For FULL-SCREEN-VIEW, click the icon in the lower right corner of video.
Transcript:
Narrator: On a quiet hilltop in rural Minnesota stands the Convent of the School Sisters of Notre Dame. It might look like a house of rest. Inside, it is anything but!
(Images of Sisters perfomring various activities.)
From dusk to dawn the Sisters are active, both physically and mentally.
Sister: "China is the most powerful communist nation in the world."
Narrator: And, living very long lives.
Dr. Snowden: "These are the names of 28 Sisters in the building who are over 90. And you've got six Sisters who are over 100."
Narrator: So how is it that these Sisters live such long, active, and lucid lives, when many people 20, 30, even 40 years younger fall into decline, with failing bodies and fading minds? That's a question researcher David Snowden has spent more than a decade trying to answer.
David Snowden: "These are in many ways 'Super-Nuns', that have probably very good genes, wonderful upbringing and good, clean, active, giving lives."
Narrator: Sister Esther has been at the Convent since she retired six years ago, at the age of 96.
Sister Esther: "I am 102. I am going to be 103 in December."
Narrator: "Do you feel 102?"
Sister Esther: "Sometime I feel like 200." (Laughter)
An active life is charactersitic of these Nuns.
Narrator: Sister Esther is one of the participants in "The Nun Study," in which each of the Sisters has agreed to donate her brain to research.
Sister: "I tell people we willed are barins to research. They say, 'OOH! You did?!' I say, well they are not much good to us after we die."
Narrator: The goal is to learn more about how conditions like Alzheimer's develop. In studying dozens of brains, Snowden made a remarkable discovery.
Dr. Snowden: "About half the Sisters are mentally normal when they die. And what is quite surprising to us is that a significant number of them have full-blown Alzheimer's disease in the brain that are acting normal."
Narrator: The question is, if so many Sisters' brains show evidence of Alzheimer's, why do so few of them have any of the memory loss and physical failing that are characteristic of the disease? The answer may have something to do with how active their minds are, even into old age.
Narrator: Sister Jane Francis is 95.
Sister Jane Francis: "They tell me if you work puzzles, you can keep your mind healthy. So I puzzle. Gotta keep thinking."
Narrator: 87 year-old Sister Clarisa likes to follow baseball.
Sister Clarisa: "Ooh, I feel young. I've been a sports fan all my life."
Narrator: 103-year old Sister Mathia keeps focused by knitting.
Sister Mathia: "If you don't keep your mind on this thing, you might miss one and have trouble later on."
Narrator: Many of these older Sisters have something in common besides longevity. They were teachers, with a college education.
Dr. Snowden: "We found that the higher educated sisters had a better chance of living to old-age. Once they got to old age, the higher-educated Sisters had better mental and physical function."
Narrator: Snowden believes that's because the better developed a person's brain is earlier in life, the better able it is to fight off degenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's later on.
Dr. Snowden: "Good mental function obviously is not inevitable, you can see that just by walking around the place."
Narrator: It may also have to do with the fact that the Nuns live in a supportive community and not alone. And they have deep religious faith, both of which have been shown to lower the chances of developing heart disease and stroke. What researchers are wondering is, just how long will these women live?
Sister: "I might live a little bit longer, yes. (Laughter) It depends on what God wants."
Dr. Snowden: "Yup."
Narrator: What the Nuns seem to show is, how old your body and mind are does not matter. It is how active you have kept them for all of your life.
Active memory training has visible effects on the growth of receptors in our brains. The world-reknowned Karolinska Institute
has proven this for the first time, opening a floodgate of fascinating questions.
