A WRINKLE IN TIME

If you've ever blamed stress for new wrinkles or gray hairs, you may have been right. "As a society, we have a deeply held belief that life stress causes premature aging, but there's actually been very little empirical evidence to show this," says Elisa Epel, assist-ant professor of psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco.

Until now. In a UCSF-led study published this past fall in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Epel and her colleagues found that chronic stress--or even the perception of stress--significantly shortened the length of telomeres, the tips of chromosomes within cells that can be used as a measure of the cells' aging process. The shorter the telomere, the shorter the cell's life span and the faster the body's deterioration. As more cells die, the effects of aging kick in: muscles weaken, skin wrinkles and eyesight and hearing worsen.

Epel and her colleagues studied 39 women between the ages of 20 and 50 with children suffering from serious chronic conditions, like cerebral palsy, and compared them with 19 mothers in the same age group with healthy children. The longer a woman had been caring for a sick child, the shorter her telomeres--and the greater her oxidative stress (a process that releases DNA-damaging free radicals).

But what startled researchers more was that the most profound differences were tied to the women's perceptions of how much emotional strain they were under, regardless of whether their children were healthy or sick. When compared with the women with the lowest perceived stress levels, women in both groups who described themselves as having the highest stress levels had telomeres equivalent to someone 10 years older.

While Epel acknowledges that more studies need to be done to confirm her findings, she says the results could have positive implications. "Now that we think we can see intracellular damage from stress, people might weigh the importance of positive mental health more heavily," she says, adding that there is "absolutely" hope that the DNA damage is reversible. "Lifestyle changes--and learning to cope well with stress--could potentially improve your quality of life, your mood and your longevity."

Restricted: A TOUGH LIMIT ON CALORIE INTAKE MAY SLOW AGING