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New Research Shows Cognitive Decline Begins At 45
An anonymous reader writes "New research shows people might start to suffer from cognitive decline as early as age 45. The research, which looked at over 7000 people between the ages of 45 and 70 when the study started, watched participants over a 10 year period. Disturbingly enough, even the youngest participants started declining immediately."
I just turned 45 and don't feel any decline in my... wait, what were we talking about?
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And old was the youngest boss of him? I guess, 45?
Trolling is a art!
It's why people go to school when they're young and malleable. The brain is in learning mode when you're young, and in teaching mode when you're older. It's not a sudden transition, like flipping a switch. News at 11.
Any 50-year old could have told you this ;-) However, note that we're talking about a fairly narrow subset of cognition here...
Did they properly consult the AD&D chart for character age? I show INT and especially WIS increasing over time.
When the foot seeks the place of the head, the line is crossed. Know your place. Keep your place. Be a shoe.
Cognitive decline coincides with participating in scientific studies! Film at 11.
I thought cognitive decline already starts (slowly) around an age of 30. Therefore, it is strange this study does not consider people younger than 45.
Perhaps its age, or perhaps its from years of flouride in the drinking water, BPA in everything we eat, and other poisons like artificial sweetener.
people's desire to fund a more serious approach to anti-aging and life extension. Otherwise I'm not sure who's going to be doing all this galaxy colonizing that's so important to Slashdotters.
Cognitive function is not all that counts in being successful in life. Emotional intelligence ('maturity'), judgement and experience ('wisdom') might increase with age and might be fair trade for a slight decline in raw processing power. Life can get easier post-50 with these skills.
Surely that means that cognitive decline begins earlier than 45 and the age range they studied was inadequate for measuring the onset of cognitive decline?
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
What were we talking about?
as soon as we're born we start to die, i'm just trying to get a piece of that apple pie, and a place where my kids can play outside, without livin in fear of a drive by.
This is why we should move the Social Security retirement age down to 55. It would free up jobs for the young, and let us old folks relax with our monthly check and medicare.
* Carthago Delenda Est *
More likely its people just stop using their brains and continuing to learn new things.
Grokking something is one thing, but I can tell you from personal experience that my grandfather who only made it to the 3rd grade is incredibly wise. He foresaw the dot-com bubble in 2000, the housing crash now and countless other things to which at the time I thought he was foolish and didn't understand how the world changed. I was the fool! Should the Zombie apocalypse occur I would much rather be with him, than a bunch of 44 year olds with nothing but book smarts. Intelligence is important but it's often over emphasized.
Once again, Slashdot is the epitome of bad science reporting :)
The study shows that in a group of people ranging from 45 - 70, they found that cognitive decline was present in all of them. That means that cognitive decline begins AT LEAST at 45. TFA says "As early as 45", which is technically true but sort of dishonest IMHO, and the original paper doesn't make any such explicit conclusions.
Sigh.
"Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it; once realized, it becomes commonplace." -Robert H. Goddard
The sample age was 45-70 and they found that cognitive decline started at 45? Shouldn't they have started sampling people in their 30's to see a better bell curve?
The fact that even 45 year olds showed decline indicates that it starts earlier than the sample.
I'd be willing to bet it starts a lot younger than 45. I'm in my 30's and I've definitely noticed a difference in the last 10 years. Not a huge difference but a difference nonetheless.
Think about it from an evolution perspective. After we find a mate, have offspring, and make sure they're able to at least somewhat fend for themselves, what do we need sharp cognition for anymore?
giggity
I have to wonder what kind of jobs in the civil service the study group did, whether they were primarily civil service jobs which had more or less the same thing day in, day out - or whether they were civil service jobs that required frequent learning and active problem solving.
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"as early as 45" not the same as "at 45"
Other research shows that you're not really a grown-up w.r.t. risk taking until age 25.
So you've only got 20 good years. Use them wisely...
All ideas^H^H^H^H^Hprocesses in this post are Patent Pending. (as well as the process of patenting all postings)
And old was the youngest boss of him? I guess, 45?
