A new study further emphasizes the benefits of an education on the human experience.

An estimated 5 million Americans currently suffer from dementia, or a general decline in thinking and memory skills that reduces a person’a ability to perform everyday activities.

But research from the Framingham Heart Study spanning the past four decades indicates that cases of individuals with dementia is on the decline, and that better educated populations are at a decreased risk.

"According to the findings of the study, which involved more than 5,000 people who are aged 60 years and older monitored in different study periods starting in 1977, there was a steady decline in new dementia cases by about 20 percent every decade,” said LatinosHealth.com.

Those who had a high school diploma were determined to be less at-risk for both dementia and cardiovascular disease.

"According to the researchers, people who are more educated could have lower risk of developing the condition because of better economic opportunity that one can get out of education. This could translate to healthier habits and better access to medical care. Another possible reason is that learning could boost brain health,” the article said.

However, the benefit of education became less prevalent when a college education was added into the mix, but one of the researchers said not many of the participants were college-educated and therefore the results are “inconclusive.”

Researcher Dr. Sephardi said that it is hard to tell whether education and learning boost brain health or whether education "is a marker for other things like poverty and unhealthy lifestyle.”

This is just the latest study to find health benefits in a high school diploma. Last July, researchers from several universities linked a lack of a high school diploma to over a hundred thousand deaths in 2010, finding further evidence of a "strong inverse relationship between educational attainment and adult mortality.”

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Article by Nicole Gorman, Education World Contributor

2/11/2016