Parents and
Grandparents- Read This!
The University of Southern California hosts a Brain and
Creativity Institute. It just reported the results of a five-year study on the
effect of learning to play a musical instrument on brain development of
children. If you’ve reading our newsletters for a while, you won’t be surprised
with the results. The young musicians, who practiced an average of seven hours
per week, had accelerated brain development in the areas of the brain
associated with speech, reading skills, sound perception and more. Remember the
PR around Amy Chua’s book The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother that
popularized the term “Tiger Mom”? Sounds (get it, sounds?) like she got the
music education part right.
Link to a research summary here.
We’ve previously noted that learning to play a musical
instrument at any age is a great brain builder and is one of the steps we can
take to prevent dementia.
We Promised
In our last newsletter, we said we’ll revisit alcohol and
brain health again. Why you ask; this has been a topic in too many newsletters
already. The answer: a huge new study from France.
The French contributions to the arts, design and fine living
are essentially unlimited. Michelin-rated restaurants. The Riviera. The
Cathedral at Notre Dame. The Louvre. Hermes leather goods. Haute couture. And,
of course, the products of the vineyards: the finest champagnes, wines,
brandies and cognacs. That is not, however, an unchecked positive.
The mortality rate for alcohol-related death is far higher
in France than its neighboring countries. And, a study reported in the
prestigious medical journal The Lancet points out the role of alcohol in
dementia.
A research team assembled from institutions in France and
Canada organized a unique study: they reviewed almost all the information about
adults discharged from French hospitals for the six-year period 2008-13. During
that time, about 31,600,000 adults were discharged from French hospitals.
Approximately 1,100,000 were diagnosed with dementia, of whom about 57,400 had
early onset of dementia. Early onset was defined as dementia prior to age 65.
Over a third (38.9%) of the early onset cases were directly related to alcohol
consumption; an additional amount had alcohol as a contributing factor. The
researchers wrote: “Alcohol use disorders were the strongest modifiable risk
factor for dementia onset…”.
And: “Also, alcohol use disorders were significantly
associated with all other risk factors for dementia onset”. This observation was based on learning that
heavy alcohol consumers were more likely to be smokers, overweight and suffer
depression – all of which are risk factors for dementia. Researchers determined
that people with drinking disorders were three times as likely to develop some
form of dementia early. Link to the underlying research here.
In my view, this research confirms what most of us knew: too
much alcohol is deadly in a variety of ways. Again, if we are to enjoy an adult
beverage, we must be very conscious to keep the quantity small.
Infographic
At www.BigBrain.Place
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Shameless Plug
Thanks to everyone who ordered one of our aromatherapy sets.
We still have some overstock left, so we are continuing our 33% off sale while
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www.BigBrain.Place offers fun stuff that
is good for your brain.
Excerpt from our upcoming how-to book on building a bigger
brain. Copyright 2018 all rights reserved.
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