Study Links 2 Decades of Financial Stress to Lower Cognitive Scores and Brain Shrinkage
Updated
Updated · Yahoo! Voices · Jul 31
Study Links 2 Decades of Financial Stress to Lower Cognitive Scores and Brain Shrinkage
3 articles · Updated · Yahoo! Voices · Jul 31
Summary
2,759 people tracked across adulthood showed that persistent low income and repeated financial hardship were tied to lower verbal memory and processing-speed scores by age 53.
Brain scans at ages 69 to 71 in a smaller subgroup also linked persistent low income to greater brain atrophy, even after accounting for childhood cognition, education and early disadvantage.
One in six participants had persistent low income and about one in eight reported repeated hardship, with stronger shrinkage links seen in men, people from disadvantaged homes and Alzheimer’s-risk gene carriers.
The study cannot prove causation and covers one British birth cohort born in 1946, but it suggests chronic financial strain may raise later-life cognitive decline and dementia risk.