schools in England. You went to school for 4 years, and during exams, where you were required to remember and regurgitate as much as possible about the preceeding 4 years - in a single day. Talking with folks from places like India, China, and other non-western countries, their education is heavier into rote learning than ours.

Where did you go to school that your education WASN'T primarily a matter of rote memorization?

Play more GO!

[J_Omega]

Well, if you trust in anectodal evidence:
http://users.eniinternet.com/bradleym/Mind.html (Playing Go seems to "innoculate" one from Alzheimer's.)

So... I'm looking for ways to not just delay, but AVOID such a debilitating disease.

My body can fail me, and I'll accept it.
If my mind goes, someone shoot me please.

Re:RIP: Claue Shannon

[MustardMan]

I was hoping for the rantings of a half-crazed man who has just figured out that he's lost his mind.

Wrong article - try this one: http://apple.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/16/ 1826257

Re:A bit misleading title (MOD PARENT UP)

[balloonhead]

I agree. Sounds like a misleading study. Mental agility is hard to measure across populations with simple tests - even when educated people start to lose a little, they often still perform well in tests as they have more 'reserve'. I imagine that there's probably a great deal of similarity in the amount of brain cells lost, but that the educated can continue to perform well in the tests as they can compensate. In the later stages of the disease, their reserve is exhausted and they decline faster. This agrees absolutely with what I have already read in textbooks when I was studying neuroscience (only a bit - in my medical student days, a few years ago now).

Sounds like lies, damn lies, and statistics. Fudging numbers to make claims rather than new ground.

Maybe they should look into Black Currants

[dso]

I recently came across a research article on Nutra Ingredients that said properties of the black currant help fight memeory loss and Alzhiemers.

http://www.theartofdrink.com/blog/2006/01/creme_de _cassis_kir.php

A glass of Cassis a day, keeps the doctor away?

This is explained in New Scientist

[Chrisq]

http://www.newscientist.com/channel/health/mg18825 301.300.html This went on to explain that the same physical damage has less results in educated people, so when they do show symptoms at a recognised level the disease is already advanced.

causal versus symptomatic

[jheath314]

Exactly right. The degradation could simply be more visible in the educated, who in some ways had "more to lose."

Besides, 0.3 percent difference sounds awfully low. I highly doubt that their margin of error could have even been close to this, given that these are human subjects, after all.

Dementia

[MS-06FZ]

I'm sorry to say I have.

Yeah, seriously, people, it's not just "knowledge going away" - though there is that. It's a grown man barricading a door at night, thinking his 6-year old niece might be a serious threat to him. It's these weird bipolar shifts in attitudes and perceptions. Somebody can be their best friend one day, and an unscrupulous traitor the next.

I think I could deal with my dad becoming forgetful, losing capability to work with computers and electronics, and so on - though that's sad, too, since he taught me a lot of that stuff when I was a kid - but knowing where these other issues are headed just sucks.

Misleading

[desolation angel]

Try http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4713570.stm for starters

It's not that the disease progresses quicker, it is only after diagnosis it progresses quicker. This probably means that on average the disease starts at the same time but that it manifests itself earlier in 'uneducated' people.

A theory is that educated people can 'route' around the disease better, so don't display external symptoms. Their education leads, on average, to them having more connections in their brain. However, a critical point is reached where the brain can't route around the problem, and symtoms begin to be detected.

To me this is a good thing, with a disease like this I'd prefer to go quickly rather than hang around.

Education vs Intelligence

[shorgs]

Please don't mistake education for intelligence.

This study is really saying that in cases where people have been socially conditioned for a longer period of time are better able to fend off Alzheimer's for longer periods.

Genius is usually associated with strange social behavior or thinking and just a step away from madness. Educated people are predictable and controllable and well...social.

They are just more structured, maybe that structure just helps them hang on a bit longer before they fall. I get the feeling that all the commentators are mistaking "knowing things" with being intelligent.

No, its not faster

[AlienGoods]

In the uneducated, you just can't tell the difference.

So what

[TiggertheMad]

Even if this research proved to be accurate, Slashdot readers have nothing to worry about.

Read between the Lines

[WillAffleckUW]

They said:

1. People with more education develop Alzheimers later; and
2. People with more education take longer to deteriorate due to Alzheimer's but progress thru the symptoms faster.

Based on the data (and there is no truth to me having a stack of Alzheimer's patient data and control data on my desk ... ok, maybe there is, but I'm NOT a PhD in the field, nor am I an M.D.), we could correctly visualize it this way:

A. If you are highly educated, you may (or may not) have a long way to fall before your symptoms become obvious to others - the tests we have measure your abilities to do various tests, remember things, all kinds of stuff that you may develop strategies to compensate for given higher education (or don't develop strategies).

B. If you start with a high level of ability, you have a longer way to fall before unable to complete tasks, but if the disease affects your neural pathways (and it does, and we do need more brains, so we can study that, got one to spare?) then going from 200 to 150 to 100 to 50 to dead is similar to going from 100 to 75 to 50 to 25 to dead. Same time, sharper fall. However, you may be more capable for a longer time. Note, I did not say IQ, but ability - not the same thing at all.

Again, to get the real answers, you should read the original paper as published in the original scientific journal.

But, in the end, seems the best thing you can do is:
a. get some exercise, even if just gardening or walking to the grocery store to buy milk;
b. increase your mental abilities, because then if you do start failing, you'll be capable much longer, which is better;
c. realize that you have less than a 5 percent risk around 60-70 and a 20 percent risk around 90+
d. you'll probably die from the massive storm caused from Global Warming kicking up the power on your Sunset cruise in the Caribbean when you retire anyway, so this is all moot.

Re:Reflection of Rote Memorization? or Age

[WillAffleckUW]

I should point out that most people developing Alzheimers today did, in fact, go to school a long time ago.

Many develop the disease between 55 and 95, so let's take the median, which is 75 (actually, more like 72, since fewer people are 95 than 55), so they went to school from ages 6 to 18 or 6 to 24, which means they went to college in the 1940s or thereabouts.

The study itself

[dondelelcaro]

Education and rates of cognitive decline in incident Alzheimer's disease
N Scarmeas, S M Albert, J J Manly and Y Stern

Full text Abstract pdf

As others have pointed out, the study looked at rates of decline relative to initial performace, as opposed to examining the performance of individuals after 5 years of AD.