Scientists found conditions that kill us worse than smoking or disease

Think back to the last time you neglected your prolonged depressed state and focused instead on everyday activities. Basically, this is a worldwide trend - people are more careful about their physical health and well-being than they are about their mental health. Meanwhile, recent data indicate that this approach should be reconsidered.

According to The Hill, a joint study by by Hong Kong longevity company Deep Longevity, the Chinese University of Hong Kong and Stanford University showed that sadness, loneliness and feeling unhappy kill us almost faster than smoking or chronic diseases. According to approximate calculations, a general depressed psychological state can add an average of 1.65 years to the so-called biological age of a person. For comparison, smoking adds 1.25 years, and poor sleep adds 0.44 years.

Biological age differs from passport age in that it is determined by the general state of the human body. However, unlike the numbers in the passport, it can be managed. This is done through diet, exercise, and - yes - working on your mental well-being.

To develop an "aging clock," researchers collected data from more than 12,000 Chinese adults in 2015. The collection was part of a long-term health and retirement study. Protocols included 16 blood biomarkers, such as cholesterol and glucose levels, as well as other health information such as blood pressure, body mass index, lung function and gender. Loneliness, restless sleep or feelings of unhappiness have been found to have a significant effect on the rate of aging that exceeds the negative effects from bad habits such as smoking. And they also speed up the aging process in the same way that stroke, liver and lung diseases do.

As wrote OBOZREVATEL, optimism was named as the secret of longevity by two women who also confessed that alcohol helped them to live over 100 years.