Feeling unhappy, lonely can accelerate aging faster than smoking, diseases

According to a recent study, published in the journal Aging-US, feeling unhappy, lonely or depressed can make your age faster than smoking or even certain diseases. It indicates that our mental health has a major impact on our biological aging and to incorporate these aspects they have created an “aging clock”.

The study was led by Deep Longevity (a biotechnology company focused on transforming longevity) with researchers from Stanford University, and The Chinese University of Hong Kong has created what they called an “aging clock” based on the data collected from at least 11,914 Chinese adults. The data was first collected in 2015, as part of a study called, China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS).

According to the Guardian, Fedor Galkin, a co-author of the study and lead scientist at the Hong Kong startup Deep Longevity, said “Your body and soul are connected – this is our main message.” The study looks at 16 blood biomarkers which are then compared to the “chronological age” of the participants, which is the age based on a person’s date of birth, predicted by the model with their actual age. The results showed that there were at least 5.7 years over or under the participant’s true age.

A biomarker is a molecule found in blood or other fluid and tissues of the body which are associated with a certain process, the ones chosen for this study include cholesterol and glucose levels. Additionally, they also accounted for 7 biometrics, like blood pressure, body mass index and measures of lung function, and the biological sex of the participant said the report.

“We demonstrate that psychological factors, such as feeling unhappy or being lonely, add up to 1.65 years to one’s biological age,” the researchers stated. However, Galkin also said that the figure is an estimate given that the model does not see feelings such as hopelessness or fearfulness related but independent of each other, the Guardian reported.

But it is not just loneliness but other psychological factors like depression, hopelessness, poor sleep, unhappiness, and fearfulness that can trigger faster aging. Another interesting finding of the study was that being married can reduce biological age by 7 months, whereas smokers are predicted to be 15 months older than their non-smoking counterparts. Additionally, people in rural areas are predicted to be at least 5 months older than those living in urban areas.

However, it is not likely that isolation and loneliness are worse risk factors for a person’s health than smoking, said Andrew Steptoe, professor at University College London, during an interview with the Guardian, since the data is collected at one point in time, he added. Steptoe also went on to point out how the researchers did not follow up with the participants with psychological distress to show that they actually aged more rapidly. However, it will be important to test if these predictions are fulfilled by repeated testing over a number of years, he added.