GENEVA — Regular reading, having a command of more than one language, remaining fit or at least physically active, healthy eating, and sleeping well earlier in life have all been linked in recent years to preventing dementia or at least delaying its onset among those whose family history implies susceptibility.

According to researchers at Tilburg University in the Netherlands, the University of Geneva and Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, regular babysitting by granny and grandad is likely another potential bulwark against the effects of aging.

"Grandparents who provide care for their grandchildren tend to show better cognitive functioning than those who do not," the team said in a paper published in Psychology and Aging, an American Psychological Association (APA) journal.

"Grandparents who provided childcare scored higher on tests of both memory and verbal fluency compared with those who didn’t, even after adjusting for age, health and other factors," the researchers found, after examining survey data covering almost 2,900 participants in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.

Between 2016 and 2022, the grandparents involved in the study were asked three times if they had helped parents by taking care of sick grandchildren, picking them up from school or nursery, preparing meals for them, helping with or overseeing homework, having them stay overnight or generally being quickly available should any need arise.

"What stood out most to us was that being a caregiving grandparent seemed to matter more for cognitive functioning than how often grandparents provided care or what exactly they did with their grandchildren," said Tilburg’s Flavia Chereches.