Take Our Aging Quiz
How much do you know about growing older? Is it true that your heredity will determine how long you live? Is it false that your vocabulary will grow as you age? Test yourself on the basic facts and the latest research on aging.
Click on each link below to see the answer to the True-False question.
Obesity is the number one reason why some people age faster than others.
False.
Obesity is certainly bad for your health, but many other factors determine the rate at which you age. Scientists now believe that chronic stress may be particularly important–in fact, they’ve found evidence that it can speed up aging at the genetic level.
In a fascinating study published in 2004, a team of researchers led by psychologist Elissa Epel of the University of California at San Francisco compared 58 mothers. Two-thirds of them had a child with a serious chronic illness, such as cerebral palsy; the rest had healthy children. The team analyzed the chromosomes in the women’s white blood cells, looking particularly at their telomeres, short sections of DNA that cap and protect each chromosome. Whenever a cell divides, as it sometimes must to repair tissue or fight disease, its telomeres grow shorter. Eventually, they become so short that the cell stops dividing and can no longer function. Scientists believe they can judge a cell’s age and vitality by the length of its telomeres.
Epel found that even when the women faced similar problems, they differed significantly in how stressed they felt, and the more stress a woman reported feeling, the shorter her telomeres were. In fact, going by their telomeres, the women who felt the most pressured had cells that were at least 10 years older than they should have been. However, though the perception of stress was important, it wasn’t everything: mothers who had been caregivers for the longest time had very short telomeres no matter how much or how little stress they reported.
This was a small study and must be confirmed by further research, but it would explain the common observation that people who are chronically stressed seem to age quickly. There are ways to relieve stress, including meditation and cognitive therapy. In addition, studies of cells in test tubes suggest that a diet high in fruits and vegetables, and therefore rich in antioxidants, may actually lengthen telomeres.
“Research Links Stress to Biological Aging for the First Time.” Ask the Expert, InfoAging.org. American Federation for Aging Research.
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