Impatient young women age faster
NUS researchers have found that young impatient Chinese women exhibit signs of more rapid ageing at the cellular level, the first study to link a determinant of decision-making to shortening of telomere length — a predictor of mortality and ageing-related diseases. The findings were published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (USA) on 22 February.
Leading the research team were Professors Chew Soo Hong and Richard Ebstein from NUS Economics and NUS Psychology, respectively. Working with a sample of 1,158 healthy Chinese undergraduates at the University, the researchers used an incentivised delay discounting activity to determine the participants’ extent of impatience, where they had to decide between receiving $100 the next day, or larger rewards later. Participants who opted for earlier gratification were deemed as more impatient.
The team also measured the length of the participants’ leukocyte telomeres — the caps at the end of each DNA strand which protect the chromosome. Telomeres decrease in length each time a cell divides and ages, and once they reach a critical short length, the cell will no longer divide.
The research team discovered that females who were identified as impatient had shorter telomere length. Existing research suggests that telomere length could be an initial predictor of disease and earlier mortality. No similar significant correlations were observed in the male participants. The findings were robust after controlling for health-related variables, risk appetite (or inclination for risk) and lifestyle behaviours.
“Our team is among the pioneers in leveraging the natural synergy between behavioural economics and molecular genetics to seek a deeper understanding of how people make decisions. The present paper illustrates the promise of this approach in delivering a fresh understanding linking impatience elicited from observable choice behaviour with telomere length underpinning ageing at the molecular level,” said Prof Chew.
“Patience is indeed a virtue,” added Prof Ebstein, saying that women with impatient personalities are likely to grow older at a faster pace than more patient women.
Upcoming plans for the NUS team include an analysis of the telomere length of older ageing individuals. The team is also moving in an exciting new research direction through several interdisciplinary studies involving behavioural economics and molecular genetics, such as whether the practice of mindfulness enhances patience and other decision making dispositions.
See press release.
