Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association
Volume 4, Issue 5 , Pages 324-331 , September 2008

Midlife activity predicts risk of dementia in older male twin pairs

  • Michelle C. Carlson

      Affiliations

    • Department of Mental Health, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
    • Center on Aging and Health, The Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD, USA
    • Corresponding Author InformationCorresponding author. Tel.: 410-614-4887; Fax: 410-614-9625
  • ,
  • Michael J. Helms

      Affiliations

    • Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
  • ,
  • David C. Steffens

      Affiliations

    • Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
  • ,
  • James R. Burke

      Affiliations

    • Department of Medicine (Neurology), Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
  • ,
  • Guy G. Potter

      Affiliations

    • Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA
  • ,
  • Brenda L. Plassman

      Affiliations

    • Departments of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

References 

  1. Schooler C, Mulatu MS, Oates G. The continuing effects of substantively complex work on the intellectual functioning of older workers. Psychol Aging. 1999;14:483–506
  2. Wilson RS, Bennett DA, Beckett LA, Morris MC, Gilley DW, Bienias JL, et al. Cognitive activity in older persons from a geographically defined population. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 1999;54:P155–P160
  3. Wilson RS, Mendes De Leon CF, Barnes LL, Schneider JA, Bienias JL, Evans DA, et al. Participation in cognitively stimulating activities and risk of incident Alzheimer disease. JAMA. 2002;287:742–748
  4. Hultsch DF, Hertzog C, Small BJ, Dixon RA. Use it or lose it: engaged lifestyle as a buffer of cognitive decline in aging?. Psychol Aging. 1999;14:245–263
  5. Salthouse TA, Nesselroade JR, Berish DE. Short-term variability in cognitive performance and the calibration of longitudinal change. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2006;61:P144–P151
  6. Katzman R. Can late life social or leisure activities delay the onset of dementia?. J Am Geriatr Soc. 1995;43:583–584
  7. Crowe M, Andel R, Pedersen NL, Johansson B, Gatz M. Does participation in leisure activities lead to reduced risk of Alzheimer's disease? (a prospective study of Swedish twins). J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2003;58:P249–P255
  8. Andel R, Crowe M, Pedersen NL, Mortimer J, Crimmins E, Johansson B, et al. Complexity of work and risk of Alzheimer's disease: a population-based study of Swedish twins. J Gerontol B Psychol Sci Soc Sci. 2005;60:P251–P258
  9. Potter GG, Helms MJ, Burke G, Steffens DC, Plassman BL. Job demands and dementia risk among male twin pairs. Alzheimers Dement. 2007;3:192–199
  10. Dik M, Deeg DJ, Visser M, Jonker C. Early life physical activity and cognition at old age. J Clin Exp Neuropsychol. 2003;25:643–653
  11. Laurin D, Verreault R, Lindsay J, MacPherson K, Rockwood K. Physical activity and risk of cognitive impairment and dementia in elderly persons. Arch Neurol. 2001;58:498–504
  12. Yaffe K, Barnes D, Nevitt M, Lui LY, Covinsky K. A prospective study of physical activity and cognitive decline in elderly women: women who walk. Arch Intern Med. 2001;161:1703–1708
  13. Weuve J, Kang JH, Manson JE, Breteler MM, Ware JH, Grodstein F. Physical activity, including walking, and cognitive function in older women. JAMA. 2004;292:1454–1461
  14. Scarmeas N, Levy G, Tang MX, Manly J, Stern Y. Influence of leisure activity on the incidence of Alzheimer's disease. Neurology. 2001;57:2236–2242
  15. Verghese J, Lipton RB, Katz MJ, Hall CB, Derby CA, Kuslansky G, et al. Leisure activities and the risk of dementia in the elderly. N Engl J Med. 2003;348:2508–2516
  16. Verghese J, LeValley A, Derby C, Kuslansky G, Katz M, Hall C, et al. Leisure activities and the risk of amnestic mild cognitive impairment in the elderly. Neurology. 2006;66:821–827
  17. Page WF. The NAS-NRC Twin Registry of WWII military veteran twins: National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. Twin Res. 2002;5:493–496
