University graduates are more likely to suffer a swift demise from dementia than their less educated peers, research suggests.
Those who spend longer in education typically have brain ‘reserves’ helping them fend off early symptoms, a review of evidence found.
It means more advanced disease has usually set in by the time they are finally diagnosed, so they appear to die sooner.
Analysis of 261 studies, including 36 relating to educational attainment, found life expectancy after a dementia diagnosis decreased for every extra year of education.
Patients typically survived for 10.5 years but researchers discovered each additional year of studies cut survival time by around 2.5 months.
The finding suggest someone who completed an undergraduate degree at 21 would live a year less than someone who left school after their GCSEs or O-Levels.
Dutch researchers have labelled it the ‘cognitive reserve paradigm’, where people of higher intelligence are able to function for longer without any obvious signs or symptoms of the disease.
When cognitive reserves are depleted, the disease is at a more advanced stage, meaning they typically have fewer years to live compared to people diagnosed sooner.
Those who spend longer in education typically have brain ‘reserves’ helping them fend off early dementia symptoms, a review of evidence found (file image)
Analysis of 261 studies, including 36 relating to educational attainment, found life expectancy after a dementia diagnosis decreased for every extra year of education (file image)
Writing in the BMJ, scientists at Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam, said: ‘This paradigm postulates that people with higher education are more resilient to brain injury before functional declines.
‘Once this reserve has been used up and dementia is diagnosed, these people are already at a more advanced stage of the underlying disease and clinical progression will be faster.’
Alzheimer’s disease is the most common cause of dementia and is set to affect more than a million Britons by the middle of this century.
The condition is caused by certain proteins clumping together in the brain, including amyloid and tau, which new drugs are trying to stop from occurring.
While there are no disease-modifying treatments available on the NHS, new treatment development means there is growing hope of a future where it is treatable and even curable.
Meanwhile, people are encouraged to keep brains active with number and word puzzles, which can help build up a ‘cognitive reserve’, which will allow them to retain abilities for longer, even if dementia develops.
Previous studies have found puzzles can help build up a ‘cognitive reserve’, which is the ability to retain abilities for longer, even if dementia develops.
Alzheimer’s Research UK encourages people to boost brain health by keeping ‘mentally active’ throughout life.
It states: ‘Regularly challenging our brain and staying mentally active can help protect our brain health as we age, lowering our risk of memory and thinking problems and dementia.’
The BMJ study found men lived for an average of 5.7 years when they were diagnosed at age 65, and 2.2 years when diagnosed at 85.
Women meanwhile lived for 8 years and 4.5 years when diagnosed at the same ages.
Survival was longer among Asian populations than other ethnic groups, and among people with Alzheimer’s disease compared with other forms of dementia.
On average, people spend about one third of their life after diagnosis in a nursing home, with more than half of people moving to a nursing home within five years.
