Being lonely, unhappy and disturbed sleep accelerates pace of aging

Molecular damage occurs to everyone and contributes to aging but in some people these molecular processes are more intense leading to accelerated aging.

Deep Longevity with US and Chinese scientists have found in a new study that being lonely, having restless sleep, or feeling unhappy increases pace of aging significantly.

The study has been published in Aging-US.

The article features a new aging clock trained and verified with blood and biometric data of 11,914 Chinese adults. This is the first aging clock to be trained exclusively on a Chinese cohort of such volume.

Aging acceleration was detected in people with a history of stroke, liver and lung diseases, smokers, and most interestingly, people in a vulnerable mental state. In fact, feeling hopeless, unhappy, and lonely was shown to increase one's biological age more than smoking. Other factors linked to aging acceleration include being single and living in a rural area (due to the low availability of medical services).

The authors of the article conclude that the psychological aspect of aging should not be neglected either in research or in practical anti-aging applications. According to Manuel Faria from Stanford University.

Reference:

Fedor Galkin, Kirill Kochetov, Diana Koldasbayeva, Manuel Faria, Helene H. Fung, Amber X. Chen, Alex Zhavoronkov, https://doi.org/10.18632/aging.204264 Aging-USAging-US