Neurons are the only cells that have the unique ability to communicate. In a recent study about aging, researchers prove a theory proposed about 15 years ago about how cells decline in coordination but not functionality as people age. The findings are found in the journal Nature Metabolism by Bar-Ilan University, Israel.
A commonly believed theory about aging is that most cells in the body remain undamaged while a small amount of non-functioning cells are severely damaged. However, Professor Jan Vijg proposed years ago that biological tissues decline with age as many cells cannot efficiently regulate their genes, also known as transcriptional regulation. The study also answers the question that if the common theory is true, why does everyone generally have the same aging outcomes such as gray hair, a decline in memory, and wrinkles?
Cell Coordination
During the study, the researchers studied data from over 20 experiments from six international laboratories. All the results confirmed reduced coordination during aging, affected various cell types and organisms ranging from fruit flies to humans.
Dr. Orr Levy explained that in biology, experimental setups and highly sensitive equipment make it difficult to achieve consistent results for various cell and tissue types. For the first time, the team's method not only found a consistent pattern for all the datasets they analyzed, but it revealed the first evidence proving Professor Vijg's theory.
Gene coordination dramatically declines with age, explained Guy Amit. For neurons, it means that the decline of communication between the brain cells may explain the decline of memory that comes with aging.
Moreover, the datasets also revealed a similar decline in coordination between tissues, suggesting that coordination breakdown is directly affected by the level of tissue damage. In other words, when genes fail to coordinate, tissue function generally decreases, explaining a lot of the aches, pains, slower movement, and other things that older people experience. The results have implications about aging treatments such as neurological disorders.
Safe Doses of Oxidants
In another recent study, Swedish researchers from the Chalmers University of Technology proposed that low levels of oxidants may slow down cell aging. Oxidants are typically linked to cancer while physicians encourage the intake of food rich in antioxidants.
However, researchers are slowly seeing the positive functions of oxidants such as hydrogen peroxide which can slow down yeast cells that are aging. Hydrogen peroxide is also a common ingredient for tooth whitening or hair products and is naturally formed in the metabolic process.
The team focused on a group of antioxidants called peroxiredoxins, which give cells a longer life span when calorie intake is reduced. Their findings showed that the peroxiredoxin Tsa1 requires a certain dose of hydrogen peroxide to be triggered and slow down the aging process of cells.
Discovering the link between signal pathways and calorie intake could be a major factor in cellular processes during aging. Further research could explain why conditions such as cancer and dementia increase sharply with age.
Read Also: Diluting Blood Plasma with Albumin and Saline Could Regenerate Tissue and Reverse Aging: Study
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