Could learning multiple languages be a secret weapon against the ravages of old age? C’est une possibilité. The rest of this article is behind a paywall. Please sign in or subscribe to access the full content.

In a new study, researchers show how people who speak two or more languages have a decreased risk of accelerated aging – and the benefits of being multilingual increase with the number of languages spoken.

An international team of researchers studied data on 86,149 people aged 51–90 years from 27 countries in Europe. They found that people who speak only one language were approximately twice as likely to experience accelerated ageing, whereas multilingual individuals were on average about half as likely to do so.

So why does speaking multiple languages help people feel and act y

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