Arts and Cultural Engagement 'Linked To Slower Pace of Biological Aging'

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Guardian: Singing, painting or visiting a gallery or museum helps people age more slowly, according to the latest study to link taking an active interest in art and culture with improved health. The findings are the first to show that both participating in arts activities and attending events, such as viewing an exhibition, lead to people staying biologically younger. "These results demonstrate the health impact of the arts at a biological level. They provide evidence for arts and cultural engagement to be recognized as a health-promoting behavior in a similar way to exercise," said Prof Daisy Fancourt, the lead author of the research and the head of the social biobehavioral research group at University College London.

However, slower aging does not necessarily mean someone will live longer. The "epigenetic clocks" used in the study to assess biological ageing are predictive of future morbidity and mortality, and previous studies have suggested a link between arts engagement and longer lifespan, but much more research would be needed to establish potential causal effects on longevity. Those who take part in artistic pursuits the most often slow the pace of their biological aging the most. Under one of the study's methods of assessment, those who did so at least weekly slowed their aging process by 4%, while monthly engagement led to it slowing by 3%.

Similarly, another of the tests showed that those who undertook an arts activity at least once a week were on average a year younger biologically than those who rarely engaged in such pursuits. Those who exercised once a week were only six months younger by that measure. The benefit the arts confer on the pace at which people age is so dramatic that it is comparable to the difference between smokers and those who have given up smoking, the researchers say. The results, published in the journal Innovation in Aging, are based on blood test and survey response data from 3,556 adults taking part in the UK Household Longitudinal Study. It uses blood samples to estimate people's biological age and the pace at which they are ageing.