There is a faster decline in physical, mental and social function in people from lower socio-economic backgrounds, finds a large University College London (UCL)-led cohort study.
The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, used a sample of 5018 participants, aged 64 years on average, from the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing.
Researchers assessed whether lower socio-economic status (SES) was a determinant of the rate of decline over eight years in six domains—physical capability, sensory function, physiological function, cognitive performance, emotional well-being and social function.
Wealth was used as the marker of SES, and all analyses controlled for age, gender, ethnicity, educational attainment and long-term health conditions.
Lower SES was associated with greater adverse changes in physical capability (grip strength, gait speed and physical activity), sensory function (sight impairment), physiological function (plasma fibrinogen concentration and lung function), cognitive performance (memory, executive function and processing speed), emotional well-being (enjoyment of life and depressive symptoms) and social function (organisational membership, number of close friends, volunteering and cultural engagement).
The differences between the highest and lowest wealth groups were significant in numerous areas, with reductions in gait speed over the measured period being 38 per cent greater in the lowest wealth category than in the highest wealth category, and around a 10 per cent difference in the decline in memory between the highest and lowest categories.
Effects were maintained when controlling statistically for other factors such as smoking, marital/partnership status and self-rated health and were also present when analyses were limited to participants aged ≤75 years.
Steptoe A, Zaninotto P. Lower socioeconomic status and the acceleration of aging: An outcome-wide analysis. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA. 2020 Jun 15 [Epub ahead of print]. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1915741117. PMID: 32541023. Full text.
This article originally appeared on Univadis, part of the Medscape Professional Network.
