1 across: Keeps the brain 10 years younger (9, 6)*
*That’s crossword puzzle
DOING a crossword every day could keep your brain 10 years younger, a study suggests.
School and King’s College London got 17,000 healthy people aged 50 and older to perform tasks via online cognitive test systems CogTrackTM and Protect.
They were also asked how often they did word puzzles such as crosswords. Prof Wesnes said: “We found direct relationships between the frequency of word puzzle use and speed and accuracy of performance on nine cognitive tasks.
“We now need to follow up this very exciting association in a clinical trial.”
The team hopes their work will identify lifestyle factors that help people maintain healthy brains.
Dr Doug Brown, of the Alzheimer’s Society, said: “This new research does reveal a link between word puzzles and memory and thinking skills. The crucial next step is to test if there are benefits in people who take up word puzzles.”
Older people who did word puzzles regularly performed better in tasks assessing memory, reasoning and attention, research showed.
Experts used online cognitive tests to assess core aspects of brain function in the over-50s.
Prof Keith Wesnes, from the University of Exeter, said: “Performance was consistently better in those who reported engaging in puzzles, and generally improved incrementally with the frequency of puzzle use.
“On test measures of grammatical reasoning speed and short-term memory accuracy, performing word puzzles was associated with an age-related reduction of around 10 years.” In one of the largest studies of its kind, the University of Exeter Medical