We all get old. It’s a given. And the longer we live, the more likely we are to experience the decline and deficits of aging. But is there a way to slow down the aging process? Scientists think there may be, and they’ve taken some promising steps in that direction.
The Complexities of Aging
Sounds like a simple question, right? But like a lot of questions, it’s more complex than you might think. Aging is a complex process that scientists are just beginning to understand, explains Kenneth Boockvar, director of the Integrative Center for Aging Research at the University of Alabama at Birmingham Medical Center. We see signs of aging when we look in the mirror, but in the lab, scientists can see evidence of aging at the cellular level.
“Aging involves the accumulation of damage, including to DNA,” Boockvar says.
The cellular damage as well as the damage we can see without a microscope — changes in physical and cognitive functioning — are associated with the passage of time. But how and when those deficits manifest varies markedly from person to person. For example, certain diseases, such as type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure, are associated with age, but not everyone gets chronic diseases as they age. Medicines can slow down the effects of high blood pressure, and medicines can slow down the effects of diabetes.
“We’ve made the most progress with those chronic diseases,” explains Boockvar.
But those illnesses are all managed with focused treatments, a targeted approach aimed at a specific illness and its effects. The question is: Can we slow down aging generally, even in people who do not have a chronic illness?
“I think the answer is yes,” says Boockvar.
Read More: Aging is Still One of Biology’s Greatest Mysteries
Biological Age vs. Chronological Age
Daniel Belsky, a researcher at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health, is one of the scientists working to understand aging at the molecular level. He and his team have discovered ways to measure a person’s biological age (what he calls their odometer) as well as ways to measure how fast a person is aging (their speedometer).
“There are promising developments using measurements of proteins circulating in our blood. There are also a growing number of studies that are amassing the data we need to build new measures of aging, which should make possible the development of more accurate odometer and speedometer measures,” he says.
Knowing your biological age and the pace of your aging could help with decisions about when to start screening for diseases that become more common as you age, such as dementia and many cancers.
Researchers are also working on interventions that can potentially rejuvenate aging cells. Tony Wyss-Coray studies brain aging at Stanford University. In studies on mice, his team made the breakthrough discovery that the blood from young brains could rejuvenate old brains. They and others are building on this work in the hopes of one day being able to use a similar approach to rejuvenate the brains of aging humans.
Slowing Aging vs. Preventing Aging
Meanwhile, some approaches to slowing the aging process are already in clinical trials, including medications such as metformin and semaglutide (which is currently also being used to treat obesity). The drugs affect metabolism and were initially used to treat diabetes. Boockvar explains that these drugs affect the metabolism in a way similar to calorie restriction, which has shown some anti-aging effects in animals but is difficult to use safely in humans.
“When I went into geriatrics, I thought I would just be helping take care of folks as they got older,” says Boockvar. “I didn’t think we would be preventing aging. But now we really are entering a new era of potentially doing just that. And that’s a game changer.”
How Lifestyle Can Affect How We Age
It will take time for these approaches to work their way from the lab to clinical trials to our medicine cabinets. But there’s a lot we can do to slow aging right now. Belsky points out that the best advice for slowing aging, though “pretty boring,” is still helpful.
“Eat a healthy diet. Get plenty of exercise. Sleep well. Surround yourself with people you care about, and make sure you engage in activities that are meaningful to you,” he says.
Whether simple or high-tech, some anti-aging approaches will require societal changes.
“Living ages us,” says Belsky, “but so does where and how we live.”
The social stresses of poverty and a lack of good quality food and housing can also cause people to age more rapidly, according to Belsky.
“Interventions to reduce those stresses, like helping people find and keep jobs or possibly providing direct resource transfers, like universal basic income, could help slow aging and give people more years of productive, healthy life,” he says. “We are now collecting data from participants in intervention trials of these programs to test whether they can slow a person’s pace of aging.”
Read More: Rate of Biological Aging Is Accelerating In Young People, Leading To Medical Issues
Article Sources
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Avery Hurt is a freelance science journalist. In addition to writing for Discover, she writes regularly for a variety of outlets, both print and online, including National Geographic, Science News Explores, Medscape, and WebMD. She’s the author of Bullet With Your Name on It: What You Will Probably Die From and What You Can Do About It, Clerisy Press 2007, as well as several books for young readers. Avery got her start in journalism while attending university, writing for the school newspaper and editing the student non-fiction magazine. Though she writes about all areas of science, she is particularly interested in neuroscience, the science of consciousness, and AI–interests she developed while earning a degree in philosophy.
