Social connections are differentially related to subjective age and physiological age acceleration amongst older adults

TL;DR

This study finds that weak social connections are linked to faster physical aging but not to how old people feel.

Contribution

The study identifies physiological age acceleration as a potential mechanism linking weak social connections to health risks in older adults.

Findings

Living alone and low social integration are risk factors for accelerated physiological aging.

Weak social connections do not significantly affect subjective age.

Results remained consistent over four years and across sensitivity analyses.

Abstract

Human social connections are complex ecosystems formed of structural, functional and quality components. Weak social connections are associated with adverse age-related health outcomes, but we know little about the ageing-related processes underlying this. Using data from 7047 adults aged 50+ in the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing, we explore associations between diverse aspects of social connections and both older subjective age and accelerated physiological age using a validated physiological ageing combining cardiovascular, respiratory, haematologic and metabolic indicators. Doubly robust estimations using inverse-probability-weighted regression adjustment estimators show that living alone, low social integration and low social support are risk factors for physiological age acceleration. However, weak social connections did not have a statistically significant association with older subjective age. Analyses are robust to multiple sensitivity analyses and maintained four years later. We propose the hypothesis that accelerated physiological ageing may be a mechanism underpinning the relationship between weak social connections and age-related morbitidy and mortality.

Weak social connections are thought to influence how people age. This study finds that deficits such as living alone or low social integration relate to faster physiological ageing, while no statistically significant associations are observed with perceived aging.

Figures