Sexual minority stress and epigenetic aging

Area of Science:

• Health Sciences
• Psychology
• Genetics

Background:

• Lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer/questioning (LGBTQ+) individuals experience poorer health outcomes compared to heterosexuals.
• Bisexual individuals often face worse health than gay and lesbian individuals.
• There is a critical lack of data on stress biology and its impact on the health of sexual minorities.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate biological aging markers in bisexual women.
• To explore the relationship between psychosocial factors and biological aging in bisexual women.
• To identify potential risk and protective factors for accelerated aging in this population.

Main Methods:

• Utilized data from 32 bisexual women from the National Couples' Health and Time Study.
• Assessed biological aging using DNA methylation data (DunedinPACE, GrimAge2).
• Analyzed associations between internalized homonegativity, anti-bisexual experiences, identity affirmation, social support, and epigenetic age acceleration.

Main Results:

• Bisexual women in the study exhibited significantly accelerated epigenetic aging compared to their chronological age (13% faster with DunedinPACE, 8.67 years older with GrimAge2).
• Higher internalized homonegativity and more frequent anti-bisexual experiences were linked to greater epigenetic age acceleration.
• Stronger identity centrality, identity affirmation, and friend support were associated with slower epigenetic aging.

Conclusions:

• Bisexual women are at risk for accelerated biological aging.
• Psychosocial stressors, including internalized homonegativity and discrimination, may contribute to this accelerated aging.
• Social and identity affirmation appear to be protective factors against accelerated aging in bisexual women.