Wha? Were you part of the study?
I had a calculus tutor in high school, he was retired and had to have been at least 70, but he was brilliant and his analytical skills don't seem to have declined at all.
I would expect that the amount you exercise your brain, and how healthy you eat/exercise, plays a big role.
Don't know, can't remember anymore...
Trolling is a art!
This is not new. For a long time IQ test results have been normalised by age to ensure that 100 is the average score not just over the whole population, but also within each age-range slice. In such normalisations, decline is apparent from well before 45. ...But let's not get obsessed with the pros and cons of IQ as a metric. For all it's flaws it is some sort of measure of cognitive ability.
If you read the study (I know, nodbody does that), you could see that the test basis are office personell in administration. Compared to students and people working knowledge intesive areas, they do not have to learn that much new facts every day. As other studies (use google if you want) have shown, cognitive skills decline when you reduce the learning. In a German study they have shown that the decline starts earlier in people who left school with 16 and hand a job since then compared to academic personell or researcher who have to learn new stuff every day. The latter group hand only minimal decline in cognitive skills (much less than those shown in the study mentioned above for a 10 year period).
Two ways of looking at that, brains well preserved because unused or brains decaying because unused. I'm only half-joking about this. I spent nearly 10 years as the 'help' [a consultant] at the European Commission, I've never seen such a concentration of bright people, so totally unchallenged, except for sporadic inter-departmental turf wars. Use it or lose it?
On y va, qui mal y pense!
Civil service booze must be weak.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
Spoken like a young person with no wisdom. The last thing we is people *not* dying.
I can't find a better source in the brief time I have, but observe the following:
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.t11.htm
This table shows breakdown of leisure activities by age. Note the rather large increase in TV hours between category 35-44 and 45-54. And note the rather large drop in chitchat hours between those same categories.
(This explanation does suffer from the fact that the youngest participants in this study are age 45.)
Of all the sources of science reporting that are available in English, New Scientist is close to the bottom of the pile in terms of accuracy. Quite a few times I've read something they've reported, thought "that can't be right," then gone to the original study or press release and found that in fact, no, what they reported was not correct.
Curse you, Saturday Morning Cartoons!
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
"Disturbingly enough, even the youngest participants started declining immediately."
I'd say studies show that participating in studies causes decline.
Wikipedia has tables of world chess champions in the various eras (by governing body), along with age of the champion.
It seems that chessplayers age somewhat like golfers... they tend to peak around age 25-40, although there are outstanding exceptions who can still compete at the top level in their 40's and even 50's. Players accumulate chess-specific skill and experience as they age, of course, as well as self-management and other practical skills, counterbalancing any decline in faculties, so this age range may be skewed to the high side of the "true" cognitive peak.
You're right, there's definitely a flaw in this scientific process: 7,000 subjects (British civil servants), eight authors (of mixed age, gender, and nationality), greater than a decade long study, rigorous statistics, peer review in a well respected journal, and... you.
As other posters have noted, a lot depends on how much you exercise your brain. Yes, I'm well past 45, and yes, I do draw blanks in the middle of a conversation sometimes... but truthfully, I did the same thing back in my 20's! Yet I still find plenty of time to do new things that work my brain. I think this is much more important than anything else.
âoeAny society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.
On the positive side all the people in the test were civil servants, so any cognitive decline wasn't noticeable and had no effect on their ability to perform their jobs!
----------------------------------- My Other Sig Is Hilarious -----------------------------------
Most people are not fit nor do they have good eating habits at any age much less their 40's, to much fat, sugar and salt will lead to an earlier decline, so someone that exercises regularly and eats fruits, vegetables, healthy fats and no sugar are going to have far less decline than the average American.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity#Fitness_and_Exercise
http://www.livescience.com/2675-good-diet-exercise-brain-healthy.html
Look around you at all the people you see in the 40's, how many of them are overweight? How many obese? I would say that the environmental challenges (food, food additives) people face are the most likely cause of early decline in brain function.
