Being lonely and unhappy ‘speeds up ageing process more than smoking’

Mental health trouble found to tick up ‘biological age’ significantly

Loneliness, depression, hopelessness: All make the body grow old faster (Getty)

Feeling hopeless, lonely or unhappy speeds ageing more than smoking, according to new research.

Scientists said their findings show that any anti-ageing therapy ought to focus on mental health as much as physical health.

A person’s “chronological age” (how many years they have been alive) differs from their “biological age” (how well their body is wearing those years).

To measure biological age, an international team of scientists developed a digital “ageing clock” which draws on information including a person’s cholesterol and glucose levels, blood pressure, body mass and sex.

The team, made of researchers from Hong Kong-based age research company Deep Longevity, Stanford University and The Chinese University of Hong Kong, tested data for 11,914 Chinese adults for signs of ageing acceleration.

Results showed acceleration in people with a history of strokes, liver and lung diseases and smokers as well as those in a vulnerable mental state.

The latter, which covered loneliness, depression, hopelessness and unhappiness, was found to increase one’s biological age more than any of the other categories but the researchers say mental health is neglected in anti-ageing care.

Manuel Faria of Stanford University said: “Mental and psychosocial states are some of the most robust predictors of health outcomes – and quality of life – yet they have largely been omitted from modern healthcare”.

Testing was conducted on blood samples taken from the China Health and Retirement Longitudinal Study dataset, which holds information on over-45s from across the country.

The researchers found that the subjects had a biological age that was on average 5.7 years over or under their chronological age.

Comparisions were made between healthy adults and those with ageing-associated diseases, including a history of stroke, liver disease and lung conditions, who were matched on chronological age, sex and living area. The diseases added 18 months on average to biological age.

The team also found that smokers were 15 months older than non-smokers, while being married reduces biological age by around seven months.

People living in the rural areas of China were almost five months older than their urban peers. The researchers put this down to a lack of access to healthcare.

Mental health factors were found to add an average of 19.8 months to a subject’s health.

Andrew Steptoe, professor of psychology and epidemiology at University College London, said the findings were interesting and added to recent research on accelerated aging from Europe and North America.

But, he told The Guardian, it is unlikely isolation and loneliness are truly worse risk factors for health than smoking, while the study only looked at data collected at one point in time.

“It will be important in the future to test whether these predictions are fulfilled by repeating testing over a number of years,” he said.