New research boosts the “use it or lose it” theory about brainpower and staying mentally sharp. People who delay retirement have less risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease or other types of dementia, a study of nearly half a million people in France found.
“For each additional year of work, the risk of getting dementia is reduced by 3.2 percent,” said Carole Dufouil, a scientist at Inserm, the French government’s health research agency.
Researchers used the records of more than 429,000 workers, most of whom were shopkeepers or craftsmen such as bakers and woodworkers. They were 74 on average, and had been retired for an average of 12 years. Nearly 3 percent had developed dementia, but the risk of this was lower for each year of age at retirement.
To rule out the possibility that mental decline may have led people to retire earlier, researchers did analyses that eliminated people who developed dementia within five and 10 years of retirement.
“The trend is exactly the same,” suggesting that work was having an effect on cognition, not the other way around,” Dufouil said.
France mandates retirement in various jobs — civil servants must retire by 65. This study suggests that people should continue working as it may have health benefits, she said.
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