Researchers: Those who feel younger die later

Feeling older was a predictor of death even when the researchers accounted for things that could affect death rates, including illnesses, wealth, education, smoking, alcohol intake and physical activity. 

Older-feeling adults were about 40 percent more likely to die than younger-feeling adults. 

‘This relationship has been shown before, but not in such a large scale study in which we were able to look at such a range of possible explanations,’ said coauthor Andrew Steptoe of the epidemiology and public health department at University College London. 

‘We still don’t understand what the explanation really is.’