Healthy Minds: We know that mental disorders including substance abuse take a toll on our health, but it turns out they can also accelerate aging. A population-based study published in August examined over 62,000 brain scans of individuals from the ages of 9 months to 105 years of age. The team of researchers, which included scientists from Google, Johns Hopkins, and UCLA among others, found that schizophrenia was associated with an average of 4 years of premature aging, cannabis abuse 2.8 years of accelerated aging, bipolar disorder 1.6 years, ADHD 1.4 years and alcohol abuse 0.6 years. Depression was not associated with accelerated aging.