New Evidence for the Importance of Educational Attainment in Brain Health
upstart writes:
New evidence for the importance of educational attainment in brain health:
With aging populations and growing life expectancy, the number of people suffering from dementia is increasing. For more effective dementia prevention, it is important to better understand risk and protective factors affecting late-life cognition. It is known that midlife cardiovascular risk factors are associated with weaker late-life cognition (memory and other information processing skills). A new study from the University of Helsinki and the University of Turku aimed to examine if educational background affects this association. Over 4000 Finnish twins participated in the study published in Age and Ageing.
"The study showed that cardiovascular risk factors, such as high blood pressure, high cholesterol, high body mass index and physical inactivity, were associated with poorer late-life cognition. This association was stronger in those with lower educational attainment compared to those with higher education," tells postdoctoral researcher Paula Iso-Markku from the University of Helsinki, the lead author of the study.
The result emphasizes the importance of childhood and adolescent education in dementia prevention.
"The mechanisms are not yet known, but these results may reflect the effect of cognitive reserve. Higher educational attainment may increase cognitive reserve that helps to tolerate dementia risk factors better," says Academy of Finland Research Fellow Eero Vuoksimaa who led the study.
Journal Reference:
Paula Iso-Markku, Jaakko Kaprio, Noora Lindgren, et al. Education as a moderator of middle-age cardiovascular risk factor [open], Age and Ageing (DOI: 10.1093/ageing/afab228)
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