Latest / Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor / Wisdom Wednesday: The hallmarks of aging - and how I'll help you slow them down
Transcript
- 0:08Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, welcome to another edition of Wisdom Wednesdays. And
- 0:12Speaker 1: it is the new year, a time for New Year's resolutions,
- 0:16Speaker 1: and what better New Year's resolution could we have of
- 0:20Speaker 1: delaying the aging process to you? The next twelve weeks
- 0:27Speaker 1: are certainly going to be interesting because what I intend
- 0:31Speaker 1: to do is a series of Wisdom Wednesdays about how
- 0:36Speaker 1: to attenue it or slow down the aging process. Now,
- 0:40Speaker 1: this is all going to be based on a couple
- 0:44Speaker 1: of pretty seminal research papers. And the first one came
- 0:48Speaker 1: out in I think it was twenty and thirteen. It
- 0:52Speaker 1: was twenty thirteen, and the research paper was called The
- 0:56Speaker 1: Hallmarks of Aging. It was published in the journal Sale
- 1:00Speaker 1: and it is a pretty landmark paper because what the
- 1:04Speaker 1: researchers did was they identified nine different hallmarks of aging
- 1:10Speaker 1: that kind of interactive with each other that actually drive
- 1:14Speaker 1: mammalian aging. And there was a number of researchers who
- 1:17Speaker 1: were involved in this, call Us Lopez Otin and Maria Blasco,
- 1:22Speaker 1: Linda Partridge, Manuel Serrano, and Inguidochromer. And then a couple
- 1:30Speaker 1: of years ago I noticed another research paper that came
- 1:33Speaker 1: out in the same journal, and the title of this
- 1:37Speaker 1: was Hallmarks of aging an expanding universe, and what they
- 1:42Speaker 1: did the exact same researchers was that they then followed
- 1:46Speaker 1: up their original research and identified three other hallmarks of aging.
- 1:52Speaker 1: And really interestingly, since the first research paper was published
- 1:57Speaker 1: back in two thousand and thirteen, close to three hundred
- 2:02Speaker 1: thousand published articles were produced on the subject. So this
- 2:08Speaker 1: is an area that is really really ripe in terms
- 2:12Speaker 1: of research, and what I wanted to do first of
- 2:15Speaker 1: all on the first one is just to go through
- 2:18Speaker 1: the twelve hallmarks of aging, just to give us a
- 2:21Speaker 1: little bit of an overview and a little bit of
- 2:23Speaker 1: background so that you understand what they are. And then
- 2:26Speaker 1: every week for the next twelve weeks after this, I'm
- 2:29Speaker 1: going to go through each one in a little bit
- 2:31Speaker 1: more detail and talk about lifestyle factors that we can
- 2:35Speaker 1: do to attenuate or slow these down. So this is
- 2:39Speaker 1: just going to be a quick tour of these twelve
- 2:41Speaker 1: different hallmarks. So the first one is what's called genomic instability.
- 2:47Speaker 1: So how this works is that as we age, our
- 2:50Speaker 1: DNA accumulates damage from a variety of sources like environmental
- 2:56Speaker 1: toxins and also normal metabolic processes. We just get errors
- 3:01Speaker 1: in our DNA, and this damage leads to what's called
- 3:05Speaker 1: genomic instability, which increases the risk of diseases such as
- 3:09Speaker 1: cancer whenever you get errors in that DNA replicating. And
- 3:16Speaker 1: we are going to then go through the different mechanisms
- 3:19Speaker 1: by which that happens and then ways by which we
- 3:23Speaker 1: can actually reduce this. The second one is telling me attrition.
- 3:28Speaker 1: So teleomeres, these are the little protective caps at the
- 3:32Speaker 1: end of our chromosome. So your chromosomes contain your DNA.
- 3:36Speaker 1: And what do you think of this thing about leases?
- 3:39Speaker 1: If so, if you've got a pair of leases, just
- 3:41Speaker 1: have a look at the least and you'll see at
- 3:42Speaker 1: the end of the least there's the little plastic cap.
