Why Do People With Mental Illness Have Appearances Older Than Their Actual Age?

Individuals with prolonged mental disorders such as depression, bipolar disorder, or anxiety disorders have blood markers indicating that these people look older than their actual age. Dr. Julian Mutz and Prof Cathryn Lewis, from King’s College London, looked at data on 168 different blood metabolites from 110,780 participants in the UK Biobank2. They linked these data to information on whether individuals had a history of mental illness and found that those with a mental illness had a metabolite profile older than would have been expected for their age.

Presenting the work at the European Congress of Psychiatry in Paris, lead researcher Dr Julian Mutz (King’s College London) said:

Exploring the Relationship Between Bodies of People with Mental Illness and Age

“It is now possible to predict people’s age from blood metabolites. We found that, on average, those who had a lifetime history of mental illness had a metabolite profile which implied they were older than their actual age. For example, people with bipolar disorder had blood markers indicating that they were around 2 years older than their chronological age.”

People with mental health disorders tend to have shorter lives, and poorer quality health, than the general population3. Estimates of the effect vary according to the mental health condition. Often people with poor mental health show an increased tendency to develop conditions such as heart disease and diabetes, and these conditions tend to worsen with age. A 2019 study found that on average people with mental disorders had shorter life expectancy (in comparison to the general population) by around 10 years for men and seven years for women4.

Dr. Mutz continued: “This may not explain all the difference in health and life expectancy between those with mental health problems and the general population, but it does mean that accelerated biological ageing may be an important factor. If we can use these markers to track biological ageing, this may change how we monitor the physical health of people with mental illness and how we evaluate the effectiveness of interventions aimed at improving physical health”.

Source-Eurekalert