CROSSWORDS and Sudoku have been hailed as a good way to protect your brain from ageing, but an Edinburgh University study raises questions about whether they are making a difference.
The research has found pensioners who engaged in more intellectual activities did have greater cognitive abilities when they were tested.
However, the study authors then looked back at results the same people scored in tests they sat at school.
The people who had the best brains in their seventies also had the highest IQ when they were 11.
The university's Professor Ian Deary said: "We found that people who took part in more of what we called socio-intellectual activity tended to have better thinking skills at about age 70.
"But then we looked at their IQ scores from age 11 and we found that brighter children tended to be the ones that took part in socio-intellectual activities later in life, but not that these activities boosted thinking skills."
:: Professor Deary will discuss his findings at the British Academy Big Debate in Edinburgh this evening.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article