On top of all that most people stop challenging their brains at around 35 moving forward so if you don't use it you lose it.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
Yes, cognitive decline starts early. Nobody expects a 45 year old to be as quick witted as a 25 year old.
But after a cursory scan of the study paper, I think the more interesting revelation is the greater cognitive decline in women vs men in the decade between age 45 and 55. Table 2 on page 8 of the study shows the following:
Difference in score between age 45-49 and 55-59 (percent change):
Facility, Men, Women
Reasoning, -3.2, -11.4
Memory, -3.6, -6.5
Phonemic fluency,-2.9, -6.5
Semantic fluency, -3.4, -7.9
Vocabulary, 1.0, -7.4
(Slashdot's brain damaged 'junk' filter forced me to mangle the table. Apologies.)
This shows a much bigger drop in cognitive performance among women than men. Men fell about 3% in reasoning and memory while women fell 6 to 11 percent, or 2x or 3x FARTHER than men during those 10 years.
The study also attempts to correct these results for education. A greater education diminishes the differential among men by perhaps .5 to 1% (subtractive difference in percentiles) and among women by 2 to 4%.
I hope the authors will follow up with further analyses of this data. Clearly there are more compelling stories to tell than the simplistic takeaway, "Senility starts at 45".
Most people experience cognitive decline and sever depression when they realize that they are in a study conducted by British researchers and there is no escape.
Oh well! If the statistics support it, then it's absolutely true, for every single individual!
In my experience most people plod their way through life and never really use their brain except to prevent their skull from collapsing in on itself. How can you miss something you never really used?
What I remember from the news segment was that the study covered civil servants in Britain.
As in people who don't use the little cognitive function that they have to begin with.
Do people really think that something which is hard won by education and training will just maintain itself without any use?
Does this mean that people with low UIDs won't get moddes up as much now?
Be careful with interpretation. The study is about detecting cognitive decline to help predict dementia. In the actual study summary (available through the links in the slashdot summary), the researchers reference other studies that show cognitive decline does not begin until 60 (Seattle study) and 55 (I forget which study). They, the researchers do not dispute this and talk about the need for additional research to determine better techniques to evaluate the decline.
It is not news that cognitive decline occurs with advancing years. The research is about trying to detect the decline that leads to dementia at an earlier time so that treatments can be applied when they will have the most impact. The researchers state that dementia appears to be a process that progresses over 20 to 30 years, so if it manifests itself in the 60s, they are trying to see what evidence there is in the 40s.
From my own personal observations, since I am now beyond the age 45 when they state decline begins. I would agree with that. There are somethings that I am not nearly at good at as I was ten years ago (remembering names of new people I meet or long lists of items). On the other hand, I've done some of my most productive research in the last few years.
My own theory is that for many of the cognitive declines that the study found to be normal, we tend to compensate for (smart phones help tremendously with long lists. Before that PDAs or even daytimers). I also think, though, that with age, comes experience and very often experience provides insight that raw cognitive power might not see. So it is a trade off. There is a reason why we have a stereotype of the wisest people being older people.
Put differently, if you needed heart surgery, would you want the cardiac surgeon just finished with their residency and at their cognitive prime or the 50 yr old surgeon, who has experience a slight decline in cognitive ability, but has performed the particular procedure 500 times?
I'm not sure you understand the concept of statistics.
So, the average Slashdot reader will achieve normal IQ at around age 80?
All participants were British civil servants!
So we now know with a lot of certainty that British civil servants go daft past 45.
Well, gee, who wouldda thunk?
Maybe some of the cognitive tests should have engaged their skills at maintaining career longevity in a backstabbing, ass-kissing environment.
and you die, and the process of growing old sucks
but stephen hawking at 85 is 100x the mental state of snooki at 25. it's all relative
accept your mortality, accept your essential human frailties and weaknesses, deal with it, move on, enjoy your life
death smiles on us all. all a man can do is smile back
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I have heard that too, and I'll mention Joseph Chilton Pearce remarked on that. He says that in the early 30's many people get one more good boost in comprehension.
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That's why I never hire anyone over 44.
