Medics have found markers for the speed of aging in human blood
Researchers from the United States have identified markers in the blood that make it possible to determine a person's biological age, i.e. how quickly his or her cells and organs age without regard to the date of birth.
Chronological age often does not reflect the true state of the body. Passport peers are sometimes very different in terms of health. For example, some people at age 65 can ride a bicycle or ski freely, while others have trouble climbing stairs.
If doctors had a way to see the signs of accelerated biological aging in blood tests, they could warn patients about it in time for them to take measures to prolong a healthy period of life.
Scientists from the University of Pittsburgh (USA) have come close to creating such a method. Their work was published in the journal Aging Cell.
In the search for "fingerprints" specific to the processes of biological aging, physicians resorted to metabolomic analysis, which allows you to follow the metabolites - the final and intermediate products of metabolism in cells. The subject of the study were blood samples from 196 elderly volunteers, 98 of whom were 75 years old or older, while the others ranged in age from 65 to 75 years.
The authors explained that they did not use genetic ways to determine biological age, as in other studies, because genes are very static.
"We chose metabolites because they are dynamic: they change in real time and reflect health and well-being, and we can influence them through changes in lifestyle, diet and external environment," said Aditi U. Gurkar, senior author of the study and associate professor of medicine at the Institute on Aging at the University of Pittsburgh.
Volunteers were categorized based on their age and how they handled simple physical activity. The first "healthy aging" group included participants age 75 and older who could climb stairs or walk for 15 minutes without stopping. The remaining people aged 65-75 who required rest during the tests were categorized as the "rapidly aging" group.
A comparison of the participants' blood tests showed that the metabolomic profile in the two groups was clearly different. The researchers formed a panel of 25 metabolites, which they called the Healthy Aging Metabolic index (HAM). The index was able to reliably identify people in the "healthy aging" group, and more accurately than other common markers of aging such as the frailty index, gait speed, and low scores on the Montreal Cognitive Assessment Scale.
Additional validation on a sample of older adults from another study focused on Alzheimer's disease prevention (Wisconsin Registry for Alzheimer's Prevention (WRAP)) confirmed the effectiveness of the HAM index in assessing biological age.
Using machine learning techniques, the researchers determined that the HAM-index is influenced by three major metabolites: β-cryptoxanthin, prolylhydroxyproline, and eicosenoylcarnitine. The scientists named them as putative factors in biological aging.
In future studies, the authors plan to further explore exactly how these metabolites and the molecular mechanisms by which they are produced contribute to biological aging and whether this process can be slowed down.
In addition, Gurkar and her colleagues want to involve younger age groups in the new experiments to understand how the metabolome changes over time. The scientists hope to develop a blood test to assess biological age, or the risks of developing senile diseases, in people who are still young.
"Medicine today tends to wait until a problem occurs before starting to treat it. But with aging we need to act differently - it's about prevention. I think the medicine of the future will be based on learning about the peculiarities of human aging in advance and developing individual measures to delay the disease and prolong a healthy life," the researcher concluded.