• Posted July 24, 2026

Money Problems Might Make Your Brain Old Before Its Time, Study Suggests

Being cash-strapped certainly frays your nerves, but it might also accelerate brain aging, a new study says.

People who have persistent money struggles or low income as young adults tend to perform less well on cognitive tests by age 53, researchers reported July 23 in the journal Innovation in Aging.

Further, brain scans revealed that people who made little money had worse brain health and more brain shrinkage as seniors aged 69 to 71, researchers said.

The link between money troubles and brain aging remained even after researchers accounted for other factors that might influence brain health.

“Most studies on cognitive aging look at financial hardship at only a single point in time,” researcher Jacques Wels said in a news release.

“Our study using several decades of data allows us to see that it is the accumulation of hardship over many years that is linked to the worst cognitive health outcomes, rather than occasional episodes of adversity,” Wels said. He is an honorary senior research fellow at University College London.

For the study, researchers analyzed data for nearly 2,800 British people born in 1946.

People were asked about their household incomes at ages 26, 43 and 53, as well as whether they found it difficult to pay bills and meet financial obligations.

Results showed that low income and financial hardship were associated with slower processing speed and worse verbal memory by age 53.

Men were more affected by money problems, as were people who experienced childhood disadvantage and those who carried a higher genetic risk of Alzheimer’s disease.

Researchers suggested these men might have been hit harder by financial hardship because they belonged to a generation in which they were considered the primary breadwinners of the household. They also might have had more unhealthy habits, like smoking and drinking.

MRI scans performed on some of the participants showed that financial stress was linked to changes in brain structure associated with accelerated aging, such as shrinkage of important regions of the brain.

“Our findings suggest that supporting people facing financial hardship and reducing chronic poverty could also help prevent cognitive decline and dementia cases in the future,” senior researcher Praveetha Patalay, a professor of population health and wellbeing at University College London, said in the news release.

More information

Mental Health America has more on financial well-being.

SOURCE: University College London, news release, July 23, 2026