Do a Good Turn Daily, and Keep Your Wits About Ye!

The next time you're tempted to act like a irresponsible jerk, take a deep breath and ask yourself this:

"Would I find it refreshing to be poseyed in a chair and crapping my pants during the halftime show of Super Bowl LXII?"

"Conscientious people are less prone to Alzheimer's"

According to the World Health Organization, about 18 million people worldwide have Alzheimer's disease, a brain-wasting condition marked by memory loss and confusion that becomes so severe patients lose the ability to care for themselves.

If you are not familiar with the devastating consequences of Alzheimer's you must believe me when I say it is a tragedy beyond comparison, which makes this new study all the more intriguing in the sense that it implies leading a virtuous life may have health benefits.

People who lead a good clean life -- those who are conscientious, self-disciplined and scrupulous -- appear to be less likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, U.S. researchers said on Monday. The finding is the latest from a long-running study of nearly 1,000 Catholic nuns, priests and brothers by Robert Wilson of Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. The study appeared in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

Wilson and colleagues defined conscientiousness in the study as people who control their impulses and are goal-directed. These people are often considered dependable.

Gosh, it seems like such a reasonable request to make of a chap: "Just be a good Scout, now, and your reward will be a score of golden years in full command of your senses." Say, what's the proof that my turning away from a life of crime will pay off?

The researchers asked the volunteers to rank themselves on a five-point scale according to a 12-item inventory, with questions such as "I am a productive person who always gets the job done." From this, they derived a conscientiousness score, based on a scale of 0 to 48. The average score was 34. They were also given various medical and neurological exams, including cognitive testing. Follow-up tests were done each year through 2006. A total of 176 people developed Alzheimer's disease during the study.

People who were highly conscientious -- those in the 90th percentile with scores of 40 or higher, had an 89 percent lower risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than those who ranked in the 10th percentile, with a score of 28 or lower.

Great Caesar's Ghost! If a group of priests, nuns and brothers can bomb a test of conscientiousness I fear what the general population would score on such a challenge. Do we even have a clue as to why those who embrace a code of honor would gain protection from mental decay?

Why conscientious people are less prone to Alzheimer's is not clear, but Wilson and colleagues suggested it may be because conscientious people tend to be more resilient, making them better able to cope with difficulties. Such people also tend to have a fair measure of success in school and work, they said.

Excuse me...I was helping a little old lady across the ScienceBlogs website. What were we discussing? Oh, yes...

"These factors might lessen the adverse consequences of negative life events and chronic psychological distress, which have been associated with risk of dementia in old age," the authors wrote.

Are you getting any of this? Chronic psychological distress may be the killer of sharp minds. Remember this the next time you are tempted to giveth some obnoxious driver the bird: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but resiliency in the face of recurring life-stressing events plus adherence to a scrupulous code of ethics will reduce the chances of my brain rotting away like a jack-o'-lantern in Indian summer."

OK, so it's not pithy, but better principled now than pithed later.