Why do ageing rates vary by country? Massive study says politics play a part – Nature
A woman living in a town with heavy air pollution in South Africa, where people tend to age faster than in other countries. Air pollution is a risk factor for faster ageing. Credit: Per-Anders Pettersson / Getty
By Julian Nowogrodzki
Social inequality and weak democratic institutions are linked to faster ageing, as are other environmental features such as high levels of air pollution, finds a study spanning four continents1. Education was one of the top factors that protected against faster ageing.
The study also showed that ageing is accelerated by less-surprising factors such as high blood pressure and heart disease. But the link to social and political influences could help to explain why rates of ageing vary from country to country, the authors say.
“It’s a very important study”, says Claudia Kimie Suemoto, a geriatrician at the University of São Paulo in Brazil who was not involved in the work. “It gives us the global perspective of how these dependent factors shape ageing in different regions of the world.”
Political polarization and uncertainty mean that “we are living in a world of despair”, and that ages people, says lead author Agustín Ibañez, who directs the Latin American Brain Health Institute in Santiago. “We don’t think about the health impacts that this is going to have in the long run.”
The study was published today in Nature Medicine. Citation: Hernandez, H. et al. Nature Med. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-025-03808-2 (2025).
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