Rates of ageing in young adults ‘can vary dramatically’

Some young adults are experiencing a dramatically more pronounced rate of ageing than others, according to a new report.

An international research team from the US, UK, Israel and New Zealand made the discovery when tracking more than 1,000 people involved in the Dunedin Study from 1972-73 to the present, using health measures like blood pressure, liver function and interviews.

It was found that even among young adults, biological ages often differed by many years from their actual chronological age. Among 38-year-olds, participants' biological age was found to range from under 30 years to nearly 60 years.

Most participants clustered around an ageing rate of one biological year per calendar year, but others were found to be ageing as fast as three years per chronological year, while others were at zero.

This study was one of the first to specifically look at ageing in young people, rather than among seniors.

Dr Salomon Israel, senior lecturer at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem's department of psychology, said: "The ability to measure how quickly a young person is aging may in the future enable us to engage in interventions that slow aging or target specific diseases."