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There is now hard science supporting the long held belief that racism shortens the lifes pan of black people. Even more, a new study provides medical evidence that being the victim of racism and internalizing racist beliefs may indeed accelerate the aging process.

Forbes Magazine cites the study, pointing out that, interestingly, those black men who were more often victims of racial discrimination also internalized the strongest negative attitudes about black people as a group. These men demonstrated markedly shorter lengths of “telomeres,” the nucleotides found at the end of a chromosome which serves to protect DNA and other genetic material from premature deterioration.

A shorter telomere is a known marker of cellular aging. They may be likened to the caps at the end of shoelaces which keep the entire string from fraying. As individual cells age, the telomeres become shorter, providing less protection for the DNA and other essential genetic components.

Shorter telomeres are also indicators of potential with life-shortening diseases such as diabetes, stroke, heart disease and dementia.

The average human being irrespective of “race,” loses 50-100 base pairs of DNA a year as we age.

The findings of the instant study were published last week in the “American Journal of Preventive Medicine.”

What do these results mean in terms of everyday, on-the-ground, lived experiences of black people, black men especially?

They show that white racism/white supremacy causes serious and deleterious physical effects in black people which accumulate over time and ultimately contribute to premature death.

Lead investigator for the study is Dr. David H. Chae. He is also an assistant professor of epidemiology at the University of Maryland School of Public Health, according to the Huffington Post. Professor Chae bottom-lined the research for us.

“Despite the limitations of our study, we contribute to a growing body of research showing that social toxins disproportionately impacting African-American men are harmful to health. Our findings suggest that racism literally makes people old.” (Emphasis added).