Estradiol and longevity
Biologists have uncovered an unusual link between longevity and hormones
High levels of sex hormones were typical for those elderly men whose cells age at a relatively slow rate. Studying the peculiarities of their body's work will help slow down old age, biologists write in the journal Clinical Endocrinology.
"The population of the planet is aging and becoming more susceptible to diseases, and therefore it is extremely important for us to understand how this process can be "improved". Sex hormones such as testosterone, or related molecules like estradiol, can either simply reflect a person's biological age, or directly set it," said Bu Yeap from the University of Western Australia in Perth.
In recent years, scientists have been actively looking for ways to assess the so-called "biological age of a person." By this term, scientists understand how old or young the tissues and organs of a particular individual look in comparison with other people from his age category.
Discrepancies between calendar and biological age, according to biologists, will help doctors determine whether to pay special attention to the health of their patients and help them live as long as possible.
In most cases, doctors determine the biological age by measuring the length of the so-called telomeres. By this word, scientists understand the end sections of chromosomes that protect DNA from damage. With each cell division, they become shorter, when their length is not enough for a new division, the cell "retires" or dies.
Yep and his colleagues discovered an extremely unusual relationship between the length of telomeres and the concentration of certain sex hormones in human blood, studying the health status of about three thousand elderly Australians aged 70 to 89 years.
According to the researchers, the idea to conduct such a study originated with them after they noticed that, on average, the telomeres of men are slightly shorter than those of women. This led them to the idea that these differences may be related to different hormonal profiles.
They tested this theory by catching a small number of white blood cells from blood samples of their wards, measuring the length of their telomeres and comparing these data with how many of the three sex hormones – testosterone, stanolone and estradiol – were present in their body.
These measurements unexpectedly showed that the biological age of men was reflected not in the concentration of testosterone and its biologically active "cousin", but in the proportion of the main product of their decay – estradiol, concurrently associated with the production of estrogen, the main female hormone.
As it turned out, the more of this substance was present in the bloodstream of men, the younger their cells looked. Similarly, these same people looked stronger physically than their peers with a low proportion of estradiol in the blood.
Interestingly, the oldest participants in the experiments had the highest concentration of this hormone, which may explain how they managed to live to the age of 85-89 years. Men with lower estradiol levels simply fell short of this mark and died noticeably earlier.
"If in the future we confirm that sex hormones actually affect the rate of aging of men, then we should check their work by injecting testosterone into the body of volunteers. It will gradually turn into estradiol and interfere with the reduction of telomere length," concludes Yep.
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