{"id":22861,"date":"2025-02-26T18:47:39","date_gmt":"2025-02-26T19:47:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22861"},"modified":"2025-02-26T20:23:58","modified_gmt":"2025-02-26T20:23:58","slug":"extreme-heat-may-cause-older-people-to-age-faster-new-study-finds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/?p=22861","title":{"rendered":"Extreme Heat May Cause Older People to Age Faster, New Study Finds"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A first-of-its-kind analysis found that people living in hotter areas experienced more molecular changes than those in cooler places.<\/p>\n

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Extreme heat can be particularly dangerous<\/a> for older people, putting them at increased risk for heat stroke and death. But could it also affect how their DNA functions, and accelerate the aging process itself?<\/p>\n

A new study,<\/a> published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, suggests it could. The analysis of over 3,600 older adults in the United States found that those living in neighborhoods prone to extreme heat<\/a> \u2014 classified as 90 degrees or above \u2014 showed more accelerated aging at a molecular level compared with those in areas less prone to extreme heat.<\/p>\n

The findings suggest that heat waves and rising temperatures<\/a> from climate change could be chemically modifying people\u2019s DNA and speeding up their biological aging. The study authors estimated that a person living in an area that reached 90 degrees or above for 140 days or more in a year could age up to 14 months faster than someone in an area with fewer than 10 extreme heat days a year.<\/p>\n

To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed three biomarker aging estimates, known as epigenetic clocks, which were derived from blood samples of people age 56 and older as part of a separate national population study<\/a>. They then looked at these age estimates alongside six years of daily climate data, comparing them across geographies.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Epigenetic clocks measure biological changes that could predict the future risk of disease or death associated with older age. They estimate \u201chow well the body is functioning at the molecular and the cellular level,\u201d said Eun Young Choi, a postdoctoral associate at the U.S.C. Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and a co-author on the paper. While DNA is fixed at birth, external factors like stress or pollution can trigger molecular changes that turn genes on and off and affect how they operate. \u201cDNA is like a blueprint,\u201d Dr. Choi said, but these epigenetic changes<\/a> are like the \u201cswitchboard that controls which part of the blueprint gets activated.\u201d<\/p>\n

This is the first population-level analysis to establish a connection between heat exposure and epigenetic aging in humans, building on separate research finding similar changes in fish<\/a>, mice<\/a> and guinea pigs.<\/a><\/p>\n

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A first-of-its-kind analysis found that people living in hotter areas experienced more molecular changes than those in cooler places.Extreme heat can be particularly dangerous for older people, putting them at increased risk for heat stroke and death. But could it also affect how their DNA functions, and accelerate the aging process itself?A new study, published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances, suggests it could. The analysis of over 3,600 older adults in the United States found that those living in neighborhoods prone to extreme heat \u2014 classified as 90 degrees or above \u2014 showed more accelerated aging at a molecular level compared with those in areas less prone to extreme heat.The findings suggest that heat waves and rising temperatures from climate change could be chemically modifying people\u2019s DNA and speeding up their biological aging. The study authors estimated that a person living in an area that reached 90 degrees or above for 140 days or more in a year could age up to 14 months faster than someone in an area with fewer than 10 extreme heat days a year.To conduct the study, the researchers analyzed three biomarker aging estimates, known as epigenetic clocks, which were derived from blood samples of people age 56 and older as part of a separate national population study. They then looked at these age estimates alongside six years of daily climate data, comparing them across geographies.Epigenetic clocks measure biological changes that could predict the future risk of disease or death associated with older age. They estimate \u201chow well the body is functioning at the molecular and the cellular level,\u201d said Eun Young Choi, a postdoctoral associate at the U.S.C. Leonard Davis School of Gerontology and a co-author on the paper. While DNA is fixed at birth, external factors like stress or pollution can trigger molecular changes that turn genes on and off and affect how they operate. \u201cDNA is like a blueprint,\u201d Dr. Choi said, but these epigenetic changes are like the \u201cswitchboard that controls which part of the blueprint gets activated.\u201dThis is the first population-level analysis to establish a connection between heat exposure and epigenetic aging in humans, building on separate research finding similar changes in fish, mice and guinea pigs.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and\u00a0log into\u00a0your Times account, or\u00a0subscribe\u00a0for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber?\u00a0Log in.Want all of The Times?\u00a0Subscribe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22863,"comment_status":"close","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22861","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lifestyle"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22861"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22864,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22861\/revisions\/22864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/22863"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22861"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22861"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/medexperts.pro\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22861"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}