Unemployment accelerates biological aging among men: study

A joint research team from Britain and Finland suggested that work-related stress is linked to accelerated aging, scientific journal PLOS ONE reported on Nov. 20.

The University of Olulu in Finland and Imperial College London in Britain analyzed the relationship between 5,620 Finnish men and women’s DNA and their period of unemployment between 1994 and 1997.

They compared DNA samples of men who were employed and unemployed to see whether cell lifespan was associated with stress. Unemployed men were found to have telomeres -- the part at the end of a chromosome that prevents it from deteriorating -- that were twice as short as those of employed men during the cited period. 

The length of the telomere helps to approximate a cell’s lifespan and can be easily affected by smoking, weight, excessive stress from adolescence and childhood, and diabetes.

However, women‘s vulnerability to stress was reported as inaccurate due to the low rate of female unemployment during that period, according to Dr. Jessica Buxton at ICL.

By Sung Jin-woo, Intern reporter
(jinwoo0120@heraldcorp.com)