Depression, inequalities can accelerate aging: study

A new study by Canadians has found that feeling depressed, in addition to living in a poor neighborhood, can lead to premature aging.

The peer-reviewed study, published Monday in The Journals of Gerontology, Series A: Biological Sciences and Medical Sciencesshows how depression and living in an urban environment – ​​with greater material and social inequalities – can influence a person’s aging.

Led by researchers at McMaster University in Hamilton, Ont., the study authors say this can happen “even after accounting for individual-level health and behavioral risk factors, such as as chronic diseases and unhealthy behaviors”.

“This adds to the growing body of evidence that living in urban areas with higher levels of neighborhood deprivation and having symptoms of depression are both associated with premature biological aging,” the team leader said. Parminder Raina, a professor in the Department of Health Research Methods, Evidence, and Impact at McMaster University, said in a press release.

The researchers used epigenetic data from 1,445 people enrolled in the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aginga long-term study that follows approximately 50,000 participants between the ages of 45 and 85 for at least 20 years.

The study is described as examining the impact of changing biological, medical, psychological, social, economic and lifestyle factors on a person’s health as they age.

Epigenetics is the study of how behavior and environment can influence how a person’s genes work.

The researchers measured symptoms of depression using a standardized 10-point scale.

They say that a one-point increase in the score accelerates a person’s risk of death by a month, the theory being that the emotional distress caused by depression could lead to “greater biological wear and tear on the systems physiological”.

In order to measure “the material and social deprivation of the neighbourhood”, the researchers used a couple of indices, based on the 2011 census, from the Canadian Urban Environmental Health Research Consortium.

They described material deprivation as a person’s inability to obtain resources such as adequate housing, nutritious food, a vehicle, high-speed internet, or recreational facilities, while social deprivation refers to family ties and community.

The researchers say greater neighborhood deprivation increased a person’s “risk of death by almost a year,” but did not worsen the effect of depression on aging.

In other words, both were independently associated with premature aging.

“Our results showed that the effect of neighborhood deprivation on epigenetic age acceleration was similar regardless of symptoms of depression, suggesting that depression influences epigenetic age acceleration by through mechanisms unrelated to neighborhood deprivation,” Divya Joshi, the study’s first author and research associate at McMaster University, says.

The research team also included members from the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland.