Cognitive Decline May Begin at ... 45?!

For years, many experts have maintained that the subtle changes in memory and mental function that occur naturally as we get older rarely begin before age 60.

That may be optimistic: A new study, published in the British Medical Journal, suggests that age-related cognitive changes—which may in some cases herald Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia—are under way as early as our mid-to-late 40s.

Researchers in Europe tracked the mental function of more than 7,000 British civil servants for a decade, and they found that even the youngest participants, who were between the ages of 45 and 49 at the outset, generally displayed slight yet measurable declines in short-term memory, mental reasoning, and verbal facility over the course of the study.

Read the full story at Health.com:

http://news.health.com/2012/01/05/mental-decline-middle-age/