A new study has revealed that maintaining a healthy lifestyle can help people avoid stress-related ageing.

According to the study by UC San Francisco, it was found that stress ages the body on a cellular level; however healthy diet, getting enough sleep and exercising acts as a "buffer" against the negative impact on the body, the Daily Express reported.

Dr Eli Puterman, an assistant professor in the department of psychiatry, said that people who exercised, slept well and ate well had less telomere shortening than the ones who didn't maintain healthy lifestyles, even when they had similar levels of stress

He further said that this was the first study that supported the idea that stressful events could accelerate immune-cell ageing in adults, even in the short period of a year and it's very important that they promote healthy living, especially under circumstances of typical experiences of life stressors like death, caregiving and job loss.

Stress has been linked to many serious conditions from Alzheimer's to heart disease and cancer. The study concentrated on telomeres, the protective "caps" at the ends of chromosomes affecting how cells age.

The researchers found that women who engaged in lower levels of healthy behaviors, there was a significantly greater decline in telomere length in their immune cells for every major life stressor that occurred during the year.

Yet women who maintained active lifestyles, healthy diets, and good quality sleep appeared protected when exposed to stress - accumulated life stressors did not appear to lead to greater shortening.

The study was published in Molecular Psychiatry.