Graham Easton

It was from a large national study in the US of 11,000 participants over 65, and they followed them for 12 years.

And they looked specifically at two things.

One was their cognitive function, using things like memory tests and math skills, and the other was the physical function.

And what they used to measure that was their walking speed.

which is quite a good marker that we know in elderly people of things like disability or hospitalisation and stuff.

They then discovered that when they looked at the individual trajectories of these people over 12 years, they found that 32% had a measurable improvement in cognitive function and 28% had an improvement in their physical function.

Well, what was really interesting is that they also measured the participants' beliefs or thoughts or attitudes to ageing using a questionnaire.

And they found that those with more positive beliefs about ageing were significantly more likely to show improvements both in cognition and in walking speed.

And common attitudes can be absorbed from a very young age and become quite strong self-talk ideas

that can then influence biological and health issues.

There have been quite a few studies that suggest there is a significant, if small, effect between the way you think about ageing and your health.

Because this is an observational study, we can't prove a link cause and effect.

The researchers did go to quite a lot of trouble to reduce the chance that it was just down to better functioning people feeling more positive about ageing.

So at the beginning, they checked their baseline health and functioning, for example, and adjusted for other factors too.

And even having done that...

they found that still this positivity predicted later improvements in function.

Our genetics are probably the most important factor and then environmental factors and how we look after ourselves, what we eat and so on, particularly good evidence around the Mediterranean diet.

And things like positive attitude are probably more about tweaking around the edges of those things.