Learning to speak one or more new languages can slow biological ageing and protect the brain against age-related cognitive decline. <\/p>\n
So says new research reported in Nature Ageing, by scientists at Trinity College Dublin<\/a> (TCD), the Basque Center On Cognition, Brain and Language in San Sebastian and the Latin American Brain Health Institute in Santiago, Chile. <\/p>\n \u201cOur results provide strong evidence that multilingualism functions as a protective factor for healthy ageing,\u201d said Agust\u00edn Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez, professor of global brain health at TCD, who co-led the research. <\/p>\n \u201cThe protective effect was cumulative \u2013 the more languages people spoke, the greater their protection against ageing-related decline,\u201d said Prof Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez. <\/p>\n The international team of scientists analysed data from 86,149 adults aged 51 to 90 living in 27 European countries. <\/p>\n Ageing clock <\/b><\/p>\n A \u201cbio-behavioural ageing clock\u201d method was used to compare the participants\u2019 predicted biological age, based on health, cognition, education and lifestyle factors, with their actual chronological age. <\/p>\n It was found that people from countries where multilingualism was common were 2.17 times less likely to experience accelerated ageing compared with those living where monolingualism held sway. <\/p>\n This evidence indicates that language learning and its use activates and engages the brain networks related to attention, memory, decision-making and social interaction, said Prof Ib\u00e1\u00f1ez.<\/p>\n This study improves on previous research investigating the link between multilingualism and ageing, which were limited by the use of smaller clinical samples, as well as patients that already had signs of cognitive impairment.<\/p>\n The analysis, in this study, of a far larger, healthy population enabled the scientists to show the benefits of multilingualism went farther than simply delaying dementia<\/a> or mild cognitive impairment. <\/p>\n The scientists examined the behavioural age gap \u2013 the difference between predicted biological age and actual age \u2013 between thousands of individual study participants.<\/p>\n They found that multilingual individuals consistently exhibited slower ageing, even after the linguistic, social, physical and sociopolitical factors were taken into account. <\/p>\n \u201cThe more languages people speak, the greater their protection against ageing-related decline,\u201d said Dr Lucia Amoruso of the Basque Centre On Cognition, Brain and Language. <\/p>\n \u201cMultilingualism is an accessible, low-cost tool for promoting healthy ageing across populations, complementing other modifiable factors such as creativity and education,\u201d added Dr Hern\u00e1n Hern\u00e1ndez of the Latin American Brain Health Institute in Chile. <\/p>\n The study found no evidence that the protective effect of multilingualism depended on the language learned. <\/p>\n