According to a recent study, any anti-aging therapy needs to focus on your mental health as much as it does on your physical health. An international collaboration led by Deep Longevity with US and Chinese scientists he measured the effects of loneliness, restless sleep or feeling unhappy on the pace of aging and found it significant.
Molecular damage accumulates and contributes to the development of frailty and serious diseases related to aging. In some people, these molecular processes are more intense than in others, a condition commonly referred to as accelerated aging.
Fortunately, the increased pace of aging can be detected before its dire consequences manifest using digital models of aging (aging clocks). Such models can also be used to derive anti-aging therapies at the individual and population level.
The results of the Research have been published in the scientific journal Aging-US.
Accelerated aging: this is how loneliness and unhappiness affect
The research identified a new trained and verified aging watch with biometric and blood data from 11,914 Chinese adults. This is the first aging watch to be trained exclusively on a Chinese cohort of this volume.
Acceleration of aging has been found in people with a history of stroke, liver and lung disease, smokers and, most interestingly, people in a vulnerable state of mind. In fact, feeling hopeless, unhappy and lonely has been shown to increase one’s biological age more than smoking. Other factors related to accelerating aging include being single and living in a rural area (due to the limited availability of medical services).
The research team stated that the psychological aspect of aging should not be overlooked in either research or practical applications against aging. According to Manuel Faria of Stanford University, “Mental and psychosocial states are some of the most robust predictors of health outcomes and quality of life, but they have been largely omitted from modern health care.”
Alex Zhavoronkov, CEO of Insilico Medicine, points out that the study provides a course of action to “slow down or even reverse psychological aging nationwide.”
Earlier this year, Deep Longevity released an AI-driven mental health web service, FuturSelf.AI, based on an earlier publication in Aging-US . The service offers a free psychological assessment that is processed by an AI and provides a comprehensive report on the user’s psychological age and current and future mental well-being. Deepankar Nayak, CEO of Deep longevity, says: “FuturSelf.AI, combined with the study of Chinese seniors, places Deep Longevity at the forefront of biogerontology research.”
Deep Longevity developed the Longevity as a Service (LaaS) solution to integrate multiple deep aging biomarkers dubbed “deep aging clocks” to provide a universal multifactorial measure of human biological age.
Doctor Agnese Rossi, psychotherapist of the Psychology and Psychotherapy Clinic of Humanitas Gavazzeni Bergamo, stated: “It is the paradox of our time. We try in every way to avoid being alone with ourselves. We attend most of the day crowded places such as public transport, waiting rooms, shops, restaurants and even when we are alone we look for “company” on television, radio because a little silence scares us “.
‘Without forgetting social networks… A lifestyle that in some cases can generate a poor ability to be alone with ourselves, to understand what we really are and what our real needs are. And therefore also a growing difficulty in meeting new people, in building solid and constructive relationships “.
Sometimes loneliness is not only responsible for accelerated aging, but can lead to depression: “You are a victim of depression when the loneliness we are experiencing seems to us a condition unbearablefor the internal and relational suffering it produces, e unchangeable “.
“We hate being alone but at the same time we avoid looking for other people for fear of being rejected. It is a very delicate psychological situation that must be resolved through a work done with one psychologist. The treatment path is aimed at regaining self-confidence, to identify a place in the world suitable for one’s way of life and to give due importance to interpersonal relationships and to sociability “explained the psychotherapist.
“It is a state that can be fought with body and mind care. So, on the one hand healthy eating and exercise and on the other a fair amount of time to devote to true and deep relationships, those able to affect our social skills and our inner resources. THE social network they can be useful when they trigger a subsequent in-person meeting, not when they are the only means of connecting with other people. Much better, however, to take action to find real and rewarding relationships, which can give quality to our life and can have beneficial effects on our physical and mental health “.
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