History of psychopathology appears to predict accelerated aging at midlife
A history of psychopathology appeared linked to accelerated aging at midlife, years before age-related diseases typically manifest, according to results of a prospective cohort study published in JAMA Psychiatry.
“Recent work by our team reports that young individuals with mental disorders were more likely to develop subsequent physical diseases, accounted for excess health care dollars and tended to die earlier than people without mental disorders,” Jasmin Wertz, PhD, of the department of psychology and neuroscience at Duke University, told Healio Psychiatry. “However, it was not previously clear whether mental health problems are also linked with processes of faster aging that precede the onset of age-related disease. We tested this in our study.”
Wertz and colleagues analyzed data of participants of the population-representative birth cohort Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study, which included 1,037 individuals born between April 1972 and March 1973 in Dunedin, New Zealand. Follow-up data were available for participants until age 45 years. Of 997 participants still alive at age 45 years, the researchers assessed 938 (94%). They assessed mental disorders in six diagnostic assessments between ages 18 to 45 years and used confirmatory factor analysis to achieve continuous measures of general psychopathology and dimensions of internalizing, externalizing and thought disorders. Signs of aging assessed up to age 45 years according to previously validated measures, such as biomarkers, clinical tests and self-reports, served as the main outcomes and measures.
Results showed a faster pace of biological aging (beta = 0.27; 95% CI, 0.21-0.33); more difficulties with hearing (beta = 0.18; 95% CI, 0.12-0.24), vision (beta = 0.08; 95% CI, 0.01-0.14), balance (beta = 0.2; 95% CI, 0.14-0.26) and motor functioning (beta = 0.19; 95% CI, 0.12-0.25); more cognitive difficulties (beta = 0.24; 95% CI, 0.18-0.31); and increased likelihood to be rates as looking older (beta = 0.2; 95% CI, 0.14-0.26) among participants who had experienced more psychopathology. The researchers reported persisting associations after having controlled for sex, childhood health indicators, maltreatment and socioeconomic status, as well as after having accounted for being overweight, smoking, antipsychotic medication use and the presence of physical disease. Diagnostic specificity tests showed generalizability of these associations across externalizing, internalizing and thought disorders.
“First, preventing mental health problems has the potential to reduce and delay later physical diseases,” Wertz said. “Mental health problems tend to develop when individuals are still young, years before the typical onset of physical disease, suggesting a window of opportunity. Second, individuals with mental health problems are a high-priority group to monitor for signs of faster aging, such as hearing or motor problems and cognitive decline, that become apparent earlier in this group than in the general population. Such monitoring requires greater integration of mental and physical health services.”