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Research has found that having relationships with people you dislike can have a negative impact on your health, comparable to loneliness or social isolation.

According to a recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, it is estimated that each additional negative relationship accelerates biological aging by 1.5%. In other words, on average, aging progressed by about nine months more at the same point in time.

The Asia Business Daily DB

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The research team surveyed 2,300 participants aged 18 to 103 to examine the impact of “difficult people” on biological aging. In this study, a difficult person was defined as someone whom the participant reported as “frequently bothering or making their life difficult.” To improve the accuracy of the survey, those who bothered the participant only occasionally or rarely were excluded.

On average, respondents perceived 8.1% of the people around them as “difficult people.” For each additional difficult person, the rate of aging accelerated by an average of 1.5%.

When this rate of accelerated aging was applied to biological age, individuals with one more difficult person in their lives were, on average, 9.4 months older than those without.

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The negative impact was even more pronounced when the difficult person was someone close to the participant. In particular, participants experienced extreme stress when the difficult person was a family member. However, among family members, spouses did not show a significant association with biological aging. The researchers speculated that this is because interactions with spouses involve a mix of both positive and negative exchanges.

Lee Byungkyu, Professor of Sociology at New York University and the lead author of the study, explained, “It is unclear whether difficult people actually cause aging,” but added, “There does appear to be some kind of association between being bothered and the rate of aging.”