Does Feeling Younger Than Your Age Reduce Your Risk of Death?

Adults who felt younger than their actual age had a lower mortality risk from cardiovascular death, according to a recent study.

“We sought to confirm this relationship in a large representative population sample, and to understand the role of existing health problems, poor physical function, depression, sociodemographic factors, social isolation, impaired cognitive function, and health behaviors in explaining the association,” said the study’s authors.
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For the study, researchers evaluated data from 6489 participants ages 52 years and older; each participant was asked, “How old do you feel you are?”

According to researchers, 69.6% of adults identified with an age 3 years younger than their actual age, while 25.6% of participants reported feeling close to their true age, and 4.8% of people felt over 1 year older than their actual age.

After a 99-month follow-up, investigators discovered that mortality rates were 14% lower than those who identified with their true age (19%) or those who felt older than their actual age (25%).

Investigators adjusted for variables including age, sex, and ethnicity.

The complete research letter was published in the December issue of JAMA Internal Medicine.

-Michelle Canales

Reference:

Rippon I, Steptoe A. Feeling old vs being old. JAMA Intern Med. 2014 December [epub ahead of print] doi: 10.1001/jamainternmed.2014.6580.