If you aren’t where you want to be, change yourself

This 2021 human study evaluated associations among epigenetic clocks and socioeconomic status:

“We conducted a comprehensive, comparative analysis of associations between various dimensions of socioeconomic status (SES) (education, income, wealth, occupation, neighbourhood environment, and childhood SES) and eight epigenetic clocks in two well-powered US ageing studies:

The Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis (MESA); and

The Health and Retirement Study (HRS).

We found robust associations between SES measures in adulthood and the GrimAge and DunedinPoAm [Dunedin New Zealand (P)lace (o)f (A)ging (m)ethylation clock)] clocks. In the HRS, significant associations with the Levine and Yang clocks were also evident.

These associations were only partially mediated by smoking, alcohol consumption, and obesity, which suggests that differences in health behaviours alone cannot explain the SES gradient in epigenetic ageing in older adults. Further analyses revealed concurrent associations between polygenic risk for accelerated intrinsic epigenetic ageing, SES, and the Levine clock, indicating that genetic risk and social disadvantage may contribute additively to faster biological aging.”

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/medrxiv/early/2021/03/02/2021.03.01.21252660.full.pdf “The Socioeconomic Gradient in Epigenetic Ageing Clocks: Evidence from the Multi-Ethnic Study of Atherosclerosis and the Health and Retirement Study”

This study had a lot of squishy data. Didn’t see peer review comments, but I’d require evidence for several of these categorizations and subsequent findings.

For example, I quit smoking on February 5, 1985, the day I left my third submarine. This study would have categorized me 36 years later as a former smoker.

This categorization defied human cell turnover, with exceptions of our:

Cerebrum and cerebellum neurons;
Eye inner lens cells; and
Heart muscle cells.

Neither these cells nor other cells are associated with current status and quitting smoking four decades earlier. Consider that “associated” relationships don’t necessarily have any causal origins.

Another example from this study. My parents’ educational achievements of Masters degrees were during the 1950s. Pretty sure they weren’t causal to my degrees during the 1980s when I focused on advancing in the U.S. Navy.

Your responses to life events and subsequent behaviors are up to you, when and where you need them to be.

Do you feel a need to be consciously aware of who you really are? If not, unconsciously move along with the herd.