- 3:45Speaker 1: So every time your cells replicate, and what we can
- 3:49Speaker 1: really think of is there's a little snip off the
- 3:52Speaker 1: end of that plastic cap, and you're tellingmere actually shortens
- 3:57Speaker 1: and so as those cells cantinue to replicate, we get
- 4:02Speaker 1: this shortening of our telomeres and that can then lead
- 4:05Speaker 1: to cellular aging and dysfunction. So that's the second process.
- 4:11Speaker 1: The third process is epigenetic alterations. You've heard me talk
- 4:15Speaker 1: about epigenetics before, So epigenetic changes these are are changes
- 4:21Speaker 1: that can turn genes on or off without altering the
- 4:25Speaker 1: DNA sequence, So there's basically there's no change in your DNA,
- 4:30Speaker 1: but there are changes that tell the DNA or the
- 4:34Speaker 1: genes how to actually behave. And some of these epigenetic
- 4:38Speaker 1: changes happen because of certain lifestyle factors, and they can
- 4:41Speaker 1: accelerate aging and disease development. The fourth one is a
- 4:47Speaker 1: what's called a loss of proteostasis. So you'll have heard
- 4:51Speaker 1: me talk about this in kind of roundabout ways before.
- 4:53Speaker 1: Protostasis really refers to the balance and maintenance of the
- 4:58Speaker 1: body's proteins. So think about all of the amino acids,
- 5:02Speaker 1: and our amino acids are absolutely critical for all of
- 5:07Speaker 1: our cells, in all of our organs, and as we ege,
- 5:10Speaker 1: it can actually disrupt the balance of these proteins, leading
- 5:14Speaker 1: to this accumulation of damage proteins inside the cells, which
- 5:18Speaker 1: then contribute to lots of different diseases, both physical diseases
- 5:23Speaker 1: and neurological diseases like Alzheimer's disease as well. Then we
- 5:29Speaker 1: have the fifth one, which is disregulated nutrient sensing. So basically,
- 5:35Speaker 1: as you ege, your cells ability to sense and respond
- 5:39Speaker 1: to nutrients becomes less efficient with age, which then affects
- 5:44Speaker 1: our metabolism and our overall health. And I have talked
- 5:48Speaker 1: before about our protein turnover are basically how when we
- 5:55Speaker 1: get older and muscle protein turnover actually because less efficient
- 6:01Speaker 1: than we need more protein. But it's not just around protein,
- 6:04Speaker 1: this is just all of the different nutrients we get
- 6:07Speaker 1: this disregulated sensing. So we'll go into that in more
- 6:10Speaker 1: detail on what we can actually do about it. Then
- 6:13Speaker 1: the sixth one is mitochondrial dysfunction. So unless you've been
- 6:17Speaker 1: living under a rock, you've heard me talk about mitochondria.
- 6:20Speaker 1: They are the powerhouses, are the energy creators of the cells,
- 6:26Speaker 1: but they actually do a shitload more than just create
- 6:29Speaker 1: energy in the cell. Our mitochondria are involved in so
- 6:34Speaker 1: many cellular processes and their function actually declines with age,
- 6:39Speaker 1: leading to reduced energy production throughout the cells of your body.
- 6:44Speaker 1: And then that's when things really start to go wrong.
- 6:48Speaker 1: And we will dive into this around what's the sort
- 6:51Speaker 1: of things that drive mitochondrial dysfunction and a range of
- 6:55Speaker 1: different lifestyle factors that we can actually do to improve
- 6:58Speaker 1: the health of our magico and our magicndrey have been
- 7:01Speaker 1: implicated and pretty much most diseases, and not only physical
- 7:06Speaker 1: but psychological neurological diseases as well. Then the seventh one
- 7:11Speaker 1: we have is cellular senescence, so sinescence sales. Think of
- 7:17Speaker 1: these like zombie sales, right, So these are eed sales
- 7:22Speaker 1: that can no longer divide, and they're kind of supposed
- 7:26Speaker 1: to have committed suicide, but they kind of goes wrong
- 7:29Speaker 1: and they turn into zombie sales. If you've ever watched
- 7:33Speaker 1: Game of Thrones, think of these like the White Walkers.
