New Study: Women's brains sharper than Men's in old age

Women's brains age better than men’s but their bodies do not cope as well, research suggests. Even though female life expectancy has increased over the past 20 years, elderly women spend less time with memory problems than they did, a study shows.

The unexpected finding goes against most predictions, which would expect rates of dementia to increase as people live for longer. The same trend, however, was not seen among men, whose total time spent in a state of ‘mild cognitive impairment’ increased slightly.

Last night experts said they could not definitively explain their findings but they suspect that the vast improvements in education for women may be behind the trend.