Research

Mixed

Low socioeconomic status (SES) is associated with accelerated epigenetic aging, specifically an increase in biological age of approximately 1 year compared to high SES, independent of major lifestyle risk factors.

Social environment impacts biological aging. While you cannot change your past, improving your social and economic conditions, especially in early life, may help slow down biological aging processes. Focus on reducing chronic stress and building supportive social networks as these are key components of socioeconomic well-being.

GoodSupportsHIGH confidence
Low SES was associated with greater AA (β = 0.99 years; 95% CI 0.39,1.59; p = 0.002; comparing extreme categories).
Giovanni Fiorito et al. · Scientific Reports · 2017

Why this rating

Large multi-cohort study (N > 5,000) with consistent results across different populations and robust statistical adjustments.

Source

Social adversity and epigenetic aging: a multi-cohort study on socioeconomic differences in peripheral blood DNA methylation

Giovanni Fiorito et al. · Scientific Reports · 2017

DOI 10.1038/s41598-017-16391-5

cohort · n=5111Cited 277×
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DOI resolved against Crossref · corpus check 2026-06-10

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