New research suggests that extreme heat may cause people to age faster at a molecular level.
The passage of time leaves markers of aging in our genes. For a new study, researchers looked at such markers in 3,800 Americans over the age of 55, comparing the data with local weather records. They found that people living in places with more hot days tended to have more genetic markers of age.
The research, presented at a recent conference on the science of aging, finds that people living in hot places age up to 0.6 percent faster than those living in cooler places, Nature reported.
While the study controlled for race, ethnicity, income, and cigarette use, it did not account for how much time people spent outside or whether they had access to air conditioning, making it difficult to determine the precise role of heat in apparent genetic aging.
Still, the findings indicate that heat “could affect our body at the cellular and molecular level,” lead author Eunyoung Choi, of the University of Southern California, told Nature. “And that biological deterioration could later develop into disability.”
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