mental exercise certainly doesn't make any difference in slowing or halting
dementia progression

Our LO was an expert bridge player and compulsive crossword worker. First
she quit playing bridge and switched to solitaire - all day every day. Then
one day with no explanation she put her cards away to never play again. She
still occasionally does work crosswords but now doesn't need a dictionary
since the answers no longer make any sense.   AW

Hi Alan,

The more you learn about Alzheimers, the more you realize that it just
doesn't make sense and that there are no rules for prevention.   I am not
saying exercise and eating right aren't good for you, of course they are.
I am saying that these seem to have no bearing on who gets the disease and
who doesn't.

All of us here could share with you our various stories.   Nobody ate
healthier than my mother in law.  She was in excellent physical shape, and
even well into her illness she had lower blood pressure, lower blood sugar,
and was more flexible and physically strong than I am, even though I was
lots younger than she was.   She never smoked, drank very little, hiked all
over NY city all her adult life, ate fresh foods of good quality.

Whatever the cause turns out to be (and I do believe that one day they will
find out what it really is) it will not be "lifestyle" issues.

I just spent the last half hour attempting to research this topic
in Pubmed.  For some reason, the software was acting up and
a number of the citations I found wouldn't display, but those
I did find seemed to say the following:

1. There are not enough clinical studies to draw clear conclusions.

Most of the published studies only investigated mice or rats.  Among
those investigating humans, they seemed to be studying specific
questions like the influence of exercise on cerebral perfusion, rather
than the general question of whether exercise (physical or mental)
retards the development of Alzheimer's disease.

2. Exercise appears to have a beneficial effect on cognition among
aged rodents, and maybe people too.  But that applies to normal
animals, not animals with AD.  It isn't clear that exercise retards
the development of AD.

3. Animals who have lived mentally enriched lives perform better
on mental test than animals who have not.  This appears to enable
them to compensate to some degree for AD, but does not appear
to retard development of the disease.

Conclusions:

Although we don't have enough evidence to definitively conclude
one way or another, there does not appear to be any strong
evidence for mental or physical exercise as a mechanism for
staving off AD. There may be evidence (the famous Nun's Study
also counts here) for believing that mental exercise helps mice
and people to compensate for their developing AD and preserve
mental capability for a longer period in spite of the damage.

So, my original statement that exercise "can't hurt and might
well help" may be too optimistic.  I still believe it can't hurt.
But I don't know if it even "might" help.

Would that it weren't so.

   Alan