How Come People Rarely Die of Dementia in Poor Countries?
What they found was roughly similar to what has been found in richer countries. Between 2 and 3 percent of people aged over 65 developed dementia each year, though of course the proportion was proportional to initial age. In Europe, a comparable age-adjusted figure would be 1.84 percent.
As in richer countries, the chances of developing dementia were lower among the better-educated. The particular protective factor was found to be literacy, not number of years at school, because in some countries literacy is not necessarily the outcome of prolonged schooling. We in the west know all about that.
If literacy protects against the development of dementia, ask the authors, why is there no epidemic of dementia in countries with aging populations but low literacy rates among the elderly? They answer that it is probably because those who are demented die disproportionately in such countries. However, they have not shown that there is no such epidemic; and furthermore, there is no proof that the statistical correlation between illiteracy and dementia is a causative one.
For the moment, however, the prevailing orthodoxy is that reading (and other such educated activities) create a “cognitive reserve” that protects against the development of dementia. The educated do not show signs of losing their mind because they have more of it to use, just as very rich people rarely suffer poverty.
It seems a good plan, then, to continue to read. Personally, I was planning on it anyway.
***
Image courtesy shutterstock / Chris Harvey
Check out more writings on health from Theodore Dalrymple at PJ Lifestyle:
Could it be it’s easier to keep an affluent demented person alive than it is a poor one?
How Come People Rarely Die of Dementia in Poor Countries?
because they die too soon?
In poor countries, it is not called dementia. It is called senility or just old age. You do not take great Grampa to the doctor for what is viewed as a normal condition of aging, and they do not have the money to spare for such nonsense. So, it doesn’t get diagnosed. No doctor, no diagnosis. Tree falling. Forest.
BINGO, and if grandpa or grandma wonders off into the outlands, they probably don’t go looking for another mouth to feed.
I don’t think blood transfusions can be left out of the equation.
Source, please!
Check out Russias blood transfusion methods. You won’t find much but it is out there. The medical profession does not want the public aware of it. Lawsuits are always in the way of truth.
Living in a country that was once “rich” and now is “poor” I must tell you that your observation is correct. Notice that in countries where older people live in a family structure all their lives, there is less dementia among them. Most likely the cause of dementia among people in developed countries is the combination of stress and a rich diet. Add to that the lack of affection and love that many endure all their lives. My observation in this country (Argentina) is that dementia seems to be more common among those living in the largest city where robberies, violence, and abuse are more common. Dementia seems to seldom appear in the towns and cities of the interior where family life is still strong and geriatric institutions are rare. In my opinion, love is the answer. Unfortunately you in the northern cultures seem to be unaware of the healthy effects of giving and receiving true affection. The phenomena is observed also in the large cities of the world where YOUR lifestyle is imitated and the majority pursues the accumulation of material goods.
Happiness does not result from the things we possess (SOMEONE wiser than me said that two thousand years ago) but from loving and being loved. Since the root of love is giving, the stress and strife involved in the pursuing the possession of material things is what’s killing the West and now other cultures foolish enough to be enticed by the West’s foolery.
Yes there are many factors like diet, drugs, environmental pollution but the root cause of all these illnesses is egoism and selfishness. Try a little love instead. It goes a long way and IT NEVER FAILS.
Yeah…And maybe in these oh-so-happy and tightly-knit “poor country” families Grandpa gets a pillow stuffed over his face when the family thinks it’s time…
I’m just curious if cultures that tend to harbor resentments and envy (covetousness) stunt their intellectual progress. Does this possibly apply to dementia. Could it be that giving rather than receiving could lead to improved mental health………. Maybe I’m reading between the lines.
