According to a new study,mental decline sets in by the age of 45, much earlier than previously thought.

Experts said that efforts to prevent dementia should start in middle age, as the most comprehensive study to date found that people’s cognitive powers are already waning by their mid-40s. Previously scientists had believed that there was no significant degeneration before the age of 60.

Poor cognitive status is perhaps the single most disabling condition in old age. As life expectancy continues to increase, understanding cognitive aging will be one of the challenges of this century.

Memory, reason and comprehension tests conducted on 7,000 British civil servants over a decade found decaying cognitive abilities even among the youngest in the sample, who were 45 at the start of the research. People in their late 40s saw their scores in mental reasoning tests decline by an average of 3.6 per cent by the time they were retested ten years later, according to research from the Whitehall II study— a follow-on to the Whitehall study, which also looked at civil servants — published in the British Medical Journal.

Anne Corbett, Research Manager of the Alzheimer’s Society said: “This large, important study adds vital information to the debate over when cognitive decline begins. However, the study does not tell us whether any of these people went on to develop dementia, nor how feasible it would be for GPs to detect these early changes.

“More research is now needed to help us fully understand how measurable changes in the brain can help us improve diagnosis of dementia.” ~ The Times

Source: The Times Whitehall II Study

Older people with low blood levels of vitamin B12 markers may be more likely to have lower brain volumes and have problems with their thinking skills, according to researchers at Rush University Medical Center.

The results of the study are published in the Sept. 27 issue of Neurology, the medical journal of the American Academy of Neurology.

Foods that come from animals, including fish, meat, especially liver, milk, eggs and poultry are usual sources of vitamin B12.

The study involved 121 older residents of the South side of Chicago who are a part of the Chicago Health and Aging Project (CHAP), which is a large, ongoing prospective Rush a biracial cohort of 10,000 subjects over the age of 65.

The 121 participants had blood drawn to measure levels of vitamin B12 and B12-related markers that can indicate a B12 deficiency. The same subjects took tests measuring their memory and other cognitive skills.

An average of four-and-a-half years later, MRI scans of the participants’ brains were taken to measure total brain volume and look for other signs of brain damage.

Having high levels of four of five markers for vitamin B12 deficiency was associated with having lower scores on the cognitive tests and smaller total brain volume. [continue reading…]

The more symmetrical a man’s face the more likely he is to remain mentally alert in later life, a study suggests.
Psychologists at the University have found that men with higher levels of facial symmetry are less likely to experience a slow down of brain power between the ages of 79 and 83 years.
Using results from the Scottish Mental Survey undertaken in 1932, researchers measured the facial symmetry of a sample of men and women. [continue reading…]