A recent study has revealed that speaking more than one language can help protect both brain and body health, as it contributes to slowing biological markers of aging.
The research was conducted at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, and was published in Nature Aging on November 10. The findings were also reported by EurekAlert.
The study analyzed data from 86,149 participants across various European countries, and found that multilingual individuals show slower behavioral and biological aging compared to those who speak only one language.
Behavioral biological aging is measured using an indicator known as the “behavioral biological age gap,” which reflects the difference between a person’s predicted age and actual age. This helps determine whether someone appears healthier and biologically younger or is experiencing accelerated aging.
The researchers used AI models trained on thousands of health and behavioral profiles to estimate these age gaps, within a framework called the Behavioral Biological Aging Clock.
These models predict a person’s biological age based on multiple factors, including physical health conditions (such as high blood pressure, diabetes, sleep problems, and sensory loss), as well as protective factors like education, cognitive abilities, functional capacity, and physical activity.
The findings revealed that individuals living in multilingual countries were 2.17 times less likely to experience accelerated aging, while monolingual speakers were twice as likely to show early aging patterns.
Dr. Lucia Amoruso from the Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language in Spain noted that “the protective effect was cumulative — the more languages a person spoke, the greater the protection against age-related decline.”
Dr. Hernan Hernández from the Latin American Brain Health Institute emphasized the societal implications, saying that “multilingualism is an accessible and low-cost tool to promote healthy aging, complementing other modifiable factors such as creativity and education.”
