
Study: Speaking Multiple Languages Staves Off Dementia - dnetesn
http://nautil.us/blog/speaking-multiple-languages-staves-off-dementia
======
nurettin
Remembering previous articles staves off dementia ( Or so I hope)
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8472556](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8472556)

~~~
ak39
HN Hall of Fame comment awards center stage.

------
rahimnathwani
"Parlez-vous francais? If you answered yes, then you’re well on your way to
enjoying the many benefits of bilingualism."

Umm... wouldn't answering "oui" be a better indication of bilingualism than
answering "yes"?

~~~
a3n
No. As is, it demonstrates that you can understand the question in one
language, and respond in another. Bilingual! :)

~~~
mattnumbe
What if you answered "Si!" but you couldn't read the article?

~~~
davidgay
Not sure about the article, but you wouldn't have demonstrated a good mastery
of French (the question wasn't in the negative).

~~~
taejo
No, you would have demonstrated that you understand French and speak Italian.
Or nothing of the sort, as this subthread indicates.

------
cjensen
Study authors: "We found an association"

Typical bad reporting: "Study finds causation"

It should be obvious on the face of it that in aggregate, multi-lingual people
live lives that are significantly different than mono-lingual people.

I'd bet a _lot_ of money that breast cancer rates, for example, are much
higher in multi-lingual people. If I'm right, it's not because multi-
lingualism causes breast cancer. It's because both breast cancer and multi-
lingualism are associated with higher-wealth individuals.

~~~
rue
FWIW multilingualism isn’t just for the privileged, by a long shot (though I
don’t know what the sample for the study was). Lots of people in third world
countries are bi- or multilingual.

~~~
pbreit
In the US, at least, bilingualism is likely more prevalent amongst the less
well off (ie immigrants).

------
tokenadult
I would like to believe this opinion, because I am able to speak both English
and Chinese. 因為我會說英語和中國話，我願意相信這意見。But the best considered opinion, according
to a well reported article in _The Atlantic_ earlier this year,[1] is that
there is no strong evidence that bilingualism is especially helpful for
cognitive function in old age. No problem. 沒問題。

[1] [http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/the-
battl...](http://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/02/the-battle-over-
bilingualism/462114/)

------
toolslive
So basically, you could compare dementia statistics in Belgium or Switzerland
(where most people speak more than 2 languages) and the UK or France (where
that percentage is significantly lower). Are there any such studies?

~~~
chillacy
Any such studies would be swimming in other correlating factors like genetics,
quality of life, education, etc.

------
chubot
Is there something special about language, or does it generalize? Does this
boil down to: "do stuff with your brain"? (independent of IQ) I think you need
to exercise your brain as well as your body.

I bet playing multiple instruments helps too. That exercises the same parts of
your brain as language (nested grammatical structure, timing, pitch, reading).

I would think computer programming (in multiple languages) does too, for that
matter.

~~~
trhway
>I would think computer programming (in multiple languages) does too, for that
matter.

CF grammars being much easier require, and thus exercise, much less circuitry
:)

~~~
wstrange
The language grammar itself is simple, but I would assume the problems you
attempt to solve can require a lot of circuitry?

------
dominotw
some of the studies linked are have such low n ( ~25) done over short periods
of time ( ~ 6 months) . There are so many other factors that might affect the
results. I am having hard time trusting these articles.

How do these researchers come up with the hypothesis in the first place; would
be interesting to see what other hypothesis they tested and failed.

------
DarkContinent
Probably any sort of mental challenge would stave off dementia, whether the
challenge is linguistic, mathematical, verbal, or some other category.

~~~
agumonkey
True, but multiple languages don't add "much", more massage, decorate,
reinforce the previous knowledge graph I guess. Kinda like learning two
paradigms, they reinforce each others.

------
basicplus2
or maybe if you are "smart" enough to speak several languages you are already
ahead of the game.. thus you have more to loose before dementia becomes
apparent.

~~~
Ambroos
I doubt you need to be that smart to learn a second language. Growing up in
Belgium we all started learning our second language at age 10 (some earlier),
and a third at age 13. Most people (in Flanders) end up leaving high school
speaking Dutch, French and English. Some get German too. It's not always very
fluent, but everyone should have basic conversation skills in three languages.

It's a cultural thing more than anything else. Besides children's movies we
don't dub anything, we just subtitle. That gives you a lot of exposure to
other languages. In theatres movies are even simultaneously subtitled in Dutch
and French all over the country, by default.

So considering the amount of people that learn a second language with relative
ease, I don't think it has anything to do with being smart or not. You just
have to be willing and start young enough.

------
hardlianotion
Wha about multiple computer languages?

~~~
BuckRogers
Nothing more than a misappropriation of the world "language". Natural and
programming languages share little more than the word language between them.
Programming interface is probably a better description than programming
language given the constant conflation of the two.

------
ams6110
I certainly know of several firsthand counterexamples.

------
innocentoldguy
浣腸!!!

I think that double-staves-off dementia.

