Women age 3.8 years later than men

Women's brain grows older and, for the same age, is at least three years younger than the human brain, according to a study at the University of Washington and published in the National Academy of Sciences magazine of the United States, PNAS.

The result is based on 205 people's brain survey and can explain why women tend to be less vulnerable than men to neurodegenerative diseases related to age.

The brain's main components are sugars and the way this changes over the years is known, while very little is known about the metabolic differences between men and women.

We are beginning to understand that various factors involving sex affect brain aging and vulnerability to neurodegenerative diseases”, the research coordinator, Manu Goyal, stressed.

“Analyzing brain metabolism, we can understand some of the differences that arise between men and women as we get older”, Goyal stressed.

The difference was found in all ages, beginning at the age of 20.

It's not the brain of people growing faster. In fact, men reach adulthood about three years after women, and that difference continues throughout the rest of their lives”, Goyal explains.

We still don't know the meaning of this discovery, but I think that might be why women are less sensitive to aging, because their brains are actually younger”, Goyal concluded.