1/12/2012 PERMALINK
Long term study finds significant age-related cognitive decline beings in your 40's. Few assessments of the effect of age on cognitive decline use data that spans over several years. This was the specific objective of the study led by researchers from Inserm and the University College London. As part of the Whitehall II cohort study, medical data was extracted for 5,198 men and 2,192 women, aged between 45 and 70 at the beginning of the study, monitored over a 10-year period. The cognitive functions of the participants were evaluated three times over this time. Individual tests were used to assess memory, vocabulary, reasoning and verbal fluency.
The results show that cognitive performance (apart from the vocabulary tests) declines with age and more rapidly so as the individual's age increases. The decline is significant in each age group. For example, during the period studied, reasoning scores decreased by 3.6% for men aged between 45 and 49, and 9.6% for those aged between 65 and 70. The corresponding figures for women stood at 3.6% and 7.4% respectively. The authors underline that evidence pointing to cognitive decline before the age of 60 has significant consequences.