Early onset of Alzheimer's disease has been known about for a long time. Now that they are getting in the age group to get it, suddenly it's a damn emergency and needs all our resources to solve!
I can't wait for the great adult-diaper emergency of 2020 and then the "OMG we are running out of burial plots!" crisis. :|
Actually, there is a flaw in the reporting of the study: Cognitive decline begins at 45 at the latest. It may begin earlier, but younger groups were not tested. This is an important distinction.
Not a sentence!
Yes! But will we be happier?
A lot of this is under a person's control.
Regular vigorous exercise, a good diet low in crap, high in fresh produce, regular sleep patterns, using the old brain/learning new things and moderate to no recreational drug use all HELP.
However, recently there was an article to this effect on Slashdot and there was a crowd of people crying about how "EVERYTING will hurt you". Add a few "bacon!" chants.
Oh well, vote democrat now so there will be a plan to pay for your at home care person to spoon feed you your goo.
I think this sums that lite article up: oldster on January 6, 2012 6:46 PM At least I know I will forget I read this article...
And of course, there is the 4Chan demographic. It would be fun to see what a similar test would do with these folks. My suspicion is that it would be as close to a flat line as you could get.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
7,000 British civil servants are not sufficient to establish that this is a real effect, it could just as easily be something wrong with the jobs in civil service there are cultural ones related to being British. The age, gender and nationality of the authors doesn't automatically fix possible problems with the sampling. I'm sure that the results are fairly accurate for that particular demographic, but it requires a bit of justification to generalize that beyond that cultural niche.
You should check the meaning of 'cognitive decline'.
While you are at it, you should check http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroplasticity. Nerves are the same as muscles. We can grow new nerves and muscles by exercising them. Use it or lose it applies to both.
You aren't fated to become senile.
I just turned 46, and this is definitely true. I remember that we invaded Iraq, and I'm sure there must have been valid reasons for that, but I can't remember them. I clearly remember voting for Obama because he was a constitutional law professor who promised to restore civil liberties and the rule of law, but I can't remember anything he did to follow up on that. I seem to remember intentionally flying from SF to NY in 1986 without any form of ID, but obviously that can't be right, because if people had been able to do that for all those years, our country would have been immediately destroyed by terrorists.
Find free books.
I think they do not realize that most men over 45 have realized that playing dumb is a gooood idea. Or, don't tell them what you know until you have no other choice!
I suspect cognitive decline starts somewhere in early childhood. Babies are smarter than you imagine. From my own personal experience, I may "know" more now than I ever have, but my brain doesn't work nearly as well as it did when I was a child. Think about all the things you had already learned by your first birthday (and you spent most of that year sleeping). Once I began talking it only took me a year or so to have a functional grasp on the english language (which is a ridiculously difficult language to learn). If there was a way to teach a baby about quantum mechanics, I'm pretty sure he'd have this whole unification thing figured out before middle school.
had serious problems.
Tell me something I don't already know!
It might be too many years of working at the Ministry of Silly Walks.
It seems they really did know everything.
They just forgot it by the time they reached 45.
Statistics are like religion. They don't mean a damned thing, but you can rally people together with them, and that's useful at times.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
Speaking as an old guy (over 50), I probably don't learn new stuff as quickly as I used to. OTOH, I don't really need to, since most of the new stuff is similar to old stuff that I already know.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
7,000 subjects (British civil servants)...
I can't accept the results of this study without a form 27B-6.
Most people are idiots, and don't improve with age.
As a French singer wrote and sang long ago:
Le temps ne fait rien à l’affaire ...
Quand on est con, on est con
(time doesn't matter, when you're a moron you're a moron)
cognitive research causes a person's cognitive abilities to decline.
"I don't have to think. I only have to do it. The results are always perfect, but that's old news." - Meat Puppets
Maybe their test is so boring that people don't want to try as hard when they're re-tested. On the other hand, a test which is so boring that you continue to be bored by it over a ten year period might have some useful boredom technology in it.
So is the ability to correctly use the apostrophe.
Were these test subjects "people of faith"?
