title: Think Fast, Feel Fine, Live Long: A 29-Year Study of Cognition, Health, and Survival in Middle-Aged and Older Adults.
abstract: In a 29-year study of 6,203 individuals ranging in age from 41 to 96 years at initial assessment, we evaluated the relative and combined influence of 65 mortality risk factors, which included sociodemographic variables, lifestyle attributes, medical indices, and multiple cognitive abilities. Reductions in mortality risk were most associated with higher self-rated health, female gender, fewer years as a smoker, and smaller decrements in processing speed with age. Thus, two psychological variables-subjective health status and processing speed-were among the top predictors of survival. We suggest that these psychological attributes, unlike risk factors that are more narrowly defined, reflect (and are influenced by) a broad range of health-related behaviors and characteristics. Information about these attributes can be obtained with relatively little effort or cost and-given the tractability of these measures in different cultural contexts-may prove expedient for prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of conditions related to increased mortality risk in diverse human populations.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva stephen.aichele@unige.ch.
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Aichele
authors.affiliation: Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford.
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Rabbitt
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Psychology and Educational Sciences, University of Geneva Distance Learning University, Switzerland.
authors.forename: Paolo
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ghisletta
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D000375:Aging / Q000523:psychology*; D001076:Aptitude; D003071:Cognition; D005260:Female; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D016016:Proportional Hazards Models; D013850:Thinking
keywords: aging; cognitive ability; cognitive development; death and dying; health