We start aging from the age of 27

Old age makes us often confuse home keys, forget words or can't think seamlessly. A study shows that the aging process may start much earlier than our prediction.

Photo: Daily Mail.

According to scientists from the University of Virginia (USA), human mental health reached its peak at age 22 and began to decline from age 27.

The team followed 2,000 people (both male and female) during the age of 18-60 over 7 years. Most study subjects have high education and good physical health. Once a year, experts ask volunteers to solve puzzles (in words and pictures), memorize words, tell stories and many other intellectual activities. These types of exercises are often used to diagnose neurological diseases and impaired memory.

The results showed that most of the highest scores belonged to 22-year-olds. For 22-year-old volunteers, their ability to perform tests decreases slightly year by year. But by the age of 27, the score they scored on tests of thinking speed, reasoning ability and ability to imagine space began to decline markedly. In other types of tests, a sharp decline in scores started at age 42.

Professor Timothy Salthouse, the lead researcher, said that therapies to prevent age-related diseases should be applied several decades before we enter the retirement age.

'All of the results we have achieved show one thing: The decline in thinking in healthy and highly educated people begins in their twenties and thirties,' he said.

However, Salthouse and his colleagues also found some information worth to be optimistic. For example, the ability to memorize vocabulary and accumulate basic knowledge is continuously improved until we turn 60, even later.