How fast you age is dictated by your sex, ethnicity and education

Your sex, ethnicity and level of education may influence how long you live, but also the pace at which your body ages.

There has been growing recognition over recent years that ageing doesn’t progress at the same rate in different people, and factors such as stress, poor diet and smoking can accelerate it.

To find out more, Dan Belsky at Columbia University in New York and his colleagues analysed data on about 19,000 people from two…