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A 100K-Person Study Found A Surprising Way To Cut Dementia Risk
When dementia runs in your family, it's natural to wonder whether you'll face the same challenges as your relatives.
Genetics can influence your chances of developing Alzheimer's disease and related dementias, but they aren't the only factor involved.
Researchers have been exploring how life experiences might shape brain health over time, including whether education plays a role.
A large study of more than 100,000 people used a change in school-leaving laws to investigate whether an extra year of education could influence dementia risk decades later.
About the study
People who spend longer in school may also differ in other ways, such as their childhood circumstances, socioeconomic background, or genetics, that affect their health as they age. That makes it difficult to tell whether education itself helps protect the brain.
To get a clearer answer, researchers looked at a 1972 law in the UK that required teenagers to stay in school until age 16 instead of 15.
The rule applied to people born on or after September 1, 1957. Researchers compared dementia rates among people born just before and after that date, whose schooling differed because of the law.
They used medical records and death records to track dementia diagnoses through the end of 2022.
An extra year of education was linked to lower dementia risk
People who had to stay in school for an additional year were less likely to develop dementia later in life. The researchers estimated that the extra schooling lowered the likelihood of developing dementia by about 1.2 percentage points.
Put simply, the difference was modest in absolute terms, but it suggested that an additional year of education could have a lasting effect on brain health.
The researchers also examined participants' genetic risk for Alzheimer's disease, including variations in the APOE gene that are associated with a higher likelihood of developing the condition.
Before the policy change, people with higher genetic risk had more dementia diagnoses than those with lower risk. Afterward, the difference between the groups became much smaller, dropping from 0.18 percentage points to 0.02 percentage points.
Education didn't eliminate genetic risk, but the findings suggest that an additional year of schooling may help narrow the gap in dementia rates between people with higher and lower genetic risk.
How education may help the brain age well
One possible explanation is cognitive reserve, which the researchers suggest may have been built through the added skills, qualifications, and more mentally stimulating jobs that extra schooling opened up.
Learning new information and practicing problem-solving may help build this reserve, giving the brain more ways to cope with challenges as we get older.
Education may also benefit the brain indirectly. People who stayed in school longer had higher incomes and were less likely to develop diabetes or experience a stroke.
Because both conditions can affect brain health, some of the benefit may stem from these wider effects of education.
There are limits to what we can conclude. Researchers couldn't pinpoint exactly how education lowered dementia risk, and participants were mostly of European ancestry, relatively well-off, and still fairly young.
The findings may not apply equally to everyone, and they don't guarantee that any one person will avoid dementia.
Simple ways to keep challenging your brain
You can't go back and add a year to your formal education, but you can keep learning throughout adulthood. Although the study didn't test whether these activities lower dementia risk, they offer accessible ways to stay mentally engaged.
- Learn something new: Try a language-learning app, take a short online course, or practice a skill you've always wanted to develop.
- Make reading a regular habit: Pick up a book, explore a topic that interests you, or read something that challenges you to think differently.
- Choose hobbies that make you think: Try puzzles, strategy games, playing an instrument, or activities that involve planning and problem-solving.
- Keep building on what you know: Rather than sticking to familiar tasks, gradually increase the challenge as you become more comfortable with a skill.
You don't need to turn your free time into another homework assignment. Find something you genuinely enjoy and make room for it regularly.
These habits aren't proven to replicate the effects of formal education in this study, but they give you a practical way to keep learning as you age.
The takeaway
A little extra schooling may have lasting implications for brain health, even among people with a higher genetic risk of Alzheimer's.
You can't rewrite your school history, but you can keep your curiosity alive. Choose one challenging pursuit you enjoy, like a new language or an instrument, and give it a regular place in your week.