- 7:36Speaker 1: And the issue is that they leak out in flammatory
- 7:42Speaker 1: molecules into the surrounding cells and tissues and actually cause
- 7:47Speaker 1: tissue damage. So we're going to talk about the ways
- 7:50Speaker 1: that are the lifestyle factors that increase cellular senescence uh
- 7:55Speaker 1: and and and ways that we can actually mitigate for that.
- 7:59Speaker 1: Then the next one is stem cell exhaustion. So you'll
- 8:02Speaker 1: obviously have heard of stem cells and they are essential
- 8:05Speaker 1: for our tissue ripper and our regeneration. But we know
- 8:10Speaker 1: that the function of our stem cells declines with age,
- 8:13Speaker 1: and there's been a research to show a number of
- 8:17Speaker 1: things that contribute to that, but also a number of
- 8:19Speaker 1: things that we can do to maintain the health of
- 8:23Speaker 1: our stem cells as we get older. The ninth one
- 8:27Speaker 1: of twelve is altered intercellular communication. So there is all
- 8:32Speaker 1: sorts of communication going on under the hood right now
- 8:37Speaker 1: between your sales, and when that cellular communication gets disrupted,
- 8:43Speaker 1: and that can lead to chronic inflammation at a cellular
- 8:47Speaker 1: level and our whole range of other issues. And again
- 8:50Speaker 1: we will go into how that happens and what we
- 8:52Speaker 1: can actually do about it. And then the next one
- 8:55Speaker 1: is disabled macro autophogy. So propogy is the process by
- 9:02Speaker 1: which sales recycle damage components. So right now there's thousands,
- 9:08Speaker 1: if not hundreds of thousands of your sales that are
- 9:11Speaker 1: kind of looking inside themselves and looking for damage components
- 9:15Speaker 1: of that sale. And what they actually do is really
- 9:18Speaker 1: bloody clever, is they take those damage components, whether it's
- 9:21Speaker 1: proteins or other things, and they actually recycle them into
- 9:25Speaker 1: energy and that helps with our overall cellular health. Now,
- 9:31Speaker 1: as we age, this process of autoplogy becomes less efficient,
- 9:35Speaker 1: and we're going to talk about stuff that we can
- 9:38Speaker 1: do to improve the efficiency of our autology. And the
- 9:42Speaker 1: next one is one of the new ones that these
- 9:44Speaker 1: guys have proposed in the last eight years, and that
- 9:47Speaker 1: is a compromise microbiome. I've done a number of different
- 9:52Speaker 1: to our podcasts and podcast guests, and the last one
- 9:56Speaker 1: was Jason Harlowick, which was a brilliant podcast on our
- 10:00Speaker 1: microbiome and how important it is for our health. And
- 10:02Speaker 1: we know that as we age, our microbiome becomes affected,
- 10:06Speaker 1: it becomes less varied, and there are changes in that
- 10:11Speaker 1: microbiome that can then drive drive disease processes. And then
- 10:15Speaker 1: the last one that we will talk about is chronic inflammation,
- 10:18Speaker 1: and that's low grade systemic inflammation at a cellular level
- 10:22Speaker 1: is a major hallmark of aging and actually contributes to
- 10:26Speaker 1: lots of ASU related diseases. And we're going to talk
- 10:29Speaker 1: about what you can do to reduce your levels of
- 10:33Speaker 1: chronic inflammation. Now, I know that was a shitload of
- 10:37Speaker 1: geeky inflation inflammation in formation, but hopefully that is giving
- 10:42Speaker 1: you a bit of an understanding about how we actually
- 10:45Speaker 1: age and wetted your appetite for some proven things that
- 10:51Speaker 1: we can actually do to attenduate every one of those
- 10:55Speaker 1: twelve major hallmarks of aging. So that's it for this week, folks.
- 11:00Speaker 1: Actually next week when we will go into the first
- 11:03Speaker 1: hallmark and what we can do about it. I tell
- 11:05Speaker 1: you then