If so, this study can be marked "As useful as the shrimp on a treadmill study", and we can move on.
No, statistics is a very powerful tool that can provide deep insights and solutions to some otherwise impossible problems. Just because you (and most people) don't understand how to properly use them doesn't mean they're bullshit.
Huh? The only real error I saw in GP's statement is that it wasn't "sufficient to establish that this is a real effect", and even he corrected himself by saying it was well supported for that demographic.
The possibility of a systematic bias is still real, just as the possibility that results on a test animal don't generalize to other mammals. I'm sure that a study on the muscle mass of horses would be very different no matter your sample size if you chose just racehorses, or just wild horses. Sure, it may not matter, but that remains to be determined.
Great, more ammo to justify age discrimination in the workplace.
My observation is that if you keep doing one thing, you keep getting better and better. Where aging hurts is in learning new concepts that are too different than what you are used to.
The best NBA coaches tend to be in their 60's and 70's. If aging alone "ruined" them, then most successful coaches would be younger.
In summary, experience overpowers hardware decline (brain power) in things you keep focusing on, but not the general ability to learn. General learning ability does decline.
Table-ized A.I.
I was surprised to see you were the first that posted this. My cognitive decline began in my mid-20's. I'm smarter than I was then, but I'm slower.
"I can feel it. I can feel it."
That should be "used to be". I need weaker springs on my keys, and I miss the old IBM keyboards that went CLACK!!! every time a keystroke was recorded.
Free Martian Whores!
27 B/6? Now look what you've done to him!
blog
He says that in the early 30's many people get one more good boost in comprehension.
Yes, that's when a lot of people have kids and suddenly realize their parents were right. Now that's a boost in comprehension!
Then there are the others who look at their former friends who are now newly minted parents and suddenly comprehend that you've got to be crazy to go that route. Big boost!
You shall see a cow on the roof of a cotton house.
Civil servants - so by 45 they are entrenched in their jobs and can cruise to retirement without engaging their brain.
Everybody agrees that a person is sharper at 15-20 than at 60-80. If this is the case, cognitive decline has to start at some age. Is it relevant if it starts at 45 or some other age ? Probably not. What's important is that decline is gradual, not an instant drop. Just like other "characteristics" : health, looks, amount of energy, etc.
Assuming all of this is true, lets even go so far as saying the effects begin well before 45. As there are a number of promising cognitive enhancers out there, better living through chemistry and all that, that could more than easily offset this, what are some of YOUR favorites?
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38588550
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2603836&cid=38588550
Statistics are like religion. They don't mean a damned thing, but you can rally people together with them, and that's useful at times.
Are you an arrogant young twat who doesn't understand statistics, or a stupid old fart who doesn't understand statistics?
I'm just curious.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
7,000 British civil servants are not sufficient to establish that this is a real effect
No one study is sufficient proof of anything, but I don't see what would be so unusual about a largish group of civil servants.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
This is definitely happening to me, but my theory is that its related to how your vision deteriorates after 40. I got cataracts early at age 42 and i simultaneously had a decline in vision (losing short sight so could not read without glasses, very common after 40). The effect its had on me has been inability to do most things related to thinking, such as reading, writing, and i don't know why but it has made my consiousness retreat inside my head and go all quiet. Not being able to see has made me unable to think clearly as well. Its as if the vacant blocks in my vision are also in my thoughts. I am still to get one eye repaired so i am currently half blind in one eye, can't see in 3d etc. its really mucking with my mind. But whatever's happening to me, i do feel that just the loss of visual ability in the 40's could have a similar effect on everybody, maybe less noticeable, but the loss of a sense doesn't give you superpowers in the other ones, except on tv lol.
You have to keep in mind that the "cognitive decline" doesn't refer to the performance a person can manifest towards a single activity, but their overall ability to work with things. Also, it's incredibly dependent on each individual person, obviously 45 isn't a magic year where people start to do less well, but there are clearly measurable decreases in the overall functioning of that individual.
You could be 90 and be awesome at calculus and various other tasks, but I guarantee you'll be lacking in some other faculties.