Spending time with these kinds of people is literally aging you faster

Chronic stress can speed up biological aging — no matter if the stress is from mounting debts, overtime work or your terminally annoying uncle who always wants to “play devil’s advocate.”That’s right: Researchers have measured the effects of “hasslers” — people in your life who regularly “create problems” or make things more difficult — on the rate at which your cells age.And the results are grim.According to the findings of a study conducted in Indiana, hasslers have the potential to speed up cellular aging by roughly 1.5%, meaning hassler-aggravated cells age about 1.015 biological years for every calendar year.Lead author and New York University sociology professor Byungkyu Lee clarified that this doesn’t necessarily mean hasslers cause people to age.

Instead, he and the other researchers observed “a kind of association between having hasslers and the rate of aging.”The researchers found that habitual hassling does the same biological harm as “traditional chronic stressors” like finances, systemic discrimination and the workplace. The resulting accelerated aging can lead to inflammation, a compromised immune system and an elevated risk of cardiovascular disease, among other dangers.Co-author Brea Perry, a sociology professor at Indiana University, told The Washington Post that “even small effects in terms of biological aging can accumulate.”To reach their conclusions, the researchers analyzed data from a recent health survey in Indiana that included over 2,000 participants.Participants were asked to reflect on their relationships in the previous six months and to rate their overall health as well as how often other people in their lives hassled them or caused problems. Researchers also collected saliva samples to study each participant’s epigenetic markers.

Advanced DNA assessment tools enabled the team to predict individual aging patterns, other health conditions and mortality risk.The outlook would seem to be especially...