Going
for a grand slam could do more for you than winning at bridge, say
scientists who found a link between the card game and an improved
immune reaction.
A small study of a dozen bridge
players found that most had an increase in the production of
disease-fighting white cells after completing a round of the game.
"This is a preliminary study
and needs to be further tested, but it is the first time we've had
a specific region in the [human] cerebral cortex that is related
to the immune system, showing the area has been stimulated,"
says Marian Cleeves Diamond, a professor at the University of
California at Berkeley.
Diamond is presenting the findings
of her study today in New Orleans at the annual meeting of the
Society for Neuroscience.
In the study, Diamond and fellow
researchers tested the blood of three groups of bridge foursomes,
composed of healthy women, both before and after they played a
round of bridge. Two of the three groups showed a marked increase
in the number of white blood cells, called T cells or T
lymphocytes, after they had completed their game. In the third
foursome, there was a slight, but not statistically significant
increase following the game.
Diamond says she doesn't know why
one of the groups did not have as large an increase as the other
two.
"They were a more professional
type of bridge player," she says of the third group, and
perhaps their play came more easily to them, but that is only a
guess.
Diamond's experiment is the
culmination of more than 15 years of work on rat and mouse brains
in search of a cortical area connected to the immune system. In
her animal studies, she and her colleagues have traced activity of
the dorsolateral cortex to an activated thymus, which is in turn
responsible for the production of T cells, the white blood cells
key to an efficient immune system.
In her next round of experiments,
Diamond would like to use an MRI to see if the dorsolateral cortex
actually does show greater activity during bridge playing than
during rest.
"That's cool," says Kerry
Kappall, director and bridge teacher at the Manhattan Bridge Club
in New York City. "I knew bridge was good for the brain, but
I didn't know it was good for the immune system."
What To Do
Take up bridge; it can't hurt you,
and it just may help your health.
