Bilingualism may buffer against Alzheimer's - Health - CBC News: "Canadian researchers in the journal Cortex offers the first physical evidence that speaking more than one language delays the onset of disease.
In the study, researchers studied CT scans of 40 people who had been diagnosed with Alzheimer's disease. They all had similar levels of education and cognitive skills, such as attention, memory and planning. Half were fluently bilingual and the other half spoke only one language.
"Bilingualism appears to contribute to increased cognitive reserve, thereby delaying the onset of Alzheimer disease and requiring the presence of greater amounts of neuropathology before the disease is manifest," the study's authors wrote."
They cautioned that the findings should be interpreted cautiously given the relatively small sample sizes.
