New Study Suggests ‘Senior Moments’ Begin At Much Earlier Age
By Alice Shaw
Contributing Writer
The next time you have a “senior moment” in the presence of your middle-aged children, don’t be embarrassed. They may be having some of the same memory problems that are tormenting you.
A recently completed study of 9,250 civil servants aged 45 to 70 in England showed that while all mental functions except vocabulary declined faster in the oldest participants, these functions also declined in the youngest participants.
In other words, the brain starts ever so slowly to fail in your mid-40s. The only exception, the researchers said, was vocabulary, which they said is known to be little “influenced by age.” (Education was taken into consideration in analyzing all the test results.)
The researchers included scientists from Oxford University and Bristol University in England, several French universities and the Harvard School of Public Health.
The study said that although mental impairment is perhaps the single most disabling condition in old age, many gerontologists still believe that mental decline begins no earlier than age 60. Many physicians cling to this view, the researchers said, despite the fact that dementia is known to have a long gestation period (20-30 years) and that brain tangles and amyloid plaques which are “the hallmarks of [brain] pathology are known to be present in the brains of young adults.”
The finding that mental decline begins in middle age is very important, the researchers said, because it hopefully will lead to the development of drugs and other therapies that could prevent full fledged dementia.
The researchers acknowledged that despite much research on early diagnosis, clinical studies have yet to identify biomarkers or “cognitive profiles” that accurately predict dementia. Nevertheless, they said that with respect to dementia, there is enough evidence to show the importance of healthy lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factors. For some of these risk factors, such as obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, they said “it is mid-life levels that seem to be more important than those measured at older ages.”
The researchers said: “There is emerging consensus that ‘what is good for our hearts is also good for our heads.’” Men and women, they said, should undertake aggressive control of cardiovascular risk factors as early as possible.
Contributing Writer
The next time you have a “senior moment” in the presence of your middle-aged children, don’t be embarrassed. They may be having some of the same memory problems that are tormenting you.
A recently completed study of 9,250 civil servants aged 45 to 70 in England showed that while all mental functions except vocabulary declined faster in the oldest participants, these functions also declined in the youngest participants.
In other words, the brain starts ever so slowly to fail in your mid-40s. The only exception, the researchers said, was vocabulary, which they said is known to be little “influenced by age.” (Education was taken into consideration in analyzing all the test results.)
The researchers included scientists from Oxford University and Bristol University in England, several French universities and the Harvard School of Public Health.
The study said that although mental impairment is perhaps the single most disabling condition in old age, many gerontologists still believe that mental decline begins no earlier than age 60. Many physicians cling to this view, the researchers said, despite the fact that dementia is known to have a long gestation period (20-30 years) and that brain tangles and amyloid plaques which are “the hallmarks of [brain] pathology are known to be present in the brains of young adults.”
The finding that mental decline begins in middle age is very important, the researchers said, because it hopefully will lead to the development of drugs and other therapies that could prevent full fledged dementia.
The researchers acknowledged that despite much research on early diagnosis, clinical studies have yet to identify biomarkers or “cognitive profiles” that accurately predict dementia. Nevertheless, they said that with respect to dementia, there is enough evidence to show the importance of healthy lifestyle and cardiovascular risk factors. For some of these risk factors, such as obesity, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, they said “it is mid-life levels that seem to be more important than those measured at older ages.”
The researchers said: “There is emerging consensus that ‘what is good for our hearts is also good for our heads.’” Men and women, they said, should undertake aggressive control of cardiovascular risk factors as early as possible.
