Can chess really help to prevent Alzheimer's disease?

Here are two interesting articles about the Alzheimer's Disease and ways to reduce your risk for it. Chess is listed as one of the ways to reduce your risk for this disease. Here are the articles:

http://www.healthcentral.com/alzheimers/news-42768-31.html

Can playing chess really reduce your risk for the Alzheimer's Disease? Is there proven research for this or is it just speculation? What do you think? 

Lol both Erik and Chessbuff!!!

I do a lot of research in the field of psychology. First I'm gonna pop Eriks bubble! :)

Chess may inadvertently drive you crazy, but in reality I think the possible anti-social aspect of it (not coming out of the house because of chess study, that sort of thing.) is what made Bobby Fischer who he is/was,( I'm not sure if he is dead yet, would someone tell me if he is or isn't) besides some bad parenting. He never learned any social skills!

Secondly, Chess is an activity that keeps the mind going. My guess is that some people with Alzheimers do few mentally stimulating activities. With out the mental stimulation the mind starts to slow down, kinda like muscles shrinking if you don't excercise weekly. The mind would continue to function but at a slower pace due to the afore mentioned degeneration of the brain. Other things associated with Alzheimers, but connected with lack of mental stimulation, are depression, boredom, ect. So yes laughter may slow down Alzheimers!!!

    Chess, or any mental stimulation (only including some drugs!!!) is mental excercise, as well as a social thing, as long as you aren't v.s. a computer. I don't think that the thinking aspect works well on its own. The social part is key the the process of mental health. Its get the laughter endorphines going, which help the immune system. Fresh air helps as well.

I remember watching some news report that said Nintendo's game "Brain Age" would prevent Alzheimers for people who played it an hour a day or something. It's a game that is built around various logic puzzles, basic math, word, and picture problems. Chess is so much about pattern recognition and logical thinking, it's gotta be hands-down better than that game for helping prevent the disease.

And I'm pretty sure Fischer is still kicking somewhere, wiki says he's 64.

Bobby Fischer passed away on 17 January 2008.

Wait, how old is this thread!?!

...be a good test to see if any of the OP's remember this

No.

In my own and neighbouring chess clubs, I have observed that older chess players often become frail but are usually mentally stable. I have also observed how older players retain a great deal of their chess playing ability.

Thanks nice work!!!

No. But it can help lessen its effects.

In bad taste. My mother had this disease.

Check out Grandmaster Suba's decline in ability in that he is now in the 1900's. Just part of normal aging for most Chess players.

Alzheimers is a form of dementia but not all dementia is caused by Alzeimers.

Alzheimers is most likely caused by plaques in the brain. It is thought that mental activity like chess can allow your brain to find routes around these plaques, reducing or eliminating the dementia symptoms.

Most likely it's not the lack of mental activity that causes any forms of Alziemers (why would that cause plaques to form on your brain?), it's that the brain rewiring involved in playing activities gets around it.

It's possible lack of brain activity might more directly cause other forms of dementia; but the large majority of dementia is either Alziemers, Vascular or a mix of the two, and vascular dementia also had a known cause (basically mini-strokes).

Some people are beginning to suspect that the formation of amyloid plaques is simply a by-product of the actual cause of dementia/alzheimer's. Suspicions are that the cause may be chronically high insulin levels that effectively starve the brain of energy. Some are starting to call dementia/alzheimer's "Type 3 diabetes". Of course, this is just a hypothesis - Research continues...