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 to 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 fell 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 findings suggest someone who completed an undergraduate degree at 21 would live a year less than someone who didn’t go on to tertiary studies.
Dutch researchers have labelled it the “cognitive reserve paradigm”, where people of higher intelligence are able to function for longer without obvious signs or symptoms of the disease.
But when those cognitive reserves are depleted, the disease is more advanced, meaning they typically have fewer years to live compared with those diagnosed sooner.
“This paradigm postulates that people with higher education are more resilient to brain injury before functional declines,” the academics wrote in the BMJ journal.
“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.”
The study at Erasmus University Medical Centre in Rotterdam 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 lived for eight years and 4.5 years when diagnosed at the same ages.
Survival was longer among those with Alzheimer’s compared with other forms of dementia.
On average, people spend about one third of their life after diagnosis in a nursing home.
More than half moved to a nursing home within five years.
Dementia is the second leading cause of death in Australia, after heart disease. However, for women, dementia is the leading cause of death.
More than 70 per cent of dementia cases in Australia are attributed to Alzheimer’s disease.
Without a significant medical breakthrough, over a million Australians are forecast to have Alzheimer’s disease by 2058.
However, there is growing hope of a future with treatments or even a cure.
Lecanemab is a disease modifying treatment for people living with the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease or mild cognitive impairment.
Lecanemab works by removing amyloid plaques from the brain and slowing cognitive decline.
In the UK, Alzheimer’s Research UK encourages people to boost their brain health.
“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,” it said.
https://thewest.com.au/news/health/university-graduates-more-likely-to-suffer-from-dementia-compared-to-their-less-educated-peers-research-finds-c-17520011
