The article “Active mind cuts Alzheimer’s risk” (Page 1, Feb. 13) by Ronald Kotulak is misleading.
It reports on a study of 801 members of the clergy and shows that people who were intellectually active over an average period of 4.5 years had a lower rate of Alzheimer’s.
But this study is correlational in design, which means that it cannot possibly shed light on causal relationships.
Staying intellectually active might somehow ward off Alzheimer’s, but it’s also possible (in fact, very likely) that if you’re getting Alzheimer’s, it will be difficult for you to stay intellectually active.
The study in no way demonstrates which of these possibilities is true, and the second possibility is certainly more plausible than the first.
The article suggests that the authors of the study may have overinterpreted their own results.
If so, perhaps that should have been your story.
