California, Reading books and playing the puzzle has been known to decrease the possibility of Alzheimer’s disease. A recent study may explain why it happened. It turned out that these activities reduce the accumulation of harmful proteins in the brain.

In that study, the elderly, who confessed to the mentally stimulating activities throughout his life has little beta-amyloid deposits, which is typical of proteins that have Alzheimer’s. The finding was irrespective of sex education participants or old.

“The findings suggest that cognitive therapy that stimulates the brain can slow the progression of this disease, if applied before symptoms appear,” said researcher William Jagust, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley’s Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute.

Researchers have discovered that Alzheimer’s is a complex disease that has more than one cause. The study has been published in the journal Archives of Neurology.

The researchers asked 65 healthy adults aged 60 and over mentally to assess how often they engage in activities that sharpen mental abilities such as going to the library, read a book or newspaper and write letters or emails.

The participants were also given tests to assess memory and other mental abilities, as well as receive scan positron emission tomography (PET) using a new compound that was developed to visualize amyloid protein. Brain scans of the participants are then compared with 10 patients diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and 11 healthy people in their 20s.

The researchers found a significant association between high levels of mental activity during a lifetime with lower levels of PET. Elderly with the highest number of lifetime mental activity also have high levels of amyloid comparable to young people. Conversely, adults who reported the lowest level of mental activity have comparable levels of amyloid with Alzheimer’s disease patients.

“Our data shows that people who all his life engaged in mental activity has a greater effect than people who only mentally active in old age,” says co-researcher, Susan Landau as reported myhealthnewsdaily.

However, the researchers say it would not hurt to train the brain at a later date. The researchers noted that the buildup of amyloid can also be influenced by genes and aging.One third of study participants aged 60 years and over have some storage amyloid in their brains, but some of them are still many who can read and write well.