  18. Jablon S, Neel JV, Gershowitz H, Atkinson GF. The NAS-NRC twin panel: methods of construction of the panel, zygosity diagnosis, and proposed use. Am J Hum Genet. 1967;19:133–161
  19. Hrubec Z, Neel JV. The National Academy of Sciences–National Research Council Twin Registry: ten years of operation. Prog Clin Biol Res. 1978;24(Pt B):153–172
  20. Reed T, Plassman BL, Tanner CM, Dick DM, Rinehart SA, Nichols WC. Verification of self-report of zygosity determined via DNA testing in a subset of the NAS-NRC twin registry 40 years later. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2005;8:362–367
  21. Plassman BL, Steffens DC, Burke JR, Welsh-Bohmer KA, Newman TN, Drosdick D, et al. Duke Twins Study of Memory in Aging in the NAS-NRC Twin Registry. Twin Res Hum Genet. 2006;9:950–957
  22. Welsh K, Butters N, Hughs J, Mohs R, Heyman A. Detection of abnormal memory decline in mild cases of Alzheimer's disease using CERAD neuropsychological measures. Arch Neurol. 1991;48:278–281
  23. Jorm AF, Jacomb PA. The Informant Questionnaire on Cognitive Decline in the Elderly (IQCODE): socio-demographic correlates, reliability, validity and some norms. Psychol Med. 1989;19:1015–1022
  24. Jorm AF, Broe GA, Creasey H, Sulway MR, Dent O, Fairley MJ, et al. Further data on the validity of the informant questionnaire on cognitive decline in the elderly (IQCODE). Int J Geriatr Psychiatry. 1996;11:131–139
  25. Silverman JM, Breitner JC, Mohs RC, Davis KL. Reliability of the family history method in genetic studies of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. Am J Psychiatry. 1986;143:1279–1282
  26. Association AP. Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Association; 1987;
  27. Gallo JJ, Breitner JC. Alzheimer's disease in the NAS-NRC Registry of aging twin veterans, IV: performance characteristics of a two-stage telephone screening procedure for Alzheimer's dementia. Psychol Med. 1995;25:1211–1219
  28. Breitner JC, Wyse BW, Anthony JC, Welsh-Bohmer KA, Steffens DC, Norton MC, et al. APOE-epsilon4 count predicts age when prevalence of AD increases, then declines: the Cache County Study. Neurology. 1999;53:321–331
  29. Plassman BL, Khachaturian A, Towsend JJ, Ball MJ, Steffens D, Leslie CE, et al. Comparison of clinical and neuropathological diagnoses of AD in three epidemiological samples. Alzheimer's & Dementia. 2006;2:2–11
  30. Arbuckle TY, Gold DP, Chaikelson JS, Lapidus S. Measurement of activity in the elderly: the Activities Checklist. Canadian Journal on Aging. 1995;13:550–565
  31. Carlson MC, Xue QL, Zhou J, Fried LP. Executive decline and dysfunction precedes memory decline: the Women's Health and Aging Study. J Gerontol (in press).
  32. Schinka JA, McBride A, Vanderploeg RD, Tennyson K, Borenstein AR, Mortimer JA. Florida Cognitive Activities Scale: initial development and validation. J Int Neuropsychol Soc. 2005;11:108–116
  33. Potter GG, Plassman BL, Helms MJ, Foster SM, Edwards NW. Occupational characteristics and cognitive performance among elderly male twins. Neurology. 2006;67:1377–1382
  34. US Department of Labor. Dictionary of occupational titles. Revised 4th ed. Washington, DC: Labor Dept, Employment and Training Administration, United States Employment Service; 1991.
  35. Smyth KA, Fritsch T, Cook TB, McClendon MJ, Santillan CE, Friedland RP. Worker functions and traits associated with occupations and the development of AD. Neurology. 2004;63:498–503
  36. Stern Y, Alexander GE, Prohovnik I, Stricks L, Link B, Lennon MC, et al. Relationship between lifetime occupation and parietal flow: implications for a reserve against Alzheimer's disease pathology. Neurology. 1995;45:55–60
  37. Briones TL, Klintsova AY, Greenough WT. Stability of synaptic plasticity in the adult rat visual cortex induced by complex environment exposure. Brain Res. 2004;1018:130–135
  38. Kempermann G, Kuhn HG, Gage FH. Genetic influence on neurogenesis in the dentate gyrus of adult mice. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 1997;94:10409–10414
  39. van Praag H, Kempermann G, Gage F. Running increases cell proliferation and neurogenesis in the adult mouse dentate gyrus. Nat Neurosci. 1999;2:266–270
