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Wisdom Wednesdays: Human Ageing Appears To Occur In 2 or 3 Distinct Phases - And We Can Influence It · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

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  Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. Now,
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  Speaker 1: my younger listeners probably won't relate to this, but if
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  Speaker 1: like me, you've got a little bit more mileage on
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  Speaker 1: the clock. Have you ever noticed that physical changes just
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  Speaker 1: seem to happen almost overnight, whether it's the sudden appearance
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  Speaker 1: of wrinkles, aches and pains, or a sudden loss of
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  Speaker 1: strength and speed, or the appearance of a middle aged spread,
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  Speaker 1: and you think, when the hell did that happen? Maybe
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  Speaker 1: you've also noticed that you can't seem to handle your
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  Speaker 1: booze anymore, colloquially referred to where I'm from as a
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  Speaker 1: loss of pub fitness, Well, there might just be a
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  Speaker 1: scientific explanation for it. According to a new study. Research
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  Speaker 1: suggests that, rather than being a slow and stay any
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  Speaker 1: process as many of us would think, aging occurs in
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  Speaker 1: at least two and possibly three accelerated bursts. Now, the
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  Speaker 1: studying question, which was just published in the journal Nature Aging,
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  Speaker 1: has the typically academic sounding title of nonlinear dynamics of
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  Speaker 1: multi omix profiles during human aging. So what happened in
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  Speaker 1: this study was that the researchers track thousands of different
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  Speaker 1: molecules in people age between twenty five and seventy five,
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  Speaker 1: and they detected two major waves of age related changes
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  Speaker 1: that happened on average at the age of forty four
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  Speaker 1: and again on average at the age of sixty. And
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  Speaker 1: the foundings could explain why spikes in certain health issues,
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  Speaker 1: including musculo skeletal problems and cardiovascular disease risk tend to
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  Speaker 1: occur as certain ages, and we see that happen in
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  Speaker 1: published data. So when this research study, they tracked one
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  Speaker 1: hundred volunteers. Now that's not a huge sample size, but
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  Speaker 1: it's kind of big enough and statistically they did detect
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  Speaker 1: these changes, and I would expect that we're going to
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  Speaker 1: see other studies with bigger sample sizes doing the exact
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  Speaker 1: same thing. But it was a beautifully designed study. And
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  Speaker 1: what these volunteers did is they submitted blood and stool
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  Speaker 1: samples and then they give samples of their skin, oral
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  Speaker 1: and nasal swabs every few months for between one and
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  Speaker 1: nearly seven years, depending on who was studied. And then
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  Speaker 1: the researchers looked at a number of what's referred to
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  Speaker 1: as omics. So in biology, the word omics means the
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  Speaker 1: sum of constituents within a cell. So the omics sciences
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  Speaker 1: shure the overarching em of identifying, describing, and quantifying biomolecules
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  Speaker 1: and maleicular processes that contribute to the form and function
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  Speaker 1: of cells and tissues. So it's basically a deep dive
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  Speaker 1: into mechanisms driving cellular and tissue processes. And in this study,
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  Speaker 1: the researchers assessed one hundred and thirty five different molecules.
