Stress can have many biological effects
Mascot/Getty Images
A study that analyzed the DNA of people who had emergency hip surgery, severe COVID-19 infection, and were pregnant found that stress can biologically age the body. but when you recover you will be young again.
“This recovery suggests that there are machines that can turn the clock back at least a little bit,” says James White of Duke University in North Carolina, who led the study in collaboration with Harvard’s Vadim Gradyshev. say.
We usually measure age by the number of birthdays. This is the so-called chronological age. However, depending on factors such as smoking and not getting enough sleep, a person can be biologically older or younger than their actual age.
To measure biological age, researchers have developed an ‘epigenetic clock’ that analyzes patterns of markers on DNA called methyl groups that correlate with age.
White, Gladyshev, and their colleagues used these clocks to assess the effects of three types of stressful events on biological age. In both cases, DNA was analyzed from blood samples collected at multiple time points from participants in previous studies.
In an initial analysis, the biological age of nine individuals with a mean age of 81 years increased sharply when undergoing emergency hip fracture repair, but returned to preoperative levels the following week. I found out.
The team then measured the biological age of 29 people with a mean age of 60 years during and after hospitalization with severe covid-19. The biological age of female participants decreased after discharge, but that of male participants did not.
Finally, the team compiled data from four studies involving more than 200 pregnant women known to stress the body. Their biological age increased during pregnancy, but by 6 weeks postpartum, it was below the level seen in early pregnancy.
The researchers also used the epigenetic clock to measure the biological age of mice before, during and after pregnancy and found the same pattern.
In another experiment, the team showed that after young mice were surgically bonded to older mice, they experienced a sharp increase in biological age, causing blood from the older mice to flow into their own circulation. This was reversed after being surgically isolated from the old mouse.
The idea that biological aging accelerates during stressful events, but then reverses, suggests that people’s gray hair returns to its original color after recovering from a psychologically stressful event, such as a separation. This is consistent with previous research that there is
However, Luigi Fontana of the University of Sydney, Australia, says that while there may be short-term fluctuations in biological age, the overall trend is still toward aging. It might bring back the color, but it’s not going to be the hair you had when you were 10,” he says.
Nonetheless, now that we know that biological aging can be reversed, at least slightly, it’s more likely that we can develop treatments that further facilitate this reversal, says White.
topic:
