{"id":1387,"date":"2016-11-18T18:17:23","date_gmt":"2016-11-19T02:17:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/women-who-have-their-last-baby-after-35-are-mentally-sharper-in-old-age-study-finds\/"},"modified":"2025-11-10T10:59:54","modified_gmt":"2025-11-10T18:59:54","slug":"women-who-have-their-last-baby-after-35-are-mentally-sharper-in-old-age-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/keck.usc.edu\/news\/women-who-have-their-last-baby-after-35-are-mentally-sharper-in-old-age-study-finds\/","title":{"rendered":"Women who have their last baby after 35 are mentally sharper in old age, study finds"},"content":{"rendered":"\n \n \n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
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\n\n \n Press Release<\/span>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
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Women who have their last baby after 35 are mentally sharper in old age, study finds<\/h1>\n\n\n<\/div>\n \n \n
\n Zen Vuong<\/span>\n \n November 18, 2016<\/span>\n <\/div>\n \n \n
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\"maternity-baby\"Participants in the study were tested on verbal memory, attention and concentration, and visual perception<\/em>
\nA new study<\/a>\u00a0has found that women have better brainpower after menopause if they had their last baby after age 35, used hormonal contraceptives for more than 10 years or began their menstrual cycle before turning 13.
\nThis is the first study to investigate the association between age at last pregnancy, which can be a marker of a later surge of pregnancy-related hormones, and cognitive function in later life, said\u00a0Roksana Karim<\/a>, lead author of the study and assistant professor of clinical preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine of USC.
\n\u201cBased on the findings, we would certainly not recommend that women wait until they\u2019re 35 to close their family, but the study provides strong evidence that there is a positive association between later age at last pregnancy and late-life cognition.\u201d
\nPostmenopausal women who had their last pregnancy after 35 had better verbal memory. Those who had their first pregnancy when they were 24 or older had significantly better executive function, which includes attention control, working memory, reasoning and problem solving.
\nThe main hormones at play are estrogen and progesterone. In animal studies, estrogen has a beneficial impact on brain chemistry, function and structure; progesterone is linked with growth and development of brain tissue, Karim said.
\nThe study, published this month in the\u00a0Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, includes 830 women who, on average, were 60 years old. The data was adjusted for age, race and ethnicity, income, and education.
\nParticipants were given a series of tests that included assessments of verbal memory (remembering a list of words or retelling a story after some distraction), psychomotor speed, attention and concentration, planning, visual perception, and memory.
\nPrevious research has shown that many women experience brainpower and memory declines in their postmenopausal years. An outpouring of estrogen and progesterone, especially in later life, appears to be beneficial, Karim said.<\/p>\n

Pregnancy, the pill and more hormones<\/strong><\/h3>\n

The study found that other reproductive events were also important to later life cognition. More time between first and last period \u2014 longer reproductive life \u2014 proved valuable for executive function.
\n\u201cStarting your period early means you have higher levels of the female sex hormone being produced by the ovaries,\u201d Karim said. \u201cGirls are receiving the optimal levels early, so it\u2019s possible that their brain structures are better developed compared to those who are exposed to estrogen levels associated with menstrual cycles at a later age.\u201d
\nUse of the pill or other hormonal contraceptives for at least 10 years was beneficial for verbal memory and critical thinking ability.
\n\u201cOral contraceptives maintain and sustain a stable level of sex hormones in our blood stream,\u201d Karim said. \u201cStable is good.\u201d
\nWomen who didn\u2019t carry their pregnancy to term and those who gave birth to two children had better overall cognitive ability, verbal memory and executive function when compared to women who had only one full-term pregnancy.
\n\u201cThe finding that even incomplete pregnancies are beneficial was novel and surprising,\u201d said\u00a0Wendy Mack, the study\u2019s senior author and professor of preventive medicine at the Keck School of Medicine. \u201cIn general, our findings are intriguing and are supported by other clinical studies and animal studies.\u201d
\nIn humans, however, previous studies have shown that \u201cpregnancy brain\u201d exists, meaning researchers found that pregnant women have poorer verbal memory, word fluency and word-list learning when compared to non-pregnant women.
\n\u201cThe issue is the human studies haven\u2019t followed women for the long term,\u201d Mack said. \u201cThey just looked at women during pregnancy. We are not sure if we can expect to detect a positive estrogen effect at that point, as the many bodily changes and psycho-social stressors during pregnancy also can impact women\u2019s cognitive and emotional functions.\u201d
\nThe research was supported by the National Institutes of Health and included data from two clinical trials: Women\u2019s Isoflavone Soy Health and Early vs. Late Intervention Trial of Estradiol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/div>\n <\/div>\n\n\n <\/div><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":60,"featured_media":1388,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"advgb_blocks_editor_width":"","advgb_blocks_columns_visual_guide":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[81,20],"class_list":["post-1387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-press-release","tag-department-of-population-and-public-health-sciences","tag-research"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nWomen who have their last baby after 35 are mentally sharper in old age, study finds<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, 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