Health aNd Fitness Guide

Turning a few pages of a book keeps your mind sharp for life. Baltimore’s Center for Occupational and Environmental Neurology studied 112 factory workers with similar blood levels of lead, a known mental health hazard, and those with a 11th-grade reading level or lower did half as well on cognitive tests as better readers. Researchers say bookworms develop a brainpower reservoir that’s tapped when disease or ageing threatens their grey matter.