Yes, envy is a big factor in making humans unhappy. Here we have both worlds: on one side the big city and on the other side the interior provinces. It seems to me that those who live the simple provincial life live happier and a bit longer. There is still family life in the provinces whereas the same is quickly disappearing in the big city. Please notice that after the French Revolution the West mostly abandons transcendental ideas and concentrates mainly on how to develop, administer, and share material riches. Eventually three systems emerge: (a)Liberal Capitalism (b) Fascism (c) Communism. Liberal Capitalism (as opposed to what I would call “natural” capitalism the one we all practiced from the beginning of history) died in 1929 and was replaced by mix of capitalism with socialism. Fascism, kicked the bucket on the deck of the USS Missouri in 1945. Finally Communism arrived late to its own burial when Boris Yeltsin climbed to the tank with the new Russian flag. All of those systems paid attention only to the material needs of people, reducing the “pursuit of happiness” to the mere pursuit of a standard of living. The three have obvious differences but all of them appear to produce a godless civilization in the end. In those areas of the world where traditional values are still upheld people seem to live more satisfying lives. That is merely my observation. There are poor and savage places like Bogota, Sao Paulo or Buenos Aires. There are rich and happier cities also. I don’t think one can generalize and say that outside developed countries people live awful lives as a norm. I haven’t seen anyone killing grandpa (quite the contrary) around here but I know that there is no equivalent to the English expression “granny dumping” neither in the Spanish, Italian, or Portuguese languages. While the terms “nonina” or “dindinha” are heard often. You go find out what they mean. In abandoning its spiritual roots the West has lost its course. Conservatism appears to be following that route also. Godless Conservatism is not going to be better than godless communism. Just think about it. Forgive my rambling.
” Godless Conservatism is not going to be better than godless communism. Just think about it. Forgive my rambling.”
No rambling there; rather, all well said. Glad you posted.
This essay has to be the definitive examination of the politics of envy:
http://archive.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/1/20/231252.shtml
“The Secret to the Suicidal Liberal Mind”
It’s all about how the culture of envy and fear of envy has kept most of humanity in the Dark Ages and how the Anglo-Saxon version of the Judeo-Christian ethos accounts for the success of the West in history. That, and how the Envy Culture is the modern Liberal/Progressives favorite tool for getting power.
Catino, thanks for both posts above. Or should I say gracias! I tend to agree very much with what you place in both. These are, so far, my life observations as well both in this country and after many years in various places abroad.
I honestly don’t think that most people know what genuine love is. Our ever-pervasive (and perverse) pop culture sure does not. Though, funny, it seems to be in so many song lyrics. Like “baby, baby, baby.”
In American I’ve now learned that two women getting ready to have babies (thick in pregnancy) had ample time to attend the midnight showing in Aurora, Colorado of Batman — hardly a quiet, peaceful, harmonious storyline, I should think. Yes, to my thinking, these are the love choices that one makes (should make) all day long. To those who are slow on the uptake: The baby knows what is going on; the baby would not be choosing Batman in a crowded theater with popcorn gorging and soda guzzling loud cell phone armed people — at midnight.
The irony is that so many of the city dwellers in Manhattan, Los Angeles, Vancouver, Tokyo, Berlin, Chicago, Rome and London think they have it best.
Most people in these urban areas, I do believe, are truly afraid of real love. Here I refer to what I can real love: Agape love. Yes, it is the giving. Well defined for us 2,000 years ago.
Just put this to the test: If you run across an acquaintance who practices love at the workplace, freely giving of himself to others, it is almost invariably true that this individual is labeled a queer. In the literal sense and general sense. A woman might be able to get away with this practice but never a male. Any male engaged in such routine selflesness is clearly not top drawer material. Just as your uncle or former mentor hammered into you.
Prior to 2007/2008, I have seen startling statistics about how frequently Americans moved during the years 1968 – 2008. At some points, 1 of every 5 working age adults was moving each year. Okay, perhaps for a new job opportunity or a reassignment. Perhaps a plant or office closing necessitated this. But is there also a factor in this — moving — a factor of avoiding family responsibilities, avoiding family interactions?
Dr. Dalrymple may indeed be onto something: The good life and avoidance of dementia can fairly often be found well over the horizon, in places the 24/7 glitter, go-go-go glam world avoids or does not even know exist.
