Genes can predispose people to Alzheimer's disease. A history of stroke and head .
trauma can boost your chances of coming down with Alzheimer's later in life and that a .
college education and an active intellectual life may protect you from the effects of the .
disease.
The way we express ourselves in language can foretell how long we"ll live and.
how vulnerable we"ll be to Alzheimer's. Snowden analyzed over 200 autobiographies.
written by the Nuns and found out the sisters" whose writing was the most positive were.
the ones who lived the longest and the mental functions didn't decline as rapidly.
The research will, without a doubt strike a debate. The cause and effect are.
difficult to tamper with a population study like this one. The National Institutes of Health .
Page 3.
was impressed, they have been providing over $5 million in funding over the past decade.
and a half.
Snowden wasn't planning on studying Alzheimer's, he needed a research project.
that would secure his position at the University of Minnesota. He heard about the retired .
nuns convent and decided to do he Alzheimer's research.
At first Snowden wasn't too confident in his study, because he head t count on the.
nuns to recall aspects of their lives that took place so long ago. After a few months. He .
found the personal vows of all the nuns when the first took their vows, that's when.
things got brighter. The files were full of basic information, but these gave Snowden an.
objective measure of the sisters" cognitive abilities while they were still young.
The only way to fully diagnose Alzheimer's is to examine the patients" brain after.
death, Snowden had to get the nuns" permission to perform autopsies, so he presented it .
to the nuns. More that 90% of the sisters agreed to donate their brains.
Snowden, who got the position at the University of Kentucky was working with a.
team of neurologists and psychologists to come up with tests for assessing the sisters" .
