The Correlation Between Education and Life Expectancy

It is comparatively easy to find correlations in human epidemiological data, but much harder to determine causation. A web of correlations exist between socioeconomic status, education, intelligence, and life expectancy. We can even draw in environmental factors such as degree of exposure to particulate air pollution, which tends to correlate with the wealth of individuals living in a given area. In the matter of education, the effect size is small but the correlation is robust in large data sets. Why this is the case remains a topic for discussion. To measure the pace of aging, the researchers applied an algorithm known as the DunedinPACE epigenetic clock to genomic data collected by the Framingham Heart Study. The latest findings showed that, according to the yardstick of the DunedinPACE epigenetic clock, two years of additional schooling translated to a 2-3% slower pace of aging. This slowing in the pace of aging corresponds to a roughly 10 percent reduction in risk of mortality in the Framingham Heart Study, according to previous research on the association of DunedinPACE with risk of death. The researchers used data from 14,106 Framingham Heart Study spanning three generations to link children's educational attainment data with that of their parents. They then used data from a subset of participants who provided blood samples during data collection to calculate the pace of biological aging using the DunedinPACE epigenetic clock. In primary analysis, the r...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs