A new study found that being unhappy or lonely accelerates the aging process more than smoking. An international team of experts says that the biological clock is damaged by unhappiness, increasing the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, heart disease, diabetes, and other illnesses.

According to Study Finds, researchers report that people with a history of stroke, liver and lung diseases, were smokers or had mental health issues, aged faster than those who did not have these risk factors. Surprisingly, the study revealed that feeling hopeless, unhappy, and lonely increased biological age more than smoking. The data was gathered and verified with biometrics and blood samples from nearly 12,000 men and women.

“We demonstrate psychological factors, such as feeling unhappy or being lonely, add up to one year and eight months to one’s biological age,” said lead author Dr. Fedor Galkin, director of scientific business development at Deep Longevity in Hong Kong. “The aggregate effect exceeds the effects of biological sex, living area and marital and smoking status. We conclude the psychological component should not be ignored in aging studies due its significant impact on biological age.”

The researchers said that the increased pace of aging can be detected by modern science before it has disastrous consequences. These “aging clocks,” which detect accelerated aging, can also help design appropriate therapies for individuals and communities at large. In a news release, the researchers said that any anti-aging therapy needs to focus on mental health as much as physical health, based on their findings.

“Mental and psychosocial states are some of the most robust predictors of health outcomes and quality of life, yet they have been largely omitted from modern healthcare,” said study author Manuel Faria of Stanford University.”

Deep Longevity, a start-up company, earlier released a guided mental health web service called FuturSelf.AI that offers a free psychological assessment processed by artificial intelligence and provides a comprehensive report on a user’s psychological age as well as current and future mental well-being.

Last month, a global study found that loneliness increased the risk for cardiovascular disease by almost a third. A Harvard University study found that 18 to 22-year- olds, dubbed Gen Z, are the loneliest generation. And several other studies concluded that loneliness increased during the pandemic, with young adults under the age of 25, older adults, women and low-income individuals suffering the worst effects.

Research on the team’s aging clock study was published in the journal Aging-US.