The Nun Study
How one scientist and 678 sisters
are helping unlock the secrets of Alzheimer's
By
MICHAEL D. LEMONICK and ALICE PARK MANKATO
It's the
day after Easter, and the first crocus shoots have ventured
tentatively above the ground at the convent on Good Counsel
Hill. This is Minnesota, however; the temperature is 23°F
and the wind chill makes it feel far colder. Yet even though
she's wearing only a skirt and sweater, Sister Ada, 91, wants
to go outside. She wants to feed the pigs.
But the
pigs she and the other nuns once cared for have been gone
for 30 years. Sister Ada simply can't keep that straight.
In recent years, her brain, like a time machine gone awry,
has been wrenching her back and forth between the present
and the past, depositing her without warning into the days
when she taught primary schoolchildren in Minnesota or to
the years when she was a college student in St. Paul. Or to
the times when she and the sisters had to feed the pigs several
times a day.
Like some
4 million Americans, Sister Ada (not her real name) is suffering
from Alzheimer's disease; as the years go by, she'll gradually
lose her memory, her personality and finally all cognitive
function. But advanced age does not automatically lead to
senility. Ada's fellow nun, Sister Rosella, 89, continues
to be mentally sharp and totally alert, eagerly anticipating
the celebration of her 70th anniversary as a sister without
the slightest sign of dementia. In a very real sense, this
pair of retired schoolteachers haven't finished their teaching
careers. Along with hundreds of other nuns in their order,
the School Sisters of Notre Dame, they have joined a long-term
study of Alzheimer's disease that could teach the rest of
us how to escape the worst ravages of this heartbreaking illness.
The groundbreaking
research they are helping conduct probably won't lead directly
to any new drugs, and it's unlikely to uncover a genetic or
biochemical cause of Alzheimer's. Doctors know, however, that
preventing disease can be a lot easier and cheaper than trying
to cure it. It was by studying the differences between people
who get sick and people who don't - the branch of medical
science known as epidemiology - that doctors discovered the
link between smoking and lung cancer, between cholesterol
and heart disease, between salt and high blood pressure. Epidemiology
also led to the understanding that cooked tomatoes may help
protect against prostate cancer, and that fruits and vegetables
tend to stave off cancers of all sorts.
Now it's
Alzheimer's turn. Precious little is known about this terrible
illness, which threatens to strike some 14 million Americans
by 2050. Its precise cause is still largely mysterious, and
effective treatments are still years away. But epidemiologists
are beginning to get a handle on what kinds of people are
most seriously ravaged by Alzheimer's - and, conversely, which
people tend to escape relatively unscathed.
Much of
this knowledge comes from a single, powerful piece of ongoing
research: the aptly named Nun Study, of which Sisters Ada
and Rosella are part. Since 1986, University of Kentucky scientist
David Snowdon has been studying 678 School Sisters - painstakingly
researching their personal and medical histories, testing
them for cognitive function and even dissecting their brains
after death. Over the years, as he explains in Aging with
Grace (Bantam; $24.95), a moving, intensely personal account
of his research that arrives in bookstores this week, Snowdon
and his colleagues have teased out a series of intriguing
- and quite revealing - links between lifestyle and Alzheimer's.
Scientists
know that genes can predispose people to Alzheimer's disease.
But as described in nearly three dozen scientific papers,
Snowdon's study has shown, among other things, that a history
of stroke and head trauma can boost your chances of coming
down with debilitating symptoms of Alzheimer's later in life;
and that a college education and an active intellectual life,
on the other hand, may actually protect you from the effects
of the disease.
Perhaps
the most surprising result of the Nun Study, though, is the
discovery that the way we express ourselves in language, even
at an early age, can foretell how long we'll live and how
vulnerable we'll be to Alzheimer's decades down the line.
Indeed, Snowdon's latest finding, scheduled to be announced
this week, reinforces that notion. After analyzing short autobiographies
of almost 200 nuns, written when they first took holy orders,
he found that the sisters who had expressed the most positive
emotions in their writing as girls ended up living longest,
and that those on the road to Alzheimer's expressed fewer
and fewer positive emotions as their mental functions declined.
MORE
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May 14, 2001 | No. 19
COVER
STORIES
The
Nuns' Stories
Hundreds of Roman Catholic sisters have opened up their lives, their memories
and (when they die) even their brains to researcher David Snowdon so that
all of us can better understand what causes Alzheimer's disease and what
can be done to prevent it
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
SOCIETY
BEHAVIOR: The Talking Cure...
Australian schools try shaming troublemakers onto the right path
THE
ARTS
CINEMA: Goodbye, Mrs. Tom Cruise. Hello, Nicole
Kidman, star of a bold new movie... Moulin Rouge awakens the dormant
musical
Samantha Lang, a cinematic connoisseur
of sex
MUSIC: Nick Cave, the gloom rocker, blooms
BOOKS: A slim prayer with sales that are
divine
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