Stress Kills -- and It Makes You Age Faster Too

Researchers at the University of California have found that chronic stress makes cells age faster, putting the stressed person at higher risk of age-related diseases earlier in life. Put simply, stressed people will get old faster and are more likely die earlier.

This new study, to be published in "Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences," compared 39 healthy mothers of chronically ill children to 19 mothers of healthy children.

Completed questionnaires measured the mothers' levels of stress. Blood samples measured age markers of white blood cells.

Researchers found that the highly stressed mothers' cells had an equivalent ageing of ten years. In other words, the very stressed mothers seemed ten years older.