"Supportive and positive social relationships with friends and family members can have many positive effects on health and mental well-being. In contrast, toxic friends or family members that are overly hostile, permanently passive-aggressive, or purposefully difficult can become huge stressors. Chronic stress has all sorts of negative effects on both mental and physical health. For example, stress research has shown that chronic stress can accelerate ageing and increase inflammation."
"A new study, just published in the prestigious scientific journal "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America" (or in short: PNAS), was focused on finding out whether toxic people accelerate biological aging ( Lee and co-workers, 2026). In the study entitled "Negative social ties as emerging risk factors for accelerated aging, inflammation, and multimorbidity", the research team led by scientist Byungkyu Lee from New York University used an advanced biological method called DNA methylation-based biological aging clocks."
Supportive and positive social relationships with friends and family have many beneficial effects on physical and mental health. Toxic friends or family who are overly hostile, permanently passive-aggressive, or purposefully difficult act as chronic stressors that harm health. Chronic stress accelerates aging and increases inflammation. DNA methylation-based biological aging clocks can determine biological age. Analysis of more than 2300 volunteers from Indiana used social network mapping and DNA methylation clocks to assess links between toxic social ties and aging. Presence of one or more toxic individuals in a social network was associated with accelerated biological aging by approximately 1.5% and higher inflammation.
Read at Psychology Today
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