A new study carried out by researchers from the National University of Singapore (Singapore), the University of California at Berkeley and the Pennsylvania State University (USA), have found that the most impatient people age faster, since their telomeres are much shorter than those of the more serene ones.
The length of telomeres (the ends of chromosomes in DNA) is the key to longevity , since they predict life expectancy in the natural environment. Thus, having shorter telomeres at any age is associated with a higher risk of death and having longer telomeres is associated with greater longevity.
But is our degree of tranquility an external factor that affects how long we can live?
Taking into account that the purpose of telomeres is to protect chromosomes from damage to cells and that, as we advance in age, they become shorter and therefore lose this level of shield so that cells can carry out the process of cell division, eliminating its structural stability, the experts wondered if the calm and tranquility would influence in any way in this course.
The scientists involved 1,158 Chinese university students between the ages of 21 and 22, who were told if they were interested in participating in a common psychology experiment that consisted of giving volunteers a certain amount of money in it. moment and then another extra amount at later dates, a method devised to check the degree of patience or impatience of each of the participants. In addition, all of them completed a psychology test to measure their level of restlessness.
DNA and blood analysis before and after the experiment revealed that the more impatient tended to have shorter telomere lengths than their more serene peers. That is, they discovered that this human trait makes people age faster . However, this relationship was only consistent in females and not so much with males.
The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
