Having favorable socioeconomic status, such as high income or educational levels, limits the risk of age -related diseases and, according to a study that is published in ‘Nature Medicine‘, reduces biological aging.
Directed by researchers from the University College London (United Kingdom), research emphasizes that social inequalities seem to have a direct impact on the aging process.
Thus, the authors write, the people with a better socio -economic status had less blood proteins related to the aging process, including those related to inflammation and the immune system.
«This work provides solid biological evidence that social conditions influence the rhythm of aging. For decades, we have known that social advantage is related to better health, but our findings suggest that it could also slow down the aging process itself, ”says the main author, Mika Kivimaki.
The article is based on four large longitudinal studies that have been monitoring its participants for many years to More than 800,000 people: The Whitehall II study in the United Kingdom, the Biobanco of the United Kingdom, the study of the Finnish public sector (FPS) and the ATHEROSCLEROSIS study in communities (Aric) in the US.
Aging markers were evaluated by diagnoses of age associated with age and an advanced blood protein analysis. Since proteins reflect processes related to aging, their study allows to detect changes before the appearance of diseases.
On the other hand, the impact of social and medium -age factors on aging was analyzed through cohorts monitoring for more than 10 years, and up to 20 years in cases of Whitehall II and Aric, to determine its long -term influence.
The researchers discovered that the Risk of 66 diseases Age related to age was affected by the social advantage. On average, 20% more risk of disease was observed in people of low socioeconomic level than in high socioeconomic level. At 15, people of low socioeconomic level had a similar number of diagnoses of age -related diseases that people of high socioeconomic level.
In the case of some diseases, including type 2 diabetes, liver, cardiac diseases, lung cancer and stroke, the risk was more than double in the most disadvantaged group in relation to the most favored.
The scientists discovered that the levels of 14 plasma proteins were affected by the socioeconomic advantage, including proteins that regulate inflammatory responses and cellular stress. The researchers estimated that up to 39% of the reduction of the risk of disease in people with socioeconomic advantage could be influenced by these proteins.
In addition, the work found evidence that changes in social position can have a measurable impact on biological aging, since people who progressed from low levels of early education in life to medium or high social advantages later in life had more favorable protein concentrations in relation to those whose circumstances had not improved.
The researcher Give me pretty Partridge He clarifies that «although our study does not tell us why the social advantage can slow the aging process, other works have suggested that it may be related to factors such as the Stress of life, mental health, exposure to pollution or toxins, and behaviors such as smoking, drug and alcohol consumption, diet and exercise, as well as access to medical exams, checks, vaccines and medications ».
Another recent study led by the same researchers, published in ‘The Lancet Digital Health‘. He discovered that a blood test that determines how much our organs have aged could predict the risk of diseases related to age with decades in advance, which could help with preventive medicine for people who show signs of accelerated aging.
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