A study conducted by researchers at the University of Edinburgh (Great Britain) on 650 patients shows that being bilingual has unexpected health benefits. This study published in the professional journal Neurology shows that being a polyglot delays the onset of forms of dementia, such as Alzheimer’s disease.
For each participant in this study, the number of languages spoken was assessed and the diagnosis of dementia made or not. It turned out that people who spoke at least two languages were later diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and vascular dementias. And this, regardless of their level of education. On the other hand, the number of languages spoken does not seem to matter: whether you are bilingual, trilingual or more, the diagnosis is on average delayed by 5 years.
Other more in-depth studies are now needed to discover what is the exact mechanism that explains this unexpected benefit of bilingualism on the health of our neurons. According to the British researchers, it could be that bilingual conversion between sounds, words and grammatical structures is a natural (therefore more effective) brain training for the brain.
Now, if you want to avoid dementia, how about translating this news in English?
