Men forget things more easily than women - study

'It was also surprising to see that men are just as forgetful whether they are 30 or 60 years old.'

'It was also surprising to see that men are just as forgetful whether they are 30 or 60 years old.'

Published Mar 27, 2014

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London - If your husband is absent-minded, don’t worry. You’re not the only one with a forgetful man in the house.

“It was surprising to see that men forget more than women,” says Professor Jostein Holmen, from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim. “This has not been documented before. It was also surprising to see that men are just as forgetful whether they are 30 or 60 years old.”

Holmen and his co-workers asked nine questions about how well people think they remember as a part of a health study called HUNT3.

HUNT3 is one of the largest health studies yet performed, with answers from more than 48 000 people. The participants were asked how often they had problems remembering things, and whether they had problems with remembering names and dates, if they could remember what they did one year ago and if they could remember details from conversations. Men reported problems for eight out of nine questions.

“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,” says Holmen.

Women have the same problems with remembering, but to a lesser extent.

These problems accelerate with age, but to a much lesser extent than previously thought. Women forget just as much whether they are 30 or 50 years old.

The study also shows that people who are more highly educated forget less.

People who suffer from anxiety or depression are more forgetful. – Washington Post/Bloomberg

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