Did you know? Being alone or unhappy makes us age faster than cigarettes
Mental health has not always been considered a factor that accelerates aging, yet it weighs more heavily on our biological age than cigarettes or other illnesses!
A person who feels lonely and unhappy sees their biological age advance by 1.65 years compared to 1.25 years for smoking, according to a recent study that looked at the impact of psychology on aging.
To reach this conclusion, the Sino-American team, coordinated by Deep Longevity, a pioneering company in the design of “aging clocks” in the form of a application for smart phone analyzed the blood balance, the biological parameters (height, sex, BMI, blood pressure, etc.) of 4,846 Chinese over 45 years old. Among the countries of East Asia, the Chinese are those who age the most badly; according to the authors, only 15% of Chinese over the age of 65 do not suffer from any debilitating disease or cognitive loss. It’s 29.2% in Japan and 25% in South Korea.
Biological age differs from our calendar age. Some people age faster than others. It is calculated by statistical models which take into account biological parameters such as sex, blood test, weight, but also genetic parameters such as the level of gene expression or the rate of DNA methylation. Thus a person with a slow aging rate will appear healthier than another of the same age but with a rapid aging rate.
The health parameters collected from the volunteers were subjected to a artificial intelligenc eartificial intelligence who predicted the effect on biological age of poor mental health. As a result, loneliness, depression, isolation, insomnia, sadness increase biological age by 1.65 years, more than smoking. People with a history of heart, liver or lung problems also have a higher biological age than healthy people of the same age, but only by 1.5 years.
” Mental and psychological state is one of the most robust indicators of health and quality of life, yet it has been largely omitted from modern health care concludes Manuel Faria, psychology researcher at Stanford University and member of the research team.
