First let’s explain what researchers mean by ‘brain age’. With the help of artificial intelligence, scientists can now analyze brain scans and estimate how old a person’s brain looks. This does not have to be the same as your real age. Some 60-year-old people have brains that look like those of a 55-year-old, others have brains that look older.
Researchers call the difference between your real age and your estimated brain age the ‘brain age gap’. A negative number means your brain looks younger than you are. And you want that, because a younger-looking brain is associated with better health.
What makes the difference?
The researchers followed almost 200 adults between the ages of 45 and 85, most of whom suffered from chronic pain. They looked at all kinds of factors that can influence the brain.
People with more protective habits and a more positive attitude had brains that looked, on average, almost four years younger than people with fewer of these traits. In the most pronounced case, the difference even increased to about eight years.
Which habits help?
The researchers looked at a combination of factors that are largely within your control. Not smoking turned out to be important, as was a healthy waist size. But mental factors also played a major role: optimism, positive emotions, little stress, good social contacts and sufficient sleep.
These factors worked together more strongly than independently. So it is not about one miracle cure, but about a combination of healthy choices.
Also in the longer term
The researchers followed some of the participants for two years. Even then, the protective factors continued to do their work. People who had more protective qualities at the start of the study also aged more slowly in their brains over those two years.
What was also striking: chronic pain and socio-economic factors also had an influence on brain aging. But when the researchers looked at all factors together, the lifestyle and mental factors turned out to be the most important.