Now, dear readers, go back to checking your SmartPhone for updates,texts, fotos, gossip, web headlines, snarky remarks, omgs! and on and on….
Never seek to explain through cosmology, science, conspiracy, or the Devil, that which is simply the result of sheer stupidity and ignorance. It is indeed, ubiquitous.
Perhaps some of you should check out some of Dr. Dalrymple’s other articles online. He truly is a seeker of truth, even while, because he is a Psychiatrist, he can never be quite certain of it all. You will be forced to really think.
Then, go back and read this over. He never writes flippantly or carelessly. His articles deserve study and contemplation, not just reaction. He is always on our side, yet he is more than aware of the possibility of his being wrong.
If I needed a shrink, I’d camp outside his door and demand to see him.
We can only hope you’re wrong JuanSoberman because if harboring resentment, envy & covetousness have anything to do with dementia, America’s liberals (& the rest of us who have to put up w/them) are looking at a mighty unhappy future.
Since the root of love is giving, the stress and strife involved in the pursuing the possession of material things is what’s killing the West and now other cultures foolish enough to be enticed by the West’s foolery.If I didn’t pursue possession of material things (having a job), I would have nothing to give. Instead, I would have to be asking (begging) for material things such as food.
Might I suggest: There are lots of ways to give. One way, perhaps the best way truly, is just giving of your time.
Volunteering, for example, so often asks nothing of your wallet or possessions. Tutoring as well. Visiting the elderly, visiting a relative who is not doing so well. Singing, musical presentation for others.
These just ask your time. And we can all spare 4 – 6 hours per week. We really can.
In the end, it is time, quality time, purposeful time that defines love, I do believe.
People in need don’t need what’s in your bank account or the largesse junk of your overstuffed basement or garage. For the needy who need a helping hand, your time will often suffice.
Anybody can write a check for $100 or $500. That really costs you nothing. Your time? Now that will cost you something.
And that, my friend, is time well spent. It would need proving in the practice, but that time may just be what raises your quality of life to heights you never dreamed imaginable. Might even help you and me ward off dementia for a few years or so.
Max,bless you
You are right, we have to have something to give something. I don’t think that needs to be expressed. I do not believe in compulsory giving (like the Progressive ideology proposes) but I know that a generous society is a happier society. Americans lived under that model for a long time and managed to be a happy realm that has attracted millions to their shores. The problem arises when people forget their duty or fall into the politics of envy and class warfare. Working with a generous mind and heart ennobles the worker, the work, and the country benefiting from said work.
Catino, I do hope that you return to this page. As this next topic of thought is a question for you. Argentina! Ah, it does conjur up thoughts of Buenos Aires seemlingly endless sprawl and various neighborhoods, so many of them dangerous and gang run, si? But also this Argentina: Patagonia, ranchers, herders, agriculture, scenery, landcape.
Due to all the linkage between Italy and Argentina and the many Italians who have settled in Argentina, do you, as one residing away from the urban zones, ever get to witness perhaps the transformation of a newly arrived Italian who stays and perhaps mellows to blend in with the new, less intense, more genteel surroundings of rural Argentina?
The urban Italy I knew and the urban Italians were invariably espresso-fueled, can-never-sit-still, talk 500 wpm (words per minute), wild hand gesticulation, and often (not always, but often enough) loud arguing types. Oh, and this reflected in their Formula 1/kamakazee driving style too. Fidgeting, twitching.
Can such an Italian successfully detox in a region like where you now live? Have you ever heard one make oral comparisions between his or her former life, current life?
Thank you.
Max,
“Can such an Italian successfully detox in a region like where you now live? Have you ever heard one make oral comparisons between his or her former life, current life?”
If you find your place here (Italian or not) you’ll never leave. People here are good although politically stupid. However things now are not exactly ideal. The future looks good though. Once we get off the cycle of perennial BS this is going to be a great country to be in. I know many would not bet on her future but Argentina has yet a lot to give. The future will bring a painful crisis and a great rebirth. I believe Argentina will be the Canada of the 21st century.
