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Associations between psychological resilience and epigenetic clocks in the health and retirement study

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Abstract

The aim of this study was to evaluate the associations between psychological resilience and epigenetic clocks assessed by DNA methylation age predictions. We used data from 4018 participants in the Health and Retirement Study. Multivariable linear regression models were used to estimate the association between psychological resilience and epigenetic clocks adjusted for age, sex, race, body mass index, smoking status, and years of education. Thirteen epigenetic clocks were used in our analysis and were highly correlated with one another. A higher psychological resilience score was associated with slower DNA methylation age acceleration for the majority of epigenetic clocks after multivariable adjustment. These findings imply that people with a higher level of psychological resilience may experience slower DNA methylation age acceleration and biological aging.

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Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Health and Retirement Research for providing data for this article.

Funding

This study was supported by a start-up grant from Sun Yat-Sen University, the Pearl River Scholar Program of Guangdong Province (Health Science Section, No: 0920220206), and the International Distinguished Teacher Program of Guangdong Provincial Department of Science and Technology.

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Author notes

  1. A. Zhang and Y. Zhang contributed equally to this work.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Epidemiology, School of Public Health (Shenzhen), Sun Yat-Sen University, Shenzhen, China

    Aijie Zhang, Yasi Zhang, Yaxian Meng, Qianqian Ji, Meijie Ye, Liqiong Zhou, Miao Liu & Yiqiang Zhan

  2. Department of Chronic Disease Control, Guangming Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Shenzhen, China

    Chao Yi

  3. Department of Medical Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Ida K. Karlsson & Sara Hägg

  4. Institute of Environmental Medicine, Karolinska Institutet, Stockholm, Sweden

    Fang Fang & Yiqiang Zhan

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  1. Aijie Zhang
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Correspondence to Liqiong Zhou or Yiqiang Zhan.

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Zhang, A., Zhang, Y., Meng, Y. et al. Associations between psychological resilience and epigenetic clocks in the health and retirement study. GeroScience 46, 961–968 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-023-00940-0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11357-023-00940-0

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