Anxiety May Speed Aging

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Anxiety May Speed Aging

Anxiety disorders may contribute to shorter telomere length, a known marker of aging. However, adequate treatment may help reverse the process, new research suggests.

Results from a large study showed that patients with a current anxiety disorder had shorter telomeres than nonpsychiatric control individuals and those with remitted anxiety disorder, suggesting that telomere shortening can be reversed with adequate treatment of an anxiety disorder.

“In the Netherlands Study of Depression and Anxiety, we had the opportunity to look at telomere length in over 2300 persons with and without anxiety disorders. Our results show that persons with a current anxiety disorder on average had shorter telomere length, although cause and effect remain to be explored,” first author Josine Verhoeven, from the Department of Psychiatry and the EMGO Institute for Health and Care Research, VU University Medical Center, Amsterdam, the Netherlands, told Medscape Medical News.

The study was published online February 5 in the British Journal of Psychiatry.

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