Dancing makes you smarter!

Researchers from The Albert Einstein College of Medicine studied the link between mental acuity and physical and cognitive recreational activities in senior citizens 75 years and older. Turns out, the best protection against dementia was frequent dancing!

"They studied cognitive activities such as reading books, writing for pleasure, doing crossword puzzles, playing cards and playing musical instruments. And they studied physical activities like playing tennis or golf, swimming, bicycling, dancing, walking for exercise and doing housework.

One of the surprises of the study was that almost none of the physical activities appeared to offer any protection against dementia. There can be cardiovascular benefits of course, but the focus of this study was the mind. There was one important exception: the only physical activity to offer protection against dementia was frequent dancing.

People who played the hardest gained the most: For example, seniors who did crossword puzzles four days a week had a 47% lower risk of dementia than those who did the puzzles once a week.

Reading - 35% reduced risk of dementia
Bicycling and swimming - 0%
Playing golf - 0%
Dancing frequently - 76%.

That was the greatest risk reduction of any activity studied, cognitive or physical."

Musings by Richard Powers can be found here.
The original article is over here.