A negative rental situation can accelerate your aging.
Renting a home leads to faster biological aging than owning your own home or living in social housing. According to the authors of the study, being a tenant is more harmful to health than being unemployed or a former smoker.
This is due to both poor living conditions in rented premises (cold, mold, etc.) and stress associated with the fear of not paying the rent in the face of constantly rising housing prices. Even those who live in social housing other than their own have found themselves in a better position, partly due to the security it provides and its lower cost.
For the study, the researchers took blood tests and examined DNA samples from 1,420 people, who were also interviewed about their living conditions over the past ten years. Scientists collected information about people’s health and took blood samples.
The researchers analyzed the samples to track DNA methylation. Disruption of this process leads to premature aging and various diseases. DNA methylation disorders associated with premature aging were most common in people who rented housing in an area with poor ecology and were unable to pay their rent on time. Researchers have noted that this factor can trigger premature aging even more than smoking.
“Our results show that difficult housing conditions have a negative impact on health due to rapid biological aging,” the researchers from the University of Essex and the University of Adelaide concluded. “However, biological aging is reversible, which emphasizes the significant potential of housing policy changes to improve health.”
The study is observational in nature, so it cannot draw conclusions about cause and effect, but the researchers suggest that the key to slowing all of this may be to improve the treatment and living conditions of people who rent.
“Policies to reduce the stress and uncertainty associated with private renting, such as ending ‘no-fault’ evictions, limiting rent increases, and improving conditions, can reduce the negative effects of private renting to some extent,” the researchers explained.
