How quickly people age during midlife predicted memory lapses 10 years later
· Medical Xpressby Aaron Wagner, Pennsylvania State University
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Most people occasionally misplace their car keys or forget a dentist's appointment, especially as they get older. When memory lapses occur regularly and interfere with daily life, however, they could be a sign of a serious decline in a person's cognitive ability, according to David Almeida, distinguished professor of human development and family studies at Penn State. In a new study published in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences, Almeida and his collaborators found that people who aged faster during midlife were more likely to experience memory lapses a decade later.
The researchers examined whether a person's biological age during their 40s and 50s could predict memory lapses later in life.
"Biological aging basically means that your biology looks older than your birthday would suggest. We can see this in chemical changes around our DNA that provide a kind of molecular record of how the body is aging," said Almeida, senior author of the study. "Many of these tests are like your car's odometer—they tell you how far you've gone in terms of age and how much aging-related change has accumulated. In this study, the useful measure turned out to be more like a car's speedometer—a measure of how fast your body is aging during midlife."
While previous studies have shown that experiences like childhood abuse or increased stress were associated with an older biological age, the researchers wanted to understand whether an older biological age was associated with changes in people's daily lives, Almeida explained.
The researchers analyzed data from 232 individuals who participated in two consecutive waves of the Midlife in the U.S. Study (MIDUS), a long-running study examining health and well-being across adulthood in the United States.
Between 2004 and 2009, each participant donated blood that was then tested using three different measures of biological aging. Two tests measured a person's biological age—the odometer-style measurement in Almeida's analogy—while the other measured whether people were aging more rapidly or slowly compared with population averages.
Between 2017 and 2019, approximately a decade after blood samples were collected, the researchers conducted phone interviews about memory lapses on eight separate occasions with each study participant.
The researchers asked participants to distinguish between two types of memory lapses: retrospective memory lapses—when people forget something they already knew, like an acquaintance's name—and prospective memory lapses—when people forget to do something they had planned, like taking their medication.
"Though they may seem similar, prospective memory lapses are less common than retrospective lapses and can be more serious," Almeida said. "Misplacing your car keys can be irritating, but it is often less harmful than missing doses of needed medication or accidentally skipping doctor's appointments. Additionally, other Penn State researchers found that frequent prospective memory lapses are especially related to later dementias, including Alzheimer's disease."
During the phone interviews, participants were asked whether they had experienced any prospective or retrospective memory lapses that day. People also reported whether the lapses interfered with their lives or irritated them.
On average, participants reported experiencing prospective memory lapses roughly twice a week and retrospective lapses slightly less than every other day.
When examining the blood samples, the researchers found mixed results. The odometer-style blood tests of biological age were not correlated with memory lapses, but people who were aging more rapidly than their peers during middle age were 18% more likely to experience a prospective memory lapse than their peers on any given day.
This means a rapidly aging person would be likely to forget something they were planning to do on around five more days each month. Additionally, these rapid agers were more likely to say a decade later that memory lapses interfered with their quality of life or irritated them, or both.
If what people forget is critical to their health, these additional lapses could lead to worsening medical problems or other significant consequences, Almeida said.
"In midlife, people are responsible for a lot—at their jobs, in their social lives, with their children and with their parents," Almeida said. "There may be something specific about aging rapidly during this period of life that relates to memory problems in the future."
In the long run, this research could help indicate who needs early support for their cognitive health, according to Almeida. He said the main takeaway from this study was that significant cognitive changes can begin in midlife, not when people are older.
"Do not be shy to talk to your doctor about memory changes during middle age, which could serve as an early warning system," Almeida said. "Typically, we wait far too long to discuss cognitive problems. There are a lot of different physical causes of cognitive decline—from circulation issues to lack of sleep—but there are also a lot of effective solutions. If we catch problems early, we can enhance the quality of our lives, possibly for decades."
Heejung Jang, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn State, and Jennie Holmberg, a research scientist at Clemson University, served as co-first authors of this study.
Jody S. Nicholson and Hye Won Chai of Clemson University; Faith Shannon and Eric Cerino of Northern Arizona University; and Susan Charles of the University of California, Irvine, also contributed to this research.
More information
Heejung Jang et al, Linking epigenetic age acceleration to self-reported daily memory lapses: evidence from the National Study of Daily Experiences, The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciences (2026). DOI: 10.1093/gerona/glag202
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NeurologyHealthy agingCommon illnesses & Prevention Provided by Pennsylvania State University Who's behind this story?
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