Two years in addition to education reduce the speed of cell aging by up to 3% and decrease the risk of death by about 10%, according to recent research. At the same time, curiosity, especially after the age of 50, supports cognitive functions and protects the brain from decline.
A team of researchers, led by Professor Daniel Belsky from Columbia University in the US, measured the rhythm of biological aging using epigenetic markers extracted from blood samples from over 14,000 participants.
The results revealed that the level of education is directly linked to the way the body degrades over time. The effect persists even when other factors are taken into account, such as income, social status, eating or medical behavior. Basically, education influences internal, measurable physiological processes.
Another study conducted at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in the US, examined the connection between curiosity and cognitive functioning in people for 50 years and it turned out that the general interest for novelty decreases with age, but in its place there is a form of curiosity directed to well -defined topics. And those who maintain their active interest, for a particular subject or domain, have better cognitive scores and a lower risk of neurological damage.
More educated people live longer
The data analyzed by researchers at Columbia University come from Framingham Heart Study, a project started in 1948, considered one of the largest longitudinal medical research. The study covers three generations and follows the health of tens of thousands of people for over 70 years.
The team used an instrument called Dundedinpace, which it created in 2022 to measure how quickly the body ages. The algorithm analyzes the chemical changes in the DNA of white blood cells, known as methylation brands, and works as a meter of biological aging. Its name comes from Dunedin Study, the cohort used in the development of the method, and the acronym designates the “rhythm of aging calculated in epigenoma”.
Biological aging is not the same as chronological age. It refers to the accumulation of molecular changes that affect the resistance and regeneration of the cells, tissues and organs. Two people of the same age can have completely different rhythms of internal degradation.
“We know a lot that people with a higher level of education live longer. The question is whether education even prolongs healthy life or only comes with other factors that influence it. It is difficult to discern these mechanisms, but we know for sure that the effects of education do not stop at the social level.”
Differences between members of the same family
In order to isolate the real effects of education, the researchers have emphasized educational mobility, that is, how much a person manages to exceed the level of schooling of parents or brothers. Gloria Graf, PhD student in the Department of Epidemiology of the University of Colombia and author of the study, explains the reasoning of this approach. People with different levels of education usually come from completely opposite environments, which can complicate any comparison. Therefore the team analyzed how much the level of education of a person has increased to the family from which it comes.
Two types of comparisons were taken into account: one between children and their parents, the other between brothers. In total, 3,101 participants were included for which clarified indicators of educational mobility and rhythm of aging could be calculated. In 2,437 cases there was at least one brother or sister registered in the study, which allowed a direct analysis between members of the same family.
By combining this data with the Dundinpace algorithm, the researchers could see how the education speed influences. Then they checked if this different rhythm explains why people with more school have a greater probability to live longer.
It came to light that those who had a longer academic course than the rest of the family had a slower rhythm of aging and a lower risk of death. According to Gloria Graf, up to half of the mortality differences between groups with a higher level of education and those with a lower level of education can be explained by the fact that the former ages at a healthier, from a biological point of view.
This association has been valid regardless of generation and has been confirmed in the comparisons between the brothers. Those who went further with the school had, on average, a slower pace of biological degradation than their less educated brothers.
Curiosity after 50 years
The research conducted in UCLA and coordinated by psychologist Alan Castel, followed how curiosity evolves throughout adult life. The study included a large sample, with participants between 20 and 84, the average being 44 years. They all completed an online questionnaire that evaluated how interested they are generally to find out new things.
“In psychology, we know that the general level of curiosity, that is, what we call curiosity as a feature, tends to decrease with aging. But we have noticed an unexpected thing in older participants: they were very involved and interested in learning, especially about memory, but also about other types of information,” Alan Castel said.
Along with the castle were involved in study Mary Whatley, a psychology teacher at Western Carolina University, US as well as researchers Kou Muyama and Michiko Sakaki, affiliated with Tübingen universities and Kochi in Japan. Together they tried to understand if this selective involvement reflects another type of curiosity, called state curiosity, different from the general desire for exploration.
The two types of curiosity
The state curiosity represents that punctual sensation of interest that people experience when asked about specific topics. Curiosity as a feature, on the other hand, is personality. Some people, for example, are not very curious in nature, being satisfied to accept things as they seem at first sight (curiosity-low deity), but they can have a thirst for knowledge or specific hobbies (high state curiosity). All people have various degrees of both types of curiosity.
In order to separate the two types of curiosity, the researchers tested the curiosity of the state through heavy questions of general culture to which most people do not know the answer – as “what was the first country to give women the right to vote?” The researchers asked the participants to guess an answer, then asked how interested they were to find out the answer before revealing them (if you are curious: New Zealand).
The analysis showed that the two forms of curiosity are correlated. People who had a high level of state curiosity generally had a more active profile in terms of curiosity. Even so, their evolution over time followed different trajectories.
Curiosity-wire has gradually decreased throughout adult life. In contrast, the state curiosity, that is, that punctual interest for new information, recorded an atypical curve: it decreased at the beginning of adult life, but grew visibly after the middle age and continued to climb to old age.
Alan Castel notes that this pattern resembles the one encountered in life satisfaction studies, where there is often a decrease around the middle age, followed by a clear return in the years after.
Why general curiosity decreases but increases interest in precise things
The explanation of this apparent discrepancy is related to how priorities change throughout life. Until middle age, people are usually interested in accumulating the knowledge, skills and opportunities they need to succeed in school and career. Because of this, a high level of general curiosity is needed. But the responsibilities and constant pressure come to the stress package, which can affect the emotional balance and reduce the availability to explore outside the area of immediate necessity.
As the years pass, and the basic goals are achieved, the need to maintain a wide curiosity. After children become independent and their career begins to stabilize, many people return to personal interests and discover that they are more available for more directed types of curiosity. This is the moment when the state curiosity increases, the interest for precise things, chosen consciously.
“Our results bind well to the theory of selectivity, which says that with age we do not cease to learn, but we choose more carefully what we want to learn. I think this form of curiosity, if it remains active, helps us remain attentive and involved as we get older,” added Alan Castel.
Curiosity and memory capacity
Exploring new interests helps to maintain the brain active and supports neuroplasticity, its ability to adapt and reorganize. Adults who take courses, start hobbies or get involved in activities such as bird observation, cause their minds and retain their cognitive functions with age.
Castel stresses that his research on memory has shown that people tend to quickly forget the information that does not arouse their curiosity.
“As we get older, we may want to focus on things that are important and forget things that are less relevant. From conversations with many older adults, they say it is important to remain curious. This observation is aligned with the research that people who have early stages could show them to the activities,”
Instead, maintaining curiosity and desire to learn seems to protect the brain from cognitive decline.