How does one say “codswallop” in Argentina?
I don’t know. Cod is only found in the North Atlantic. Possible equivalent: “zurdo idiota” or “bolche culeado.” But I really don’t know. God Bless.
The “narrative” in the original study seems to have been produced by Left-wing, so-called scientists.
Because I’m a materialistic westerner, I’m having trouble feeling affection for them.
We don’t know anything, as far as I can tell from the research. Soon, perhaps, but for now we are as ignorant as ants and roaches. We have a brain and then it declines either slowly or quickly.
M. Dalrymple (whose writing I greatly admire) certainly knows this story: in Provence (France), people too old and considered “gaga” and useless were given, by their family, the “evening soup”, i.e. would be put on a bench outside of the house during a chilly night, and given a nice warm soup. Morning come, they would have departed for another world! This of course, many years ago and perhaps not entirely true! As for evading the necessity of the deadly soup, I believe the Doctor is quite right: reading is the secret!
“It seems a good plan, then, to continue to read.”
Try telling that to a lot of young people today. Sure, they are on their I-Phones or on the Internet all the time, but they don’t seem to be reading a lot of books. They get their information in “news bursts,” and I’m beginning to think that in this society of instant gratification and instant stimulation a book is sooooo 20th century. And given the hundreds of channels on cable TV, no to mention everything you see on the Internet, people seem to want to be passively entertained rather than having to work at reading a book. Could be wrong, but I get a little scared when I don’t see young people reading as much as we used to. Or so it seems.
I suppose the people who read are the nerdy types who stay at home. I read plenty, but seldom in public (and I consider myself relatively young).
I often wonder about all these medical surveys and research. I really question how these studies can possibly be accurate, particularly when it pertains to the length of life one has. Every bit of research seems more like gossip from chatty midwives than serious advice now. I think it is sufficient to be fit and healthy, have your vaccines and see a doctor when you feel ill.
Exposure to Democrats, Socialists and Lib-tards.
That stuff will rot your brain pronto.
Two thumbs up! Apparently, being an Air Force briefer and being stationed at the Pentagon was more exposure to left wingers than the old man could handle. I just hope he passes peacefully at home, where I am.
31% lost to followup? I don’t think the results are worth much.
One other potential factor: My mother is aging, gets more disoriented when away from the house she’s lived in for over 40 years. Some studies show significant exacerbation of dementia with removal from familiar surroundings. Except in conditions of war, famine, disaster and other dislocation (which would tend to kill the demented really fast,) do folks in 3rd world countries move as much as in the developed world?
How about Crisco, High Fructose Corn Syrup, Refined Sugar, Processed foods full of preservatives, fast food full of only God knows what?? Your brain is just as much an organ as your heart, feed it fuel instead of garbage. Poor countries don’t have access to all of the processed food that affluent countries have.
100+ years ago it was only the “affluent” that could afford bleached refined white sugar and flour, the poor ate the “ugly” brown stuff and there were many diseases only associated with the affluent. Once the refined foods became affordable to the masses….the poor began dying of the same diseases as the affluent people. Think about it.
And yet life expectancy has nearly doubled in the US in the last 100 years or so even though just about all of us are eating all the “deadly” refined foods and rarely eat the healthier alternatives. I realize there are dozen of other factors to do with increase life expectancy but it seems to me when the population dies off in their 40s and 50s, as happened 100 years ago, there wasn’t an opportunity to develop dementia or any of the other diseases which responsible for so many deaths. You’re unlikely to develop cancer, heart disease, dementia, etc. if you’re already dead at 47 from a host of diseases, small pox, influenza, dysentery, etc., which we have managed to eradicate or at least prevent outbreaks into developing into epidemics.
