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Massive study finds strong correlation between "early affluence" and "faster cognitive drop" in old age
A paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science reports on new analysis of the Survey of Health, Aging, and Retirement in Europe (SHARE), which tracks outcomes for 24,066 people aged 50-96 with a good balance of genders (56% female), and reports a strong correlation between "early affluence" and "faster cognitive drop" in "verbal fluency" (measured with an animal naming challenge). SHARE is the largest study of its kind, with more than double the subjects of similar projects.
Overall, the data showed that people whose childhoods were characterised by early affluence (measured by the subject's life circumstances at the age of ten, including main breadwinner's job, books in the house, overcrowding and housing quality) experienced cognitive decline at 1.6 times the rate of the least advantaged group in the study.
The decline was only for the "verbal fluency" measure; another measure, "delayed recall" (remembering items from a list of 10 words) did not worsen with levels of affluence.
Also, the overall levels of verbal fluency and delayed recall rose with early affluence levels.
That is, the wealthier you were as a kid, the more verbal fluency and delayed recall you had as an adult, but when you started to lose your verbal fluency, the rate of loss was faster than in those who were poorer than you as a kid.
This finding is unexpected, because it seems to contradict the leading theory of "cognitive reserve" which holds that advantaged childhoods allow people to build up "brain reserves" which are used to repair cognitive damage later in life. Read the rest
Original Link: http://feeds.boingboing.net/~r/boingboing/iBag/~3/_18CTJ9o-eE/possible-survivor-bias.html
