Living in privately rented homes linked to faster biological ageing

Researchers that analysed DNA revealed that living in a privately rented home is connected with double the ageing effect of obesity and half the ageing effect of smoking, suggesting that living in a privately leased home is linked to more fast biological ageing.
Researchers from the Universities of Adelaide and Essex concluded that living conditions can "get under the skin" and have a major impact on health in their peer-reviewed study of 1,420 households in the UK. The Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health published their findings.
Falling repeatedly into arrears and exposure to pollution were also linked to faster biological ageing – the cumulative damage to the body’s tissues and cells, irrespective of actual age.
In participants in the ongoing UK Household Longitudinal Survey, a process known as methylation was monitored. One of the main processes thought to cause human ageing is methylation.
About 5m households live in privately rented accommodation in the UK – a figure that has doubled in the last 20 years. Costs are higher, conditions are worse and tenure is more precarious than in owner-occupied housing or socially rented housing.
The study concluded: “Our finding that tenure is associated with faster ageing at nearly half the rate of that associated with current smoking and twice that with obesity suggests that our results may have clinical significance.”