UK researchers at Oxford University have reported two out of 25 lifestyle behaviours and environmental factors – smoking and socioeconomic status – most affect biological ageing.
Their study, published in the journal Nature Medicine, analysed medical data from almost half a million participants of the UK Biobank to determine the impact of 164 different lifestyle and environmental factors on ageing, age-related diseases and premature death.
The scientists used a unique ageing model called an ‘ageing clock’ to help determine which environmental factors influenced ageing the most.
First author Dr Austin Argentieri told medicalnewstoday.com: ‘An ‘ageing clock’ estimates a person’s biological age based on molecular markers in their body, rather than just their chronological age (how many years they’ve lived). Think of it like a stopwatch that measures how your body is ageing internally, not just counting the years.’
The team identified 25 lifestyle and environmental factors (23 they reported are modifiable) associated with mortality and proteomic ageing, as well as ageing biomarkers and major disease risk factors. These included: cheese consumption; ease of skin tanning; education years; employment status; ethnicity; frequency of feeling tired; gym use; history of financial difficulties; household income; physical activity; sleeping hours; smoking status; type of housing (house, apartment, mobile home, etc); using an open fire for heating; weight and height at 10 years old.
They found smoking, socioeconomic status, physical activity and living conditions were the factors that had most influence on mortality and biological ageing; smoking alone was associated with 21 diseases, and socioeconomic factors and tiredness frequency with 19 diseases.
Dr Argentieri explained: ‘This means a few fundamental aspects of our environments and lives could possibly have a profound influence on whether we live a long healthy life. In a time when there is lots of attention paid to fancy new trends in wellness, it reminds us that getting back to basics will still possibly have the largest and most strategic impact on improving population health.’
Overall, researchers attributed 17 percent of the variation in risk of death to environmental factors, compared to less than 2 percent explained by genetic predisposition for 22 major diseases.
They also found environmental exposures had a greater effect on lung, heart and liver diseases, while genetic risk still dominated for dementias and breast cancer.
Dr Argentieri summed up: ‘This demonstrates that our environments and lifestyle are almost 10 times more important in explaining mortality risk than our genetic predisposition for major diseases causes of death. It means that we have the power to have a major impact on preventing early mortality if we focus on improving our environmental and economic conditions.’
