Women's brains sharper than men's in old age: Elderly now spend less time with memory problems even though life expectancy has increased

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Women's brains age better than men’s but their bodies do not cope as well, research suggests.

Even though female life expectancy has increased over the past 20 years, elderly women spend less time with memory problems than they did, a study shows.

The unexpected finding goes against most predictions, which would expect rates of dementia to increase as people live for longer.

New times: Even though female life expectancy has increased over the past 20 years, elderly women spend less time with memory problems than they used to 

The same trend, however, was not seen among men, whose total time spent in a state of ‘mild cognitive impairment’ increased slightly. 

Last night experts said they could not definitively explain their findings but they suspect that the vast improvements in education for women may be behind the trend.

Scientists believe that people who use their brain more for complex thinking are less likely to succumb to dementia later in life – so with more women going to university, dementia rates should fall.

The study into the health impacts of ageing by experts at Newcastle and Cambridge universities, reported in Lancet, found that women stay sharper for longer than men but decline earlier physically.

Better memories: Longer life expectancy ought to see an increase in dementia, but these findings go against it

Even though women are living longer, the amount of time in which they suffer memory and thinking problems has decreased.

Experts looked at data from 7,600 people in Newcastle, Cambridgeshire and Nottingham in 1991 and again in 2011. Women’s overall life expectancy increased by 3.6 years to 85.3 in 2011.

But they now spend only the last 5.1 years with ‘mild cognitive impairment’, six months less than 20 years earlier.

Men’s life expectancy increased 4.5 years to 82.5 but the amount of time spent with memory and thinking problems has grown by four months and they can expect to begin experiencing them at 78.6, a year earlier than women.

Professor Carol Jagger of Newcastle University’s Institute for Ageing, who led the study, said: ‘More women have been able to access higher education, and in terms of cognition, that may be an explanation.’ 

However, while two decades ago men on average expected to have physical problems at 75.3, compared with 76 for women, men now stay disability-free until 77.9, compared with 76.5 for women.

Professor Jagger said this may be because women respond to obesity – which increased hugely over the period – in a different way to men.

Hilary Evans, chief executive of Alzheimer’s Research UK, said: ‘It is promising to see that increases in life expectancy seem to have gone hand-in-hand with increases in years free from problems with memory and thinking.’