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Knowledge of a foreign language may prevent the development of Alzheimer's disease
Medical expert of the article
Last reviewed: 30.06.2025
A foreign language serves as a kind of constant exercise for the brain, thanks to which a trained brain can compensate for the damage from the onset of Alzheimer's disease.
Canadian researchers from the University of Toronto have concluded that knowledge of a foreign language can delay the onset of Alzheimer's symptoms. In their work, they performed tomographic scans of patients who were diagnosed with the earliest signs of the disease. All those who participated in the study had the same level of education and development of cognitive skills, such as memory, attention, planning ability, etc. But half of them were fluent in a second language, while others did not know a foreign language.
In a paper published in the journal Cortex, the researchers wrote that they had found clear evidence that bilinguals show symptoms of Alzheimer's later in life. The areas of the brain typically affected by the disease first worked twice as hard as would be expected from Alzheimer's.
According to scientists, such people maintain constant brain activity by switching from one language to another. As a result, when neurodegenerative processes begin, the brain has more opportunities to compensate for the damage from failing neurons. Not only knowledge of a foreign language can be beneficial, but also any brain training in general - it is not for nothing that doctors advise the elderly to practice solving crosswords.
Previously, data was published that in people who know a foreign language, the manifestation of Alzheimer's disease symptoms can be delayed by five years. Now, researchers have managed to obtain direct neuroanatomical evidence of this. The authors of the article emphasize that a foreign language does not prevent the disease at all, but only slows its progress. In the future, scientists intend to confirm their results and find out in more detail how exactly knowledge of a foreign language prevents Alzheimer's disease.
It would also be very interesting to know whether, for example, higher mathematics or scientific work have the same effect on the brain. I would like to believe that scientific work trains the brain and prepares it for meeting Alzheimer's syndrome no worse than knowledge of a foreign language.
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