Negative social ties, such as frequencies, could age you

Many of us have people in our lives that bring more anxiety than joy. But rather than these individuals simply take us, they could actually accelerate the speed at which we age.

Psychologists have long since known that solid social ties are shaping our longevity, a review suggesting that social isolation can have such a strong influence on mortality as obesity or a lack of exercise.

It is also obvious that the quality of our relationships can be important that quantity. In 2012, researchers from the University of Utah noted that “freema” – ambivalent relationships that blow hot and cold – seem to accelerate the shortening of our telomeres, the protective ceilings at the end of the chromosomes. This occurs naturally with age and has been linked to conditions such as heart disease.

Now Byungkyu Lee at New York University and his colleagues have turned to a more precise measurement of aging, analyzing the effects of negative social ties on tiny DNA chemical changes called methylation brands. This is an example of epigenetics, how your behavior and your environment can cause changes that affect the functioning of your genes. “As you get older, the model of these brands changes predictable,” explains Lee.

The team asked 2232 people to provide saliva samples for epigenetic tests and to describe their relationships with key members of their social network, by answering questions such as: “How often did it run, caused problems or made life difficult?” In response, they replied “never”, “rarely”, “occasionally” or “often”.

Anyone who has caused such problems from time to time or has often been labeled a “hassler” – and they were surprisingly common. “More than half of adults say they have at least one hassler among their closest contacts,” said Lee.

These individuals seemed to have a significant impact on the epigenetic markers of people, each hassler being linked to an accelerated organic aging of around 0.5%, which makes its age biological age of 2.5 months, on average, that it is for their chronological age.

Negative social ties can trigger a chronic response to inflammatory stress, Lee’s team watching higher levels of these markers in people with such relationships, which can harm the immune system.

“The biological impact of having a high proportion of hassle in its social network is comparable in amplitude with the difference between the ever smokers and the smokers always,” explains Lee.

The effect was the most pronounced among the Hasslers who also offered the person a kind of social support. “The same person who comforts you today could criticize you tomorrow, creating more physiological damage than the relationships that you can simply classify as bad and potentially avoid,” explains Lee.

Alex Haslam at the University of Queensland in Australia claims that the document “is certainly aligned with other works that have explored these problems and underlines the importance of social relations for health”.

He also maintains that a global feeling of group membership can have a greater impact on aging than the effects of some individuals. “For example, if I am a member of a reading club or a choir, it will be my identification with the group as a whole that affects my health, and not how good I am with its individual members,” he said.