Does chess prevent alzheimer's disease?

I was wondering if playing chess can help prevent Alzheimer's Disease.

This article states that you should keep your mind active with something

http://www.alz.org/we_can_help_stay_mentally_active.asp

Staying mentally active might help to slow, to some extent or another, the progression of Alzheimer's, but by no means will it prevent it. If that were the case my mother-in-law never would have suffered from it.

There have been some studies directly related to chess that show it can prevent Alzheimers and at the least greatly reduce your chances (Other activities and games may net you the same effect). I also read an article stating they couldn't find one single GM of note to have developed the disease. Look at Kortchnoi, his mind is still very sharp and I doubt he shows any signs. Chess is a great game!.

here are some articles I found:

http://en.chessbase.com/post/checkmating-alzheimers-disease-210513

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/story?id=117588

I'd love to see a link to the actual studies that show chess does/can/helps prevent rather than "may help to...".

There are no studies on chess and Alzheimer's, only poorly researched articles on chess websites pretending there are.

Yup.

A lot of "real" studies are poorly researched as well though. And they're still pretty convincing. People nowadays seem to believe anything as long as they think that a scientist said it.

Statistics show no professional chess player has ever suffered from Alzheimer's.

Small sample sizes mean nothing.

You're wrong. There are many studies of the effect of excersizing our brains and brain health. The type of stimulation from chess and various other activities have been studied as well. The frequency we perform theses activities is very important as too which means if you take a sample of the people who actually play the most will paint a very telleing picture. There is a thing called statistical evidence, and the evidence is there. Find a professional life long practitioner with Alzheimers... They are statistically non existant.

Preventing? No. Delaying it's on set and progress? Yes.

Exactly.

Try again.

Yes, but playing the Parham brings in on sooner.

I'm glad you posted this. (Right after drinking an orange juice mistaken for V8, left my car key on b1 this morning and just remembered, thanks!)

Use it or lose it sister!!

I read in a book called 'Train your Brain' (Terry Horne / Simon Wootton) that Alzheimers is often found within the brains of dead people who in their lifetime showed no symptoms simply because they had kept an active brain, so somehow were able to negate its effects! 

That's a good one. Riddle me one chess player who ever had Alzheimer's. Checkmate 

I will talk about an international symposium related to the field of Neurology  held in Spain last year: Therapeutic Uses of Chess in Mental Health.  

If we develop concentration and memory we can prevent, or at least delay, this disease.  

According to Ian Wilson (2007) if you exercise your brain, the chances of suffering from dementia diminish.  

Another research by the Albert Einstein College of New York had 488 subjects of old age practise several activities to encourage mental sharpness for 21 years. The ones that showed the best results were the ones who played Chess.  

Now came the question for the neurologists that had attended the symposyum: Does anyone in this hall know of any chess player who had Alzeimer's? Only one case was provided: a British chess player showed symptoms of the disease. He died shortly after being diagnosed, and the autopsy revealed that the beta-amyloid plaques (a clear sign of the disease) in this man were those of a man who was on a very advanced stage of Alzeimer's. However, he had been able to live a normal life until the end of his days.  

Apart from this, if we refer only to professional players, the occurrence is 0%. There's been more than 1 million professional chess players only in the 20 century. So, Chess has been tested on over 1 million subjects and none showed symptoms of the disease. Some over-the-counter medicines were never tested on more than 200 subjects.  

Famous chess players such as Kasparov and Karpov also believe chess is key for mental health (dementia/Alzeimer's, even Down syndrome).   

Overall, chess is seen as taking your brain to a gym.  

Some experts suggest only 30 minutes of chess a day can prevent or keep Alzeimer's at bay.  

Draw your own conclusions, I've only relayed what I've been told.

I have an old man in my Spanish class who is learning so that he can delay the onset of Alzheimers, apparently his physician or whatever told him it would help to learn another language.

If that's true than I can definitely see playing/learning chess being of similar benefit, as even reading/interpretting notation itself is like learning a new language!