Study out to find ‘super-aging’ clues

MARY Helen Abbott, 77, paints her lips bright pink, still smokes the occasional cigarette, keeps up on all the gossip at the retirement home and wears a short skirt to fitness class.

Abbott is what scientists refer to as a “super-ager”, and she is taking part in a $3.2-million (R46-million) study that aims to uncover the secrets to staying sharp and healthy into old age.

While some hunt for medications to treat or prevent dementia, others, such as University of Miami neuropsychologist David Loewenstein, are interested in why some people are spared altogether.

“I study Alzheimer’s disease but if we want to unlock the mysteries of the brain, we also have to know why some people age successfully,” Loewenstein said.

The five-year study funded by the National Institutes of Health is open to people aged 63 to 100, who have not been diagnosed with dementia, and who are either in good mental shape or have early signs of memory failure, known as mild cognitive decline.

Loewenstein cites studies involving autopsies on people aged 85 and above – a population in which about one in three suffers from dementia.

Nearly another third of this age group had post-mortems that reveal significant hallmarks of dementia – known as plaques and tangles in the brain – but seemed fine while alive.

Of the 100 people enrolled in Loewenstein’s study so far, more than 40 live in an upmarket south Florida retirement village.

Energetic Gwen North, 85, and her husband, Art, 86, have already taken memory tests and are giving samples of their spinal fluid so that it can be studied for the earliest biological markers of aging. So what has kept them young? “Staying busy. And good genes,” Gwen said.

“Just working. And my wife,” added Art.

It turns out, there is scientific data to back up their claims. “Work – paid or unpaid – may improve cognitive functioning.”

Regular exercise and a Mediterranean diet are also known to help foster healthy aging.

“Epidemiological studies show that people with a lifetime of cognitively stimulating activities and social connections are much less at risk for cognitive decline as they age,” said Loewenstein.

Of course, it is impossible to ignore the economics of healthy aging, with research showing that African-Americans and Hispanics suffer disproportionately higher rates of dementia than the country’s whites. —- AFP