I have such admiration for people who are fluent in more than one language since I am definitely not. But it’s never too late to try to learn one, and it can boost your brainpower as you get older and may even act as a shield against dementia and Alzheimer’s.
Those are the findings of a study out this week in the Annals of Neurology. Researchers from Scotland analyzed data from 835 native English-speakers living in and around Edinburgh in the 1940s who were given intelligence tests as children and then retested more than 60 years later. Those who spoke two or more languages had significantly better learning ability, especially in general intelligence and reading, regardless of whether they learned their second language early in life or later.
Consumer Reports’ medical adviser Orly Avitzur, M.D., agrees that the evidence is building that “the bilingual brain develops better attention skills as it learns to suppress one language while communicating in another." Avitzur, a board-certified neurologist, says the study "suggests that learning a second language at any age comes with the added perk of possibly delaying dementia."
While the results of the study are not conclusive evidence that learning a second language—whether on your computer at home or in the classroom—will protect you from losing your memory, it's good evidence that is worth considering.
—Chris Hendel
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Chris Hendel has been Consumer Reports' chief medical researcher since 1989 and is one of the founders of Consumer Reports on Health, our monthly health newsletter.
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