More Contrarian News For Old Codgers (OATS4)

      I would not ordinarily post another item in my series on Old Age ThemeS at this time of year since they are generally negative in tone. That is because my approach is an evidence-based one and the evidence overwhelmingly indicates that it is better to be younger. My intention here is positive, however, in that I simply want to wish you a Happy New Year and suggest that you Relax, Rest and Lighten-Up. The data suggest such an approach could be good for you, so perhaps you should have a drink and slow down on the puzzling and gaming. Those of you who know me are likely to question my judgement and ignore my advice, for many good reasons, so here are the studies you will not have read in those sunny CARP and AARP publications.

   The headline here should be enough: "Excessive Brain Activity Linked to a Shorter Life." That probably does not suffice and you are probably thinking I made it up or grabbed it from The Onion. I didn't. It is at the top of an article in The Washington Post that you will find in the Oct.16, 2019 issue. It was written by Carolyn Y. Johnson. That also is probably not good enough since it is just a newspaper article, so you will be saddened to learn that she is reporting on the results published in a respected journal. But, actually you should be happy since you don't have to exercise your brain so hard. Here is all you need to know:

One key to a longer life could be a quieter brain without too much neural activity, according to a new study that examined postmortem brain tissue from extremely long-lived people for clues about what made them different from people who died in their 60s and 70s.
“Use it or lose it” has dominated thinking on how to protect the aging brain, and extensive research shows there are many benefits to remaining physically and mentally active as people get older. But the study, published in the journal Nature, suggests more isn’t always better. Excessive activity — at least at the level of brain cells — could be harmful.
“The completely shocking and puzzling thing about this new paper is … [brain activity] is what you think of as keeping you cognitively normal. There’s the idea that you want to keep your brain active in later life,” said Michael McConnell, a neuroscientist at the Lieber Institute for Brain Development, who was not involved in the study. “The thing that is super unexpected is … limiting neural activity is a good thing in healthy aging. It’s very counterintuitive.”

   If you bothered to read that you will know that the findings are found in Nature and if you want to see if I have doctored the findings, you can read "Regulation of Lifespan by Neural Excitation and REST," in Vol. 575 on p.359. The first sentence from the abstract may suffice: The mechanisms that extend lifespan in humans are poorly understood.

   I will offer additional evidence that suggests you can cut back on your puzzling and gaming. It comes from Western University which is close by.  I don't want to overwork my brain so I will just copy some of the points. Once again, the headline should suffice:

"Study: Brain Game Doesn’t Offer Brain Gain,"Debora Van Brenk, Western News, July 30, 2018.

A new Western-led study has debunked claims that getting better at a brain-training game can translate to improved performance in other games and tasks. The newest findings add fuel to previous research that showed brain-training doesn’t make a person smarter, but merely improves their abilities in those specific games.

The study, Targeted training: Converging evidence against the transferable benefits of online brain training on cognitive function, published in the journal Neuropsychologia, tested whether hours of training in one game could give someone an edge in a second game that exercises the same area of the brain.

There was also an earlier study:

In 2010, Western neuroscientist Adrian Owen and an international team of researchers conducted the largest trial to date of brain-training computer games. Their findings showed zero transfer effects from the training tasks to more general tests of cognition. A paper based on their findings, "Putting Brain Training to the Test,"was published in Nature in June 2010.

Those findings, yet again, found no significant improvement on any of the tests.

You are better off to just:

“Sleep better. Exercise regularly. Eat better. Education is great. That’s the sort of thing we should be focused on. If you’re looking to improve your cognitive self, instead of playing a video game or playing a brain-training test for an hour, go for a walk, go for a run, socialize with a friend. These are much better things for you.”

Sources: For additional gerontological wisdom from this series see:
Contrarian News for Old Codgers (OATS1)

More Contrarian News for Old Codgers (OATS2)

More Contrarian News for Old Codgers (OATS3)