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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.'"
...educated people have more to forget.
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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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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."
/somber
I guess there was more truth there than the authors realized.
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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.
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...