Living Location Alters Aging Pace, Global Study Finds

A world-spanning study profiled 322 people from Europe, East Asia, and South Asia, analyzing DNA, proteins, fats, gut bacteria, immune markers, and metabolites. It found that ancestry provides a baseline for immunity, metabolism, and the microbiome, but where people live also reshapes aging trajectories—different populations show distinct aging patterns when relocated. East Asians outside their region aged biologically faster; Europeans aged more in Europe; gut microbes linked to sphingolipids were tied to telomere maintenance. The work underscores that precision medicine must account for both genetics and environment, and is published in Cell (2026).