Stronger Educational Performance in Early Life Correlates with Higher Cancer Risk, Lower Dementia Risk and Lower All-cause Mortality in Later Life – but Why?

Abstract Better functioning nervous system stimulates other organs, promoting longevity. As a trade-off, this stimulation may result in enhanced oncogenesis. This hypothesis was tested by analyzing factors reflecting cognitive score and academic performance, Educational performance emerged as a universal independent negative correlate for most of comorbidities, except cancer, that forms a positive correlate. More educated individuals demonstrate more aggressive neoplasia and cancer patients demonstrate lesser mental and physical decline as compared with controls. Cognitive stability and high cognitive score were the statistically strongest anti-correlates of all-cause mortality, pointing to neurological health as the principal mediator of survival. The patients remaining clinically normal despite decreased cognitive scores demonstrated anomalously low mortality (~2.5% annual in the 90 years old). Such “dementia resister” phenotype was more prevalent in the higher education cohorts, which also demonstrated a delayed aging rate. Remaining life expectancy was linearly proportional to the baseline cognitive score. We proposed that systemic non-trauma mobilization of stem-cell activity by CNS acts as a permanent regenerative endogenous factor with the trade-off of increased cancer risk due to similar interactions with cancer stem cells. Novel markers of mortality risk can follow as practical applications.