Can Depression Affect How Fast You Age?

Summary: Yes, depression can affect how fast you age. Nothing can change your chronological age, of course – that’s fixed at birth – but people with major depressive disorder (MDD) show signs of advanced biological age compared to chronological age.

Key Points:

• People with clinical depression – i.e. major depressive disorder – show differences in biological processes related to accelerated biological aging compared to people without clinical depression.
• Evidence shows diagnosis of clinical depression is associated with increased risk of negative age-related health problems.
• Differences in biological aging processes among people with clinical depression may be the mechanism that causes increased risk of negative health outcomes observed in MDD.

The Physical Consequences of Depression

When we think about mental health disorders such as depression and anxiety, we most often focus on the emotional component. We recognize the emotional, psychological, and behavioral consequences of depression can have a significant negative impact on the major functional domains of life, including relationships, work, school, social activities, and personal interests. In some cases, severe depression can impair the ability to attend to the basics of personal care, such as eating, engaging in any activity at all, and personal hygiene.

What many people don’t understand is that depression, particularly chronic, severe, and/or untreated depression, is also associated with significant negative physical health problems. Evidence in studies published here and here indicate a diagnosis of depression is associated with the following physical issues:

• Cardiovascular disease
• Hypertension
• Type 2 diabetes
• Gut dysfunction
• Immune dysfunction
• Hypertension
• Osteoarthritis

New research adds to our knowledge of the impact of depression o physical health, with evidence showing how depression can affect how fast you age, based on well-established metrics for measuring our biological age.

We should clarify that when we talk about aging in this article, and use phrases like accelerated aging, what we’re talking about is our measured biological age – i.e. how old our bodies appear to be, on average, compared to other people – compared to our chronological age, which is determined by our time/date of birth.

Depression and Biological Age: What’s the Connection?

Looking at the list of physical conditions associated with depression, we see that some are associated with the typical aging process, others are associated with unhealthy eating and activity habits, while still others are associated with genetic and environmental factors unrelated to depression. The question we pose in this article is whether having depression increases the incidence of age-related disease and dysfunction, thereby accelerating measured our dynamic biological age as compared to our fixed chronological age.

The paper “Major Depression and the Biological Hallmarks of Aging,” designed a review of available research on the connection between depression and biological aging. Here’s how the study authors describe the rationale for and goal of their work:

“In recent years, several lines of evidence have suggested that individuals with MDD have an elevated risk of age-related adverse outcomes across the lifespan. This review provided evidence of a significant overlap between the biological abnormalities in MDD and biological changes commonly observed during the aging process (i.e., hallmarks of biological aging).”

First, let’s review and explain the characteristics – or hallmarks – of biological aging the research team examined. To clarify, and state it in simple language, the hallmarks of biological aging are measurable physical markers that reflect the impact of age on our bodies.

Here they are:

The Primary Hallmarks of Biological Aging

For more information on biological and chronological aging, please visit the Oxford Longevity Project.

Cellular senescence

• This occurs when cells stop dividing, accumulate over time, and release chemicals that harm surrounding tissue and increase risk of age-related health problems

Altered intercellular communication

• This occurs when changes in intercellular chemical messengers/messaging impair communication between cells, which can increase risk of age-related health problems.

Mitochondrial dysfunction

• This occurs when the mitochondria in our cells – which we all learn at school age to call the powerhouse of the cell – lose their ability to operate optimally. Energy production decreases and mitochondria can release chemicals that damage surrounding tissue, which increases risk of neurodegenerative disorder and organ damage.

Deregulation of nutrient sensing

• This occurs when the activity of insulin and hormones in the body regulate appetite, energy us/production, cell repair, and cell growth cease to function properly, and contribute to age-related health problems.

Epigenetic alterations

• This refers to changes in the structure and function of DNA and DNA-related processes associated with aging, and are often measured to assess differences in biological age compared to chronological age.

Genomic instability

• This refers to the cumulative damage to DNA across the lifespan, specifically DNA in cell nuclei and mitochondrial DNA, which impairs cell repair, DNA repair mechanisms, and contributes to age-related health disease and dysfunction.

Loss of proteostasis

• Proteostasis refers to how the body regulates, balances, and maintains the efficient functioning of the proteins in our bodies. When proteostasis fails, damaged or incorrectly formed proteins can accumulate in the body, and contribute to both typical aging and neurodegenerative disease.

Stem cell exhaustion

• Stem cells are progenitor cells for all the cells in our bodies. In adults, stem cells are specific to the tissues in which they’re formed, and enable the body to replace damaged cells. Exhaustion in stem cells refers to their inability renew and repair tissue in the body, and contributes to age-related disease, dysfunction, and loss of function.

Let’s take a look at what they found, and learn about the relationship between depression and the hallmarks of biological aging.

The Results: Depression and Aging

We’ll report on the evidence for the impact of depression on biological aging for people diagnosed with depression, with the evidence defined by the study authors as:

• Strong: depression very likely accelerates biological age compared to chronological aging
• Moderate: depression likely has an accelerating effect on biological aging compared to chronological aging
• Weak/poor/no evidence: research currently shows no connection between depression and accelerated biological vs. chronological aging.

Here’s what they found.

Depression Impact on Aging, by Standard Biological Hallmark

1. Cellular senescence: strong evidence
2. Altered intercellular communication: strong evidence
3. Mitochondrial dysfunction: strong evidence
4. Deregulation of nutrient sensing: moderate evidence
5. Epigenetic alterations: moderate evidence
6. Genomic instability: weak/poor/no evidence
7. Loss of proteostasis: weak/poor/no evidence
8. Stem cell exhaustion: weak/poor/no evidence

Here’s how the study authors characterize these results:

“The reduced adaptive homeostatic capacity due to the accumulation of biological aging abnormalities in MDD can manifest clinically by the observed risk of age-related adverse health outcomes…the abnormalities on the hallmarks of biological aging are factors contributing to and mechanistically linked to the emergence of a premature aging phenotype in MDD across the lifespan.”

Translation:

The cumulative impact of depression on the specific hallmarks of biological aging can increase risk of biological age exceeding chronological age.

Or, more simply stated:

Depression can affect how fast you age, physically speaking, and create a situation where your body shows signs of an older age than your birthdate indicates.

Further research will clarify whether treatment for depression can mitigate this phenomenon: we already know physical exercise has a positive and protective effect on the hallmarks of biological aging, and some medications can help reduce the accumulation of senescent – i.e. no longer dividing – cells in the body.

In the meantime, we encourage anyone with depression, or depressive symptoms, to seek professional treatment and support to address the aspects of depression we know treatment can improve.

When we learn more on this topic, we’ll report it here – and you’ll be among the first to know.