News Finding: They also found that while older bipolar disorder patients had significantly accelerated epigenetic aging compared to controls, no difference was found in younger patients.
Paper Finding: This might be one of the reasons why we only detected significant differences in epigenetic aging in older subjects, especially considering the key role proposed for chronic stress and the high rates of unhealthy lifestyles seen in BD patients .
News Context: "Controlling these factors is just as important as taking medications," Fries said. They also found that while older bipolar disorder patients had significantly accelerated epigenetic aging compared to controls, no difference was found in younger patients. "We believe a difference wasn't detected in younger patients because they haven't had as much exposure to stressful events," Fries said.
Paper Context: In line with previous results , our current findings suggest that DNAm age might represent a better aging marker than the commonly used telomere length, particularly in older individuals. This might be one of the reasons why we only detected significant differences in epigenetic aging in older subjects, especially considering the key role proposed for chronic stress and the high rates of unhealthy lifestyles seen in BD patients . Our findings suggest that accelerated epigenetic aging in BD may be at least partially associated with an increase in mtDNA copy number.