Study reveals loneliness, unhappiness can accelerate aging more than smoking

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW:

• A new study reveals that a person’s mental health can accelerate aging.
• American and Chinese researchers found that being lonely and unhappy could increase a person’s biological age by up to 1.65 years. 
• The findings reveal that being alone and sad can make someone age quicker than smoking.

A new study found that poor mental health can accelerate a person’s aging process more than smoking or certain diseases.

Human beings have two different ages — the chronological age and the biological age. The chronological age measures how much time a person has spent living while biological age refers to how old the body seems.  

There are a lot of lifestyle factors that affect someone’s biological age, like diet, exercise and psychological state.

Researchers from Deep Longevity, a Hong Kong-based longevity company, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Stanford University found in their recent study that feelings impact a person’s biological age. Feelings that cause poor mental health like sadness, loneliness and general unhappiness add an extra 1.65 years to someone’s biological age.  

The study also revealed that smoking can add up to 1.25 years while suffering from restless sleep can add 0.44 years to a person’s biological age.

According to the researchers, they came up with a new “aging clock” as part of the study. They based it on 2015 data from 4,846 Chinese adults as part of the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study (CHARLS). 

There were 16 blood biomarkers used in the study, like cholesterol and glucose levels, as well as other health information like blood pressure, body mass index, lung function and sex. 

The team made a comparison of the chronological age of CHARLS participants with the ages predicted by their new “aging clock.” The results revealed that the new age was roughly 5.6 years older than the CHARLS participants’ actual ages.  

Rsearchers also found that smokers and those with a history of stroke, liver or lung disease were predicted to be older than the remaining 4,451 healthy adults in the group.  

In addition. other environmental factors like marriage status, rural setting and access to health care also have an impact on biological age, the study also found.  

Source: Fox News