More to Fear in Our 40s

One reason seasoned runners set the reset button in their 40s is because the aging process starts to catch up to us by then. Human bodies actually begin aging at 25, but the evidence typically doesn’t show until 10 to 20 years later when it becomes harder to lose weight, stay firm, stay flexible, retain speed or recover quickly.

Now a new study suggests masters runners' brains begin a downward slide too.

A widely distributed article in today’s USAToday shows mental decline – memory, reasoning and comprehension – begins at 45 to 49, and not in our 60s as we all have long believed. It may even be earlier, given the age of study participants.

Beginning in 1985 and involving 5,200 male and 2,200 female British civil servants between the ages of 45 and 70, researchers periodically tested participants for memory, vocabulary, hearing and vision. Everyone in the group experienced a drop in cognition over the years. Men 45 to 49 saw a nearly 4 percent drop (compared to 10 percent in those 65-70) and women the same age suffered a 5 percent memory and reasoning loss (7 percent for the older group).

Life is very different now than when the study began. Our reptilian brains are still tackling the technologies that allow us to do more tasks while reducing our ability to concentrate on them. And as a society, we’re more productive yet lazier. Lazy people who can't stay on task tend to not take good care of themselves.

This study also confirms that people in their 40s probably always had minor memory issues; they just weren’t as big a deal until Alzheimer’s experts lowered the diagnosis threshold. Now we "know better." So what can we do, since plastic surgeons have yet to find a way to lift and lipo a sagging brain? It's simple: exercise your mind throughout the day, week, month and year. And feed it well.