Smoking, regularly drinking alcohol, doing little exercise and having a high BMI make teenagers age two to five weeks a year faster biologically, according to a large DNA study
Health
21 June 2022
Smoking makes teens age faster biologically SpeedKingz/Shutterstock
Young people who smoke and have other unhealthy lifestyle practices age faster biologically than peers without these habits, according to a study that followed 800 teenagers for a decade and assessed markers of ageing in their blood.
“I think if teenagers knew that things like smoking actually made them biologically older, it would motivate them to stay healthy,” says Anna Kankaanpää at the University of Jyväskylä in Finland, who led the research.
We normally think of age in terms of number of birthdays – …