Could it be coincidental that people in the affluent West spend more time watching TV than reading? Worse yet, the leftist cant that MSM newscasters invariably spout combined with the crap that passes for entertainment on the networks surely further diminishes the thinking process. Result: kids that can`t read or write (but can TXT) go on to post-secondary `education` that shapes them to be unquestioning cogs in the machine. It’s a self-reinforcing loop IMO, and it`s no accident. Dementia`s a feature, not a bug…
My mother died two months ago, May 2012. The death cetificate stated “respiratory failure”. She was 92.
Ten years ago,in May 2002, my mom suffered her first cerebral stroke, which left her partially paralysed down one side of her body. Two years later, she fell and broke her femur head. No surgey was advised on account of her age. In April this yesr, she suffered her second cerebral stroke.
Yet, she was always optimistic. She would call her two sons, fifty years old each, to her bedside and berate us for our negligences and indulgences. She never felt sorry for herself and never asked for pity. What befell her would test most women. Instead, she remained fierce that her sons would improve.
Yes, she mostly mumbled towards the end, so much so that we sons had to put our ears to her mouth to hear. Yes, she lost her short term memory. But she remarkably retained her long term memory. Relatives, cousins, and cousins of cousins, would come from far and wide, including the US. They would come with a long-forgotten name or a vague memory and ask my mom to fill in the blanks.
Is this dementia? Not on your nelly.
Reading is also supposed to provide a bit of protection against Alzheimer’s, but there’s no guarantees. I suspect it might have something to do with WHAT is read. If one reads all the health books that all know without a shadow of doubt all the foods that are bad for you, they might become demented in effect rather than in any clinical sense. The constant shift of nutrition-based lies can cause serious cognitive dissonance if not read with extreme skepticism, and might cause long-term disorientation. I once read four books about the Lindbergh Kidnapping, and my opinion changed with each one. Ever since then I have never given much credence to anything I read unless I have some kind of corroboration, even if that only consists of my prejudices and preexisting assumptions. I’ve been studying nutrition for appx 744 years (subjective, which equals 15 years objective) and the only certainty I’ve obtained is that nobody has a clue about how it all really works. Doctors and nutritionists run after fads quick as a teenybopper chasing Elvis. I reckon I might now be hopelessly insane without a healthy skepticism about all the endless conflicting but absolutely certain claims. And the results of following the advice of some of these sages? When I started out I weighed 180 pounds less than I do today. I should never have listened to any of them.
So I assert based on no evidence save my own experiences that a dollop of skepticism will make it harder for dementia to take hold. And I won’t guarantee it for even an instant.
In my opinion it is more closely connected to the diet than anything else.
Humans were not designed nor evolved to live on a grain based diet. Grains, especially the new strains of wheat that were modified in the 50′s to allow for larger harvests at greater density per acre. See, Norman Borlaug.
The new cultivar was vastly successful in both respects of production and hardiness outside of it’s natural zones of growth. But the law of unintended consequences has reared it’s ugly head. Along with the benefits we saw a large increase in the gliadin concentration in the germ of the new cultivars. It has similar effects on the brain as opiates. It attaches at the same receptors and has the same withdrawal symptoms.
This is the base ingredient in the modern western diet. Wheat and grain products are in everything that is processed food products. It is added to food that doesn’t even require it! Why, because food scientist found that by adding wheat and grains to things like mayonnaise that consumers consumed more and excluded other products by choice. More sales!
Read Wheat Belly by Dr. William Davis M.D.
I’m with you. Diet is so important that Hippocrates said let food be thy medicine and medicine thy food. Or something like that. Modern allopathic medicine has undeniably done many wonderful things for mankind but the idea that you just need a dose of xyz pill to cure what ails ya is lazy and dangerous thinking.