  40. Wilson RS, Bennett DA, Bienias JL, Mendes de Leon CF, Morris MC, Evans DA. Cognitive activity and cognitive decline in a biracial community population. Neurology. 2003;61:812–816
  41. Parslow RA, Jorm AF, Christensen H, Mackinnon A. An instrument to measure engagement in life: factor analysis and associations with sociodemographic, health and cognition measures. Gerontology. 2006;52:188–198
  42. Kondo K, Niino M, Shido K. A case-control study of Alzheimer's disease in Japan: significance of life-styles. Dementia. 1994;5:314–326
  43. Broadhead WE, Kaplan BH, James SA, Wagner EH, Schoenbach VJ, Grimson R, et al. The epidemiologic evidence for a relationship between social support and health. Am J Epidemiol. 1983;117:521–537
  44. Bennett DA, Schneider JA, Tang Y, Arnold SE, Wilson RS. The effect of social networks on the relation between Alzheimer's disease pathology and level of cognitive function in old people: a longitudinal cohort study. Lancet Neurol. 2006;5:406–412
  45. Glass TA, Mendes de Leon CF, Marottoli RA, Berkman LF. Population based study of social and productive activities as predictors of survival among elderly Americans. Br Med J. 1999;319:478–483
  46. Luoh MC, Herzog AR. Individual consequences of volunteer and paid work in old age: health and mortality. J Health Soc Behav. 2002;43:490–509
  47. Podewils LJ, Guallar E, Kuller LH, Fried LP, Lopez OL, Carlson M, et al. Physical activity, APOE genotype, and dementia risk: findings from the Cardiovascular Health Cognition Study. Am J Epidemiol. 2005;161:639–651
  48. Saczynski JS, Pfeifer LA, Masaki K, Korf ES, Laurin D, White L, et al. The effect of social engagement on incident dementia: the Honolulu-Asia Aging Study. Am J Epidemiol. 2006;163:433–440
  49. Wang HX, Karp A, Winblad B, Fratiglioni L. Late-life engagement in social and leisure activities is associated with a decreased risk of dementia: a longitudinal study from the Kungsholmen project. Am J Epidemiol. 2002;155:1081–1087
  50. Karp A, Paillard-Borg S, Wang HX, Silverstein M, Winblad B, Fratiglioni L. Mental, physical and social components in leisure activities equally contribute to ease dementia risk. Dement Geriatr Cogn Disord. 2006;21:65–73
  51. Friedland R, Fritsch T, Smyth K, Koss E, Lerner A, Chen C, et al. Patients with Alzheimer's disease have reduced activities in midlife compared with health control-group members. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2001;98:3440–3445
  52. Fritsch T, Smyth KA, McClendon MJ, Ogrocki PK, Santillan C, Larsen JD, et al. Associations between dementia/mild cognitive impairment and cognitive performance and activity levels in youth. J Am Geriatr Soc. 2005;53:1191–1196
  53. Gatz M, Pedersen NL, Berg S, Johansson B, Johansson K, Mortimer JA, et al. Heritability for Alzheimer's disease: the study of dementia in Swedish twins. J Gerontol A Biol Sci Med Sci. 1997;52:M117–M125
  54. McClearn GE, Johansson B, Berg S, Pedersen NL, Ahern F, Petrill SA, et al. Substantial genetic influence on cognitive abilities in twins 80 or more years old. Science. 1997;276:1560–1563
  55. Stern Y, Moeller JR, Anderson KE, Luber B, Zubin NR, DiMauro AA, et al. Different brain networks mediate task performance in normal aging and AD: defining compensation. Neurology. 2000;55:1291–1297
  56. Coffey C, Saxton J, Ratcliff G, Bryan R, Lucke J. Relation of education to brain size in normal aging: implications for the reserve hypothesis. Neurology. 1999;53:189–196
  57. Rovio S, Kareholt I, Helkala EL, Viitanen M, Winblad B, Tuomilehto J, et al. Leisure-time physical activity at midlife and the risk of dementia and Alzheimer's disease. Lancet Neurol. 2005;4:705–711
  58. Fried LP, Carlson MC, Freedman M, Frick KD, Glass TA, Hill J, et al. A social model for health promotion for an aging population: initial evidence on the Experience Corps model. J Urban Health. 2004;81:64–78
  59. Adler NE. Community preventive services: do we know what we need to know to improve health and reduce disparities?. Am J Prev Med. 2003;24(Suppl):10–11

PII: S1552-5260(08)02838-0

doi: 10.1016/j.jalz.2008.07.002

Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association
Volume 4, Issue 5 , Pages 324-331 , September 2008