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A book a day may keep dementia away. Even if you read it as a kid. Because a study finds that exercising the brain, at any age, may preserve memory. The work appears online in the journal Neurology.
读书让你远离痴呆。即使像小孩一样走马观花的读。因为一项研究发现，任何年龄对大脑的训练都有助于记忆力的维持。这篇文章发表在神经病学杂志的网站上。
Previous studies have shown that engaging in brain-building activities is associated with a delay in late-life cognitive decline. But why? Does flexing the old gray matter somehow buffer against age-related intellectual impairment? Or is cognitive loss simply a consequence of the aging brain’s physical decline?
先前的研究已经发现参加益智活动能延缓晚年的认知衰退。但是原因何在呢？收缩老灰质会缓解年龄引起的智力损坏吗？或者认知丢失仅仅是年老的大脑自然衰退的结果？
To find out, researchers questioned nearly 300 elderly individuals about their lifelong participation in intellectual pursuits—like reading books, writing letters and looking things up in the library. Then, every year, for an average of six years until they died, the subjects took tests to measure their memory and thinking.
为了找出答案，研究者调查了接近300名老人一生中对智力活动的参与状况，比如读书，写信还有在图书馆查阅资料。接着，在他们死前六年每一年测试他们的记忆力和思维能力。
What the researchers found is that folks who worked their mental muscles, both early and late in life, remained more intellectually limber than those who didn’t—even when a post-mortem look at their brains revealed the telltale signs of physical decline.
研究人员发现即使死后验尸发现他们的大脑已经有了自然衰退的迹象，但是一生中用脑较多的老人思维更敏捷。
So if you’re headed to the beach, don’t forget a hat and a book, both to protect your head.
因此，如果你要去海滩，别忘了戴个帽子加本书，从里到外保护你的头。
—Karen Hopkin
