Does a lack of education lead to a shorter life?

People with a lower level of formal education also have a lower level of life expectancy, according to researchers from Britain and the US.

Researchers examined the length of sections of DNA from 450 people taking part in a long term health study. They found a correlation between people who stunk at school and those who had a shorter section of the DNA strand. The section related to aging. The shorter segment suggests faster aging.

Telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes. The protect them from damage. That damage is the process of aging.

“The key implication f this study backs up one of the main messages to have come out of long-term studies. . . that your experiences early in life can have important influences on your health,” said Stephen Holgate, from Britain’s medical Research Council. He admitted it was hard to find the reason why the telomeres were shorter to begin with.

People with lower educational achievements had shorter telomeres, meaning they may age faster than others. There was also strong evidence that this is not affected by people’s social and economic status later in life.

“We already know from previous research that people with poor backgrounds are prone to age more quickly,” said Andrew Steptoe, a professor of psychology at the British Heart Foundation. “Education is a marker of social class that people acquire early in life, and our research suggests that it is long term exposure to the conditions of lower status that promoted accelerated cellular aging.”

Source: Reuters, Brain, Behavior and Immunity