A split image showing an elderly person struggling in the heat on one side and another elderly person shivering in the cold on the other side, with a thermometer in the middle displaying rising temperatures.
A split image showing an elderly person struggling in the heat on one side and another elderly person shivering in the cold on the other side, with a thermometer in the middle displaying rising temperatures.
Money Can Buy Time: Social Status Linked to Slower Biological Aging
Your bank account might be affecting more than just your lifestyle—it could be changing how quickly your body ages at the cellular level.
A groundbreaking study published March 14 in Nature Medicine reveals that people with higher incomes, better education, and more favorable social conditions show fewer signs of biological aging than their less advantaged peers, even when they’re the same chronological age.
The research, led by scientists at University College London (UCL), provides some of the strongest evidence to date that social inequality directly influences the pace of aging itself—not just disease risk—with potentially far-reaching implications for how we understand health disparities.
“This study provides strong biological evidence that social conditions influence the pace of ageing,” said lead author Professor Mika Kivimaki from UCL’s Faculty of Brain Sciences. “For decades, we’ve known that social advantage is linked to better health, but our findings suggest it may also slow down the ageing process itself.”
The comprehensive investigation analyzed data from over 800,000 participants across four major long-term studies: the UK’s Whitehall II study and UK Biobank, the Finnish Public Sector Study, and the US-based Atherosclerosis in Communities study.
By tracking both early-life factors (such as education and father’s socioeconomic position) and adulthood indicators (like neighborhood conditions and income), researchers uncovered striking patterns in how social advantage affects health outcomes over decades.
Perhaps most revealing was the analysis of blood samples, which showed that socially disadvantaged individuals had higher levels of proteins linked to aging processes, particularly those connected to inflammation and immune system function.
These biological differences translated into substantial health disparities. When researchers examined 66 age-related diseases, they found socioeconomic status had a profound impact on disease risk. On average, people with lower socioeconomic status had a 20% higher risk of developing these conditions.
For some diseases—including type 2 diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke—the risk more than doubled for the most disadvantaged group compared to the most advantaged.
The timing gap was equally dramatic. After 15 years of follow-up, those with low socioeconomic status had developed the same number of age-related diseases as their more advantaged counterparts had after 20 years—effectively aging them five years faster.
“Our study highlights that healthy ageing is an achievable goal for society as a whole, as it is already a reality for people with favourable socioeconomic conditions,” Kivimaki noted.
What makes this research particularly powerful is its comprehensive approach. Rather than focusing on a single measure or outcome, the team examined multiple indicators of aging across different populations, consistently finding the same relationship between social advantage and biological aging.
The researchers identified 14 specific proteins in the blood that appear to link social conditions to aging. These proteins regulate inflammatory responses and cellular stress—key processes in aging—and may account for up to 39% of the reduced disease risk seen in socioeconomically advantaged people.
“Ageing is reflected in the makeup of proteins in our blood, which includes thousands of circulating proteins linked to biological ageing processes across multiple organ systems,” explained co-author Professor Tony Wyss-Coray from Stanford University. “These biomarkers are indicators of health that enable us to assess how social differences can dictate the pace of ageing.”
The findings also suggest that improving social circumstances can have measurable biological benefits. People who started with low education but achieved better social standing later in life showed more favorable protein concentrations than those whose circumstances hadn’t improved.
While the study demonstrates a clear relationship between social advantage and aging, the researchers note that more work is needed to understand exactly how social factors impact biological aging processes.
“While our study does not tell us why social advantage can slow the ageing process, other studies have suggested that it may be related to factors such as life stress, mental health, exposure to pollution or toxins, and behaviours such as smoking, drug and alcohol use, diet and exercise, as well as access to medical screenings, check-ups, vaccinations and medications,” said co-author Professor Dame Linda Partridge from UCL’s Institute of Healthy Ageing.
The research builds on another recent study by the same team, which found that blood tests measuring organ aging could predict age-related disease risk decades in advance, potentially opening new avenues for preventative care.
“Blood tests are able to pick up on signs of accelerated ageing, which could help us to determine who would likely benefit from targeted interventions to improve their health as they age,” added Professor Kivimaki.
As societies worldwide confront growing inequality and aging populations simultaneously, these findings highlight how deeply interconnected social and biological processes truly are. They suggest that addressing social disadvantage isn’t just about fairness—it might be one of the most effective anti-aging interventions available.
Did this article help you?
If you found this piece useful, please consider supporting our work with a small, one-time or monthly donation. Your contribution enables us to continue bringing you accurate, thought-provoking science and medical news that you can trust. Independent reporting takes time, effort, and resources, and your support makes it possible for us to keep exploring the stories that matter to you. Together, we can ensure that important discoveries and developments reach the people who need them most.