I work in homes of the elderly and an almost ubiquitous feature is cable television and climate control, coupled with that everyone tries to move as little as possible. Constant air and heat with minimal physical exertion replaces unpleasant sensations with NO sensation, so nothing stimulates the mind nor body. The cable provides a constant wall paper of pap and nonsense whether Hallmark or TLC, so the mind is removed from active interaction with reality and effective problem solving, so those abilities atrophy. If people engaged in ‘social services’ such as myself along with delivery of prepared meals and groceries are also provided, self-reliance and suppression of impulse begin to suffer………
We may not pamper the elderly but we do take care of them with solicitousness. This brings them to expect a lot and they can afford their dementia. Unlike in poorer countries. This is not to state that it’s wrong, just that everything costs. Even justice and compassion has a price………
It probably is due to diet. There’s the story of the japanewse women who started having more breast cancer when they started eating an American diet. Americans expect a lot from older people and dimentia may be more obvious. I don’t like to be bothered by the new electronic gizmos and have to rely on grandchildren to operate some of mine. I just don’t care about some but I am vehemently opposed to others. I don’t care if I have 5 zillion friends or followers who know where I am each hour or even each month….and I’m sure my actual friends don’t care. I manage to keep my mind occupied with things I like to do but miss my tutoring and helping kids. Physically, it’s just too much for me.
Perhaps people in less advanced countries have more to do than check on whether Granny can remember a lot of things. I have heard of many highly intelligent people having “alzheimers”disease. If this is a problem, someone can do some research. It is just as much a waste of a natural resource as burning oil and certainly merits investigation. I think there are probably scads of researchers who can look into this matter.
Or…it could be a function of aging. We live many years longer(on average) in rich societies, but we also pay the price of aging longer before we die. We are just beginning to see the affects on the human body, of living beyond our time. Teeth, eyes, joints, internal organs, and our brains all suffer infirmaries that never really develop in significant numbers in poor countries, I say. Well, it is just as good of a theory as any I have read in this comment section, so far.
Pretty darn obvious, it’s basically in the titles of the piece. People die of other ailments, poverty or starvation in poor countries. In developed countries, they have a long, pampered, demented end at taxpayer expense.
So, would you rather everyone be poor, so that everyone has to get the same health care, so we can all avoid dementia, and so the poor get ALL of the free stuff? I guess I am really wondering why the value judgment slipped into your pretty darn obvious explanation? ABO2012
I agree with J. Baker. The people in “poor” countries usually die of something else before dementia becomes in issue. So only the very tough live long enough to be of dementia age. Being tough and fire-tested, as it were, naturally they’d die at a lower rate of anything, including dementia. Darwin at work.
I resided in Central and South America some 50 years ago travelling through the interiors and impoverished areas of the “poorer” countries doing community development work. Most of the people I came in contact with only had radio connection with the outside world,newspapers were not distributed or available save for those brought in by the itinerant informal bus drivers.I seldom encountered persons with dementia but did make the casual observation that their consumption of alcohol locally manufactured or brought in from the cities was so pervasive that it figured prominently in the daily life of the young and old men, literacy was low and pregnancies and infant mortality high.Wounds from farming and fights with machetes, knives and agricultural implements was high along with early deaths attributed to alcoholism. Diseases and serious illness earned transport to the nearest center where medical help was available and presumably death ensued. Females maintained the culture, nutrition,farming,child rearing,washing etc. Women and even “bar girls” appeared to be alert and aware but bhelpless. The men that did not migrate to the big cities remained at home and when comunal project required “heavy work” -burning the countryside to prepare the land for farming by day and far in the night drunken bouts while the women did the planting and harvesting the crops from their comunal fields followed by drunken bouts. I often thought that their simple lives precluded obvious senility since the women would care for the old like they did for their chilren and it was not hard for them since they required few clothes,little daily cholres or clean-ups. The senile would be given simple chores like cleaning veggies,cookingand stirring rice with many childrfen around to help them or their siblings should dangers develop but it was difficult to know who were senile and who were”slow”.
Mexicans? I remember my first or second trip to Mexico. I asked someone “Where are all the old people”? “There aren’t any” was the reply.
would it depend on the way the nations fill out death reports.
I would venture that the actual cause of death would be stroke or heart failure and dementia may not be mentioned.