What the Nun Study Teaches Us About Leading Longer, Healthier, and More Meaningful Lives.
'Aging With Grace' is the story of an ongoing long-term study of a large group of Catholic nuns who have given Dr David Snowdon access to their medical and archival records and participate each year in comprehensive mental and physical examinations designed to measure the long-term effects of aging. They have also agreed to donate their brains upon death. So far there are 250 brains in the bank making it the world's largest of its kind.
Dr Snowdon is one of the world's leading experts on Alzheimer's disease and director of the "Nun Study", a research project involving 678 Catholic sisters ranging in age from 75 to 104 and which has been running for the past 15 years. We get to know many of the nuns personally, and through them discover some of the ground-breaking work which the "Nun Study" has achieved.
The programme found that 90% of those women with low linguistic ability in early life had a clinical and pathologically confirmed diagnosis of Alzheimers. This was true of only 15% of those with high linguistic ability. Games, fitness and anti-oxidants all have a role to play. The study has shown that anti-oxidants from carrots and nuts and grains have no effect on aging and longevity but that the anti-oxidant lycopene found in only a handful of foods, such as tomatoes, watermelon and pink grapefruit, has a strong correlation.
'Aging With Grace' is much more than a health book. Dr Snowdon has broken down barriers between science and the aging brain in a book that offers practical help to millions on the way we view aging - and indeed living.
