Hubby Forgot Your Birthday? Research Finds Men Are More Forgetful, Regardless Of Age
Many sitcoms, television shows, and movies poke fun at the fact that men often forget birthdays, anniversaries, and special events. Is this just unsupported stereotype or is there some truth to this theory? According to new research, men, regardless of their age, are more forgetful than women. Scientists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) found that men are the more absent-minded of the sexes.
“It was surprising to see that men forget more than women,” Professor Jostein Holmentol, The Daily Mail reported. "It was also surprising to see that men are just as forgetful whether they are 30 or 60 years old. The results were unambiguous.”
The Norwegian study, called HUNT3, involved Holmen and his team asking 48,000 participants nine questions regarding how often they forgot names and dates, and if they could remember details from past conversations. Eight out of nine questions showed that men reported the most problems remembering.
A similar study was conducted in 2008, and involved 2,000 residents who ranged in age from 70 to 89, whose data was collected over 12 to 15 months by Dr. Rosebud Roberts and colleagues from the Mayo Clinic. “They found that men were one-and-a-half times more likely to have mild cognitive impairment than women, Live Science reported, “The prevalence in men increased from 12 percent in men ages 70 to 74 up to 40 percent in the oldest age group, ages 85 to 89.” Despite these two studies the underlying reason as to why men are more forgetful than women is still a mystery. “We have speculated a lot about why men report more frequent problems with remembering than women do, but have not been able to find an explanation,” said Holmen.
Moreover, women do have better memories than men, but they also have difficulty remember names and dates. The study also shows a correlation between education. People who are educated have a better memory as opposed to less educated folks. Anxiety and depression also play a role in forgetfulness, as people suffering from these tend to have weaker memories. A decrease in memory for both sexes occurs at the age of 60. This research is a gateway for more age-related and sex-related memory studies since the scientist are not quite sure what makes memory loss more prevalent in men.