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  Speaker 1: So they looked at RNA, proteins, and metabolites and also
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  Speaker 1: microbes these bacteria, viruses, and fungi that live in our
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  Speaker 1: guts and on our skin. And basically they looked at
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  Speaker 1: a number of different things, which I'll explain a little
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  Speaker 1: bit because you need to understand those. So the first
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  Speaker 1: one was transcriptiomics, and this is basically analyzing the complete
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  Speaker 1: set of messenger RNA molecules in a cell, so think
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  Speaker 1: of gene expression for the layperson. Then they looked at proteomics,
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  Speaker 1: and this is basically how all of the proteins in
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  Speaker 1: a cell behave and that's really important as proteins are
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  Speaker 1: the building blocks of cellular life. And they looked at metabolomics,
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  Speaker 1: and this is the study of small molecules within the
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  Speaker 1: cell known as metabolites and just think of chemical fingerprints
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  Speaker 1: of the cell. And then they looked at lipidomics, which
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  Speaker 1: is the study of high the complete sets of lipids
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  Speaker 1: or fats within a cell and tissues behave and how
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  Speaker 1: they interact with other molecules. Then they also studied cytokines. Now,
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  Speaker 1: these are messenger molecules in the body and brain that
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  Speaker 1: run large could communicate between cells. And you may be
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  Speaker 1: familiar with the term cytokine storm. We heard that in
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  Speaker 1: COVID with people who had bad COVID infections. We talked
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  Speaker 1: about this cytokine storm. So cytokines are often grouped as
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  Speaker 1: either inflammatory and things such as T and F alpha
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  Speaker 1: or interlook in six and anti inflammatory cidokines such as
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  Speaker 1: interlook in ten, and it is it's important that we
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  Speaker 1: have a balance of those. So, for instance, our response
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  Speaker 1: to resistance training, our exit size involves inflammatory side of
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  Speaker 1: kinds that actually trigger the remodel the remodeling of muscle,
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  Speaker 1: and then we get activation of anti inflammatory molecules. So
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  Speaker 1: we can't say that inflammatory is bad and anti inflammatory
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  Speaker 1: is good. It's a balance of these things. What they
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  Speaker 1: also looked at was a whole heap of clinical lab
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  Speaker 1: test results, So think of the stuff that you normally
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  Speaker 1: get tested when you go to your doctor. And then
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  Speaker 1: they analyzed the entire microbiome. So they looked at the
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  Speaker 1: microbium when people's gut, but also their skin microbiome, and
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  Speaker 1: their nasal microbium and their oral microbiome. And we're starting
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  Speaker 1: to see that that those ones we've known about the
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  Speaker 1: gout for a long time and how it plays a
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  Speaker 1: role in human health, but also the other microbioms may
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  Speaker 1: also play a role. And so what they found is
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  Speaker 1: that the abundance of most molecules and microbes didn't shift
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  Speaker 1: in a gradual chronological fashion. And so when the scientists
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  Speaker 1: looked for clusters of molecules with the law shifts, they
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  Speaker 1: found that these and big drives or changes tend to
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  Speaker 1: occur when people were in their mid forties and their
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  Speaker 1: early sixties. So the mid forties spike was kind of
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  Speaker 1: unexpected to them and was initially assumed to be a
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  Speaker 1: result of perimenopausal changes in women, skewing the results for
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  Speaker 1: the whole group. But when they dug into the data,
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  Speaker 1: they actually saw that similar shifts were happening in men
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  Speaker 1: in their mid forties too. And I often talk to
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  Speaker 1: men about this andropause that we go through that not
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  Speaker 1: a lot of blokes have actually heard about. But anyway,
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  Speaker 1: back to the study, what is very clear from this
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  Speaker 1: study is that we are not just aging gradually at
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  Speaker 1: a linear rate over time, which many people, including me,
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  Speaker 1: would think. There are some really dramatic changes that these
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  Speaker 1: couple of points, and it appears, at least from this
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  Speaker 1: study that the mid forties really has dramatic change, as
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  Speaker 1: does the early sixties. And what was really interesting is
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  Speaker 1: that that actually held true no matter what class of
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  Speaker 1: molecules they looked at, so this seemed to be across
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  Speaker 1: the border throughout the body. So, for example, what they
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  Speaker 1: found is the ability to metabolize caffeine notably decreases first
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  Speaker 1: around the age of forty or early forties, and then
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  Speaker 1: again at sixty. And then they also found that components
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  Speaker 1: involved in metabolizing alcohol also diminished, particularly in the early forties,
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  Speaker 1: which some people may have noticed in themselves. And these
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  Speaker 1: phases of aging may explain the widely reported middle aged
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  Speaker 1: spread that people notice in their forties, or or just
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  Speaker 1: a loss of overall health and function. Now, the second
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  Speaker 1: wave of changes in around the age of sixty included.
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  Speaker 1: Molecules involve an immune regulation, carbohydrate metabolism and kidney function,
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  Speaker 1: and molecules linked to skin and muscle aging changed at
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  Speaker 1: both time points in the early forties and around sixties,
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  Speaker 1: and the latter probably explains the marked uptic that we
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  Speaker 1: see incarcopenia or muscle wasting around the age of people
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  Speaker 1: in their sixties, and we see that consistently in the data.
