Exercise that brain!

"Just like exercise helps your body stay strong, exercising your mind also keeps your brain sharp. And what better way to do just that than by learning another language?"

A new study (reported on by the Huffington Post), showed that elderly people (in their 70s) who spoke two or more languages performed better on memory and general intelligence tests than those who spoke a single language when controlled for variables like childhood intelligence (all participants took intelligence tests when they were 11; yes it was a long study).

"For the study, researchers relied on data from 835 native speakers of English who were born and living in the area of Edinburgh, Scotland. The participants were given an intelligence test in 1947 at age 11 and then again in their early 70s, between 2008 and 2010."

The effect was statistically significant although not huge, and was observed in both those who learned a second language earlier in life (before the age of 18) and those who became bilingual later in life. It also appeared that those who knew three languages did even better than those who knew two.

These results are consistent with a previous study which showed that bilingualism was associated with a delayed onset of dementia:

"Another study of bilingualism in 2013 found that bilingual patients suffer dementia onset an average of 4.5 years later than those who speak only one language. A significant difference in age at onset was found across Alzheimer's disease dementia as well as other kinds of dementia.

More research needs to be done to confirm the beneficial effects of learning more than one language (and to make sure there is actual causation and not just correlation), but in the meantime you might want to try to learn another language or find other ways to exercise your brain just like you would exercise your muscles.

Figure 1. Two languages are better than one when exercising the brain.