Scientific Article for Students

Introduction As people age, even simple daily activities become harder. Their memory weakens. Some may even need a caretaker. If many people in a country are older, it can be challenging to care for all of them. So, there is a need to develop strategies to help people stay active and healthy later in life. People of the same age can have very different levels of health and activity. Some people lose their physical strength and mental ability earlier. Others stay physically fit and mentally sharp for longer. Why is that? Many biobehavioral factors affect the way people age (Fig. 1). For example, regular exercise and good cognition can help people age more slowly. In contrast, some conditions make people seem older than their real age because they have more health and memory issues. So, we can use cognitive, health, and lifestyle factors to assess someone’s biobehavioral age. Biobehavioral age does not always match a person’s real age. Activities that challenge the brain slow down some effects of aging. For example, speaking more than one language. Researchers have already studied the effect of multilingualism on the aging process. But their studies were limited in size and focus. We wanted to explore the effect of multilingualism by studying a large number of people of different ages. Could living in a country that speaks more than one language help protect people from the effects of aging? Methods We interviewed 86,149 men and women aged 51–90 from 27 countries in Europe. We asked them about their health, lifestyle, and cognition. Next we used a computer model to assess each person’s biobehavioral age. The model took into account all the information we collected. ****** We asked questions like: “Has a doctor ever told you that you have diabetes?” “How often do you do physical activities like sports?” “Can you recall the three objects I mentioned earlier?” ******* We then calculated the difference between the estimated biobehavioral age and real age. We considered a person to be aging faster if their estimated age was higher than their real age. That meant their cognitive and physical functions were declining sooner than expected. A person counted as aging slower if their estimated age was lower than their real age. So, they were more mentally and physically fit than expected. We used data from the European Statistical Office database to look at language use in each country. We calculated the percentage of individuals who spoke 1, 2, 3, and 4 languages. Then we used statistics to figure out if people living in more multilingual countries were aging more slowly than we expected. We looked to see if these effects were different across different age groups. We also looked to see if people were more likely to develop signs of faster or slower aging over time. Finally, we needed to make sure that multilingualism was the main factor for the differences in aging we observed. So we took into account country-scale social and environmental factors that can affect aging. Results We found that people who live in monolingual countries had higher biobehavioral ages. That means they were more likely to experience the effects of aging earlier than expected. In contrast, people in multilingual countries had lower biobehavioral ages. They were not aging as quickly (Fig. 2). We also saw that older people benefited more from living in multilingual countries than younger people did. The more languages spoken in the country, the greater the protective effects over time. As they got older, people living in more multilingual countries maintained better memory and health. But people in monolingual countries were 1.4 times more likely to age faster as they got older. We also found that the benefits really were from multilingualism. The positive effects held true even when we considered the impact of most social and environmental factors. Discussion Brain and body functions slow down as people age. However, some lifestyle factors can help delay when these age-related issues start. We found that multilingualism is one such factor. Learning and speaking many languages keeps the brain active by strengthening the connections between brain cells. This may be why multilinguals maintain better cognitive function as they grow older. The benefits of multilingualism stayed the same even after we adjusted for most social and environmental factors. But there were differences in two particular cases. The protective effects of multilingualism were smaller after migrating to a new country. Learning a new language may have been stressful in these situations. And stress can contribute to poor health. There were also reduced benefits for people in situations with greater gender inequality. We suggest that learning new languages delays the effects of aging on the mind and body. So, government authorities could encourage people to learn new languages. This would help keep the public active. Conclusion Getting old is a natural process. But our context and actions can also influence how we experience certain effects of aging. If you are learning a new language, you are already taking a positive step to stay mentally fit as you age. If you have not started yet, this is a great time to begin! Even learning one new language can be a healthy challenge for your brain. Besides, it can help you to understand different cultures and connect with new people. Think about a few actions you can take to learn another language. Does your school or community center have any language classes or clubs? You may have friends at school you can practice with! Or you can look for cultural opportunities in your community. Online resources can also help. Try a language-learning app or check out foreign-language shows or videos.