Americans with a college education live longer without dementia and Alzheimer's
Data from the large, long-running U.S. Health and Retirement Study found that healthy cognition characterized most of the people with at least a college education into their late 80s, while those who didn’t complete high school had good cognition up until their 70s.
The study found that those who had at least a college education lived a much shorter time with dementia than those with less than a high school education: an average of 10 months for men and 19 months for women, compared to 2.57 years (men) and 4.12 years (women).
The data suggests that those who graduated high school can expect to live (on average) at least 70% of their remaining life after 65 with good cogntion, compared to more than 80% for those with a college education, and less than 50% for those who didn't finish high school.
The analysis was based on a sample of 10,374 older adults (65+; average age 74) in 2000 and 9,995 in 2010.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2018-04/uosc-awa041618.php
https://academic.oup.com/psychsocgerontology/article/73/suppl_1/S20/4971564 (open access)
More education linked to better cognitive functioning later in life
Data from around 196,000 subscribers to Lumosity online brain-training games found that higher levels of education were strong predictors of better cognitive performance across the 15- to 60-year-old age range of their study participants, and appear to boost performance more in areas such as reasoning than in terms of processing speed.
Differences in performance were small for test subjects with a bachelor's degree compared to those with a high school diploma, and moderate for those with doctorates compared to those with only some high school education.
But people from lower educational backgrounds learned novel tasks nearly as well as those from higher ones.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2017-08/l-mel082117.php
http://www.futurity.org/higher-education-cognitive-peak-1523712/
Youthful cognitive ability strongly predicts mental capacity later in life
Data from more than 1,000 men participating in the Vietnam Era Twin Study of Aging revealed that their cognitive ability at age 20 was a stronger predictor of cognitive function later in life than other factors, such as higher education, occupational complexity or engaging in late-life intellectual activities.
All of the men, now in their mid-50s to mid-60s, took the Armed Forces Qualification Test at an average age of 20. The same test of general cognitive ability (GCA) was given in late midlife, plus assessments in seven cognitive domains.
GCA at age 20 accounted for 40% of the variance in the same measure at age 62, and approximately 10% of the variance in each of the seven cognitive domains. Lifetime education, complexity of job and engagement in intellectual activities each accounted for less than 1% of variance at average age 62.
The findings suggest that the impact of education, occupational complexity and engagement in cognitive activities on later life cognitive function simply reflects earlier cognitive ability.
The researchers speculated that the role of education in increasing GCA takes place primarily during childhood and adolescence when there is still substantial brain development.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/uoc--yca011819.php
Reference:
[4484]
(2018). Educational Differences in the Prevalence of Dementia and Life Expectancy with Dementia: Changes from 2000 to 2010.
The Journals of Gerontology: Series B. 73(suppl_1), S20 - S28.
Guerra-Carrillo, B., Katovich, K., & Bunge, S. A. (2017). Does higher education hone cognitive functioning and learning efficacy? Findings from a large and diverse sample. PLOS ONE, 12(8), e0182276. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0182276
[4485]
(2019). Influence of young adult cognitive ability and additional education on later-life cognition.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 116(6), 2021.
