No Proof Lifestyle Changes Can Prevent Mental Decline

Researchers find evidence lacking in how to prevent cognitive decline among the aging

17 June 2010

Researchers find no strong evidence that lifestyle changes - like diet, exercise and stimulating the brain - make a big difference in preventing cognitive decline in older people.

A new study has failed to find any conclusive evidence that lifestyle changes can prevent cognitive decline in older adults.

But researchers say there are still good reasons to make positive changes in how we live and what we eat as we age.

Cognitive decline is the loss of ability to learn new skills, or recall words, names, and faces that is most common as we age. To reduce or avoid it, researchers have examined the effect of smoking, diet, brain-challenging games, exercise and other strategies.

Researchers at Duke University sifted through more than 160 published studies and found an absence of strong evidence that any of these approaches can make a big difference.

"In the observational studies we found that some of the B vitamins, like folic acid, were beneficial." said co-author James Burke, who helped design the study. "Exercise, diet, cognitive stimulation showed some positive effects, although the evidence was not so strong that we could actually consider these firmly established."

Some previous studies have suggested that challenging your brain with mentally stimulating activities might help. Burke said that actually does seem to help, based on randomized studies - the researcher's gold standard.