Johnson Wendy, Deary Ian J, McGue Matt, Christensen Kaare
MRC Centre for Cognitive Ageing and Cognitive Epidemiology, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh, United Kingdom.
Psychol Aging. 2009 Mar;24(1):48-62. doi: 10.1037/a0013929.
Cognitive ability and physical fitness are important to the ability to live independently in late life. Both are also related to level of attained education, with better educated older adults tending to display better cognitive ability and better late-life physical health. Chronic illnesses that affect both physical and cognitive function, lifetime cognitive ability that facilitates healthy lifestyle choices, and general biological aging processes have been offered as 3 explanations for the late-life physical-cognitive correlation. Education is generally assumed to provide a protective environment. The authors used a sample of 1,053 twin pairs aged 70 and over and gene-environment moderation models to explore 5 hypotheses that could help to disentangle the genetic and environmental transactions involving physical and cognitive functions and education. Results provide some support for all 3 explanations for the physical-cognitive correlation and indicate the ways in which better education may support better function and lack of education may undermine it.
认知能力和身体素质对于晚年独立生活的能力很重要。两者也都与受教育程度相关，受教育程度较高的老年人往往表现出更好的认知能力和更良好的晚年身体健康状况。影响身体和认知功能的慢性疾病、有助于做出健康生活方式选择的终生认知能力以及一般的生物衰老过程，已被提出作为对晚年身体与认知相关性的三种解释。一般认为教育能提供一个保护性的环境。作者使用了1053对70岁及以上双胞胎的样本以及基因-环境调节模型，来探究5个假设，这些假设有助于厘清涉及身体和认知功能以及教育的基因与环境相互作用。研究结果为身体与认知相关性的所有三种解释提供了一些支持，并指出了更好的教育可能支持更好的功能以及缺乏教育可能损害这种功能的方式。
