Speaking multiple languages may protect both your brain and body by slowing down the biological aging process, increasing resilience as you get older, according to a new international study.
Published in Nature Aging journal, the paper, titled “Multilingualism protects against accelerated aging in cross-sectional and longitudinal analyses of 27 European countries,” looked at data from 86,149 Europeans and found that those who spoke multiple languages experienced slower biobehavioral aging compared with those who only spoke one language.
It concluded that speaking multiple languages may slow the biological processes of aging and protect against age-related decline.
Researchers used what’s known as the biobehavioral aging clock framework to quantify biobehavioral age gaps (BBAGs), by using artificial intelligence (AI) models trained on thousands of health and behavioral profiles.
These models can predict a person’s biological age based on physical markers such as hypertension, diabetes, sleep problems, and sensory loss, as well as protective factors including education, cognition, functional ability, and physical activity.
The difference between someone’s actual age and their “predicted” age indicates whether someone is aging in a healthier way and appears “younger,” or is aging in an accelerated way.
The study found that in countries where people commonly spoke multiple languages, study participants who only spoke only one were twice as likely to show early aging patterns, while those who spoke multiple languages were 2.17 times less likely to experience accelerated aging.
While it’s important to keep in mind that in many European countries, people speak more than one language (unlike in the United States), these effects remained significant even after adjusting for linguistic, social, physical, and sociopolitical factors, and were consistent longitudinally in predicting a lower risk of accelerated aging over the long run.