Depression Makes People Have 'Older' Cells, Study Finds

Being depressed can actually make a person age faster compared to a person who is not depressed, according to a new study released Tuesday.

Josine Verhoeven from the VU University Medical Centre in the Netherlands, along with colleagues from the US, recruited 2,407 people to take part in the study. The researchers found that cell structures called telomeres in severely depressed participants looked biologically older compared to those who were not depressed.

Telomeres cap the ends of chromosomes to protect the cell's DNA from damage. Telomeres get a bit shorter each time a cell divides, so they are useful markers for aging. In the end they can no longer ensure chromosomal stability and this is when genetic mistakes begin to occur. Eventually the cell freezes and stops dividing, or destroys itself.

Results like ours suggest that psychological distress, as experienced by depressed persons, has a large, detrimental impact on the wear and tear of a person's body, resulting in accelerated biological aging," said Verhoeven, a doctoral researcher at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam.

"Psychological distress, as experienced by depressed persons, has a large, detrimental impact on the 'wear and tear' of a person's body, resulting in accelerated biological aging," said Verhoeven, a researcher at the Free University in Amsterdam.

"The findings might help explain the variety of health complaints often experienced by people with major depression," Verhoeven added.

It is not known if the ageing process induced by this is harmful or irreversible.

The authors concluded: "This large-scale study provides convincing evidence that depression is associated with several years of biological ageing, especially among those with the most severe and chronic symptoms."

The study was published online Nov. 12 in the Molecular Psychiatry.