Brainpower is not declining in men and women as a new study shows people who reached their mid-90s in 2010 are mentally sharper than those who are the same age that lived a decade earlier.
"The finding is a challenge to the 'failure-of-success' hypothesis, in which increased longevity, caused by lowering death from chronic diseases, actually leads to an overall decline in the health of elderly people," according to Kaare Christensen, MD, of the University of Southern Denmark in Odense, Denmark, and colleagues, MedPage Today reports.
Christensen and the research team's study findings were published in the journal The Lancet.
Researchers compared two groups of "people born in 1905, who were 92 and 93 in 1998 and all those born in 1915 and still living in 2010, at 94 and 95," according to MedPage today.
They assessed the Denmark study volunteers' mental and physical abilities, using the same tests and methods in each test group. Researchers reported that the younger test volunteers did significantly better that the older group.
"That's not to say that everyone in the later [group] was healthy, smart and functioning well, but compared to those who were born 10 years earlier, not only were more living to a higher age, but they were functioning better," Christensen told USA Today.
According to the researchers, the findings show the future functional problems of the elderly people maybe less than predicted. The findings provide "impressive evidence that older today can be better than years past, especially in regards to brain health," Sandra Bond Chapman, founder and chief director of the Center for BrainHealth at The University of Texas-Dallas, told USA Today.
Chapman was did not take part in the new study, but her team also published their research in 2010 showing that engaging in cognitively challenging activities will strengthen and persevere mental functions.
"Until recently, cognitive losses in aging were viewed as an inevitable consequence of living longer rather than a brain condition to be addressed," Chapman told USA Toady. "[The data] provides hard evidence to inspire hope and motivation for the global graying and aging of the brain in developed countries."