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  Speaker 1: Encycopenia has been referred to as a geriatric disease, you know,
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  Speaker 1: once you hit past sixties. But actually I was reading
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  Speaker 1: a research paper the other day and it starts significantly
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  Speaker 1: in people in their forties, So this study may explain
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  Speaker 1: exactly that. So it appears then that we have these
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  Speaker 1: aging spurts, and it actually fits with previous evidence that
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  Speaker 1: many of the age related diseases don't increase incrementally. We see,
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  Speaker 1: for example, a sharp uptick in cardiovascular disease in Alzheimer's
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  Speaker 1: disease risk after the age of sixty, and it could
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  Speaker 1: be that particularly it's that second wave of deterioration that
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  Speaker 1: then drives these disease process Now, it's also possible that
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  Speaker 1: at least some of these changes could be linked to
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  Speaker 1: lifestyle of behavioral factors, and the researchers did note that so,
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  Speaker 1: for instance, the change in alcohol metabolism could result from
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  Speaker 1: what we tend to see as an uptick in consumption
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  Speaker 1: and alcohol in people in their mid forties. That happens
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  Speaker 1: in many many countries, and often that's associated with this
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  Speaker 1: stressful period of life. The people in their forties often
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  Speaker 1: referred to as the Sandwich generation because they get sandwich
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  Speaker 1: between the twin stressors of having young kids and of
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  Speaker 1: having parents who are getting old and increasingly suffering from
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  Speaker 1: disease and maybe even dying now. The first author of
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  Speaker 1: the study, doctor Shen from a university in Singapore, said
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  Speaker 1: that the research suggests that while menopause or perimenopause may
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  Speaker 1: contribute to the observed changes in women in their mid forties,
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  Speaker 1: there are likely other more significant factors influencing these changes
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  Speaker 1: in both men and women, So we just can't put
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  Speaker 1: stuff down to menopause now. Interestingly, previous research conducting it
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  Speaker 1: in Germany suggested that a later spike in aging may
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  Speaker 1: occur in the late seventies, and all averreage up was
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  Speaker 1: around the age of seventy eight. Now. This study, which
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  Speaker 1: was also published in Nature, but this time, Nature Medicine
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  Speaker 1: looked at almost three thousand different blood proteins, so they
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  Speaker 1: just looked at proteo mics, but they had over four
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  Speaker 1: thousand people in it, so a much bigger study. I'm
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  Speaker 1: all raging from the age of eighteen to ninety five
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  Speaker 1: years old, and they find changes in the proteum that essentially,
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  Speaker 1: remember these proteins essentially run cellular life. And they found
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  Speaker 1: there was distinct waves of changes in the fourth, seventh,
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  Speaker 1: and eighth decades. Now, the latest study couldn't confirm this
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  Speaker 1: because the oldest participants and I want to say, couldn't
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  Speaker 1: confirm it. Couldn't confirm the changes in the eighth decade
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  Speaker 1: in the late seventies. They couldn't confirm it because the
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  Speaker 1: oldest participant in that study was seventy five. But if
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  Speaker 1: we combine these two studies together, it looks like there
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  Speaker 1: may be three distinct phases of human aging. So what's
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  Speaker 1: the upshot? Is this a thea to complay that you're
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  Speaker 1: going to go through these three aging spurts and decline
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  Speaker 1: dramatically no matter what you do. Well, not at all,
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  Speaker 1: according to the researchers, who emphasize the importance of lifestyle intervention.
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  Speaker 1: And I have always said, once you hit the age
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  Speaker 1: of forty, it is really important that you left heavy
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  Speaker 1: shit right, and that we are getting more rigorous around
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  Speaker 1: our exercise, reducing our alcohol whole consumption, getting serious about
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  Speaker 1: our sleep hygiene, and just making sure that our diet
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  Speaker 1: is better. And the people will have typically noticed that
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  Speaker 1: life just seems to get harder, all of that physical
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  Speaker 1: stuff when you hit your forties. And now there's very
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  Speaker 1: good reasons for it, but that is when we need
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  Speaker 1: to get on the front foot, particularly in our early forties.
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  Speaker 1: And then we just got to keep going because the
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  Speaker 1: shit that we used to get away with in our
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  Speaker 1: twenties and thirties, we can no longer get away with it,
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  Speaker 1: and science is now telling us why. So let's get
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  Speaker 1: on the front foot. That's it for this week, folks,
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  Speaker 1: catch you next time.