A recent study suggests that depression makes us age faster by speeding up the aging process in the cells.
Lab tests from a research study shows that people who were under depression or who have been depressed in the past look biologically older.
According to the study, researchers say that the visible difference of cell aging is called telomere length, which could not be explained by other influencing factors, such as smoking.
Josine Verhoeven of the VU University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, with some colleagues from the U.S., invited 2,407 people to participate in the study. Verhoeven indicates that around one third of the sample was currently depressed, around a third had had been majorly depressed in the past and the rest were neither under depression or have been depressed in the past.
Verhoeven and her team collected blood sample from all the volunteers in order to test and find any signs of cellular aging in the body. The researchers analyzed changes in structures deep inside cells called telomeres.
Telomeres cap the end of the chromosomes that houses an individual's DNA and work to halt any unnecessary loss of the vital genetic code. As cells divide, the telomeres get shorter and shorter. Scientists measure the telomeres length is a way of assess cellular aging.
The study indicates that people who were or had been depressed in the past had much shorter telomeres than those who had never been depressed. The difference of shorter telomeres was even present after lifestyle differences, such as heavy drinking and smoking.
Moreover, people suffering severe and chronic depression patients were tested to have had the shortest telomeres.
"This large-scale study provides convincing evidence that depression is associated with several years of biological ageing, especially among those with the most severe and chronic symptoms," says the research team.
The study also indicates that it remains unclear if the aging process is harmful and if it has death-related risks. The findings have been published in Molecular Psychiatry.
