New Stanford study find body doesn't age gradually but in two major stages at ages 44 and 60...
Aug 16, 2024 18:01:33 GMT 1
Post by therealgws on Aug 16, 2024 18:01:33 GMT 1
Aging doesn’t occur steadily, according to a new study led by Stanford researchers. Instead the human body ages dramatically in two bursts, around age 44 and then again around age 60, based on analyses of thousands of biological molecules.
In the Bay Area, there are around 200,000 residents in those two phases, according to projections by the California Department of Finance.
The researchers tracked the health of 108 individuals between 25 and 75 years old, collecting blood and biological samples every few months for several years. From these samples, they quantified over 135,000 different biological features, including RNA, proteins, metabolic compounds and even shifts in study participants’ microbiomes.
In total, there were nearly 250 billion data points. The researchers found that the biggest number of age-related changes came when participants were in their 40s and in their 60s.
“There are these periods where there are clearly lots of things happening,” said study author Michael Snyder, director of Stanford Medicine’s Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine.
For people in their 40s, some of these changes came in molecules related to cardiovascular diseases and lipid metabolism. This could mark a “good time to watch out for rising lipids that might clog your arteries,” Snyder said.
People in their 60s had shifts in molecules related to carbohydrate metabolism and immune regulation.
The results broadly align with earlier work published in 2019, also led by Stanford researchers, which investigated plasma proteins over the human lifespan and reported waves of change that peaked at ages 34, 60 and 78.
The new study is an impressive body of work, said Dan Belsky, an epidemiologist at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, who wasn’t involved in the research but was a peer reviewer.
“It’s really amazing to see this much high-dimensional molecular data organized for this kind of a sample over this kind of time series,” Belsky said. “It’s really an important step forward in the field.”
But, Belsky added, it’s still premature to conclude that the patterns identified in the study reflect how these molecules behave in larger populations over longer periods of time. The researchers only followed individuals for a handful of years, piecing together data for different study participants to construct a picture of molecular changes over the human lifespan.
The researchers are planning to continue the study, to address such concerns.
“We want to do this for more people, we’re going to do it for longer,” Snyder said.
Snyder believes that monitoring biomolecular data will help people manage their health: “The ultimate goal is for people to live long, healthy lives.”
Reach Jack Lee: jack.lee@sfchronicle.com
In the Bay Area, there are around 200,000 residents in those two phases, according to projections by the California Department of Finance.
The researchers tracked the health of 108 individuals between 25 and 75 years old, collecting blood and biological samples every few months for several years. From these samples, they quantified over 135,000 different biological features, including RNA, proteins, metabolic compounds and even shifts in study participants’ microbiomes.
In total, there were nearly 250 billion data points. The researchers found that the biggest number of age-related changes came when participants were in their 40s and in their 60s.
“There are these periods where there are clearly lots of things happening,” said study author Michael Snyder, director of Stanford Medicine’s Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine.
For people in their 40s, some of these changes came in molecules related to cardiovascular diseases and lipid metabolism. This could mark a “good time to watch out for rising lipids that might clog your arteries,” Snyder said.
People in their 60s had shifts in molecules related to carbohydrate metabolism and immune regulation.
The results broadly align with earlier work published in 2019, also led by Stanford researchers, which investigated plasma proteins over the human lifespan and reported waves of change that peaked at ages 34, 60 and 78.
The new study is an impressive body of work, said Dan Belsky, an epidemiologist at the Robert N. Butler Columbia Aging Center, who wasn’t involved in the research but was a peer reviewer.
“It’s really amazing to see this much high-dimensional molecular data organized for this kind of a sample over this kind of time series,” Belsky said. “It’s really an important step forward in the field.”
But, Belsky added, it’s still premature to conclude that the patterns identified in the study reflect how these molecules behave in larger populations over longer periods of time. The researchers only followed individuals for a handful of years, piecing together data for different study participants to construct a picture of molecular changes over the human lifespan.
The researchers are planning to continue the study, to address such concerns.
“We want to do this for more people, we’re going to do it for longer,” Snyder said.
Snyder believes that monitoring biomolecular data will help people manage their health: “The ultimate goal is for people to live long, healthy lives.”
Reach Jack Lee: jack.lee@sfchronicle.com
