Modern people in their 90s smarter than same age group born decade ago

People who reach their nineties today show improved mental performance compared to people in the same age group born a decade earlier, according to the results of a study conducted in Denmark, says News-Medical.

 Using the Danish Civil Register System, lead researcher Kaare Christensen, professor of epidemiology at the University of Southern Denmark in Odense and director of the Danish Aging Research Center, and colleagues found all nonagenarians living in Denmark. In 1998, they assessed 2,262 men and women born in 1905; then in 2010, they assessed 1,584 men and women who were born in 1915. The first group was tested when they were 92 and 93 years old, the second group when they were 94 and 95, according to Mother Nature Network.

The researchers say that the study challenges the conventional wisdom that longer life spans are "the result of the survival of very frail and disabled elderly people," according to Kaare Christensen, informs Newsmax.