By by Jessica Colarossi-Boston University – Futurity
New research with military veterans finds a connection between DNA myethylation signals of accelerated cellular aging and mental health conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
From birth to death, a lot may change, but our DNA—the long, double-helix molecule that contains all of a person’s genetic code—stays the same. The instructions for reading that code can shift, however, as the chemical tags on and around a DNA sequence change throughout our lives, depending on our age, environment, and behavior. This outside influence on how our genes are read and expressed by cells is called epigenetics—and researchers studying it have discovered clues that may show why some veterans live longer than others.
