I stressors can contribute to a substantial increase in thebiological age, whose normal course can however be restored after a recovery period. This, at least, is what emerges from a study published in the journal Cell Metabolismconducted by scientists from Duke University School of Medicine e del Brigham e Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. The team, led by James White e Vadim Gladyshevexamined the changes in biological age observed in a human sample and in a mouse model by assessing the methylation levels of the DNA throughout the genome.
Researchers have discovered that biological age can undergo a rapid increase in response to different forms of stress. Such changes can occur over relatively short periods of time, days or months. “Biological age is more fluid and malleable than we thought – he observes White – the hypothesis of a fluctuating course of the biological clock had been proposed, but we did not know if the changes found were actually reversible”. The way and speed with which people (and animals) age, explain the authors, can depend on various factors, linked, for example, to clinical conditions, the onset of diseases, pharmacological treatments, changes in life, the occurrence of traumatic events and environmental exposure.
Stress factors and biological age
The research group observed pairs of mice that were three and 20 months old to compare the biological age of their bodies. At an epigenetic, transcriptomic and metabolomic level, the scientists report, the animals showed an increase in biological age in response to stress factors. “One of the most surprising aspects of our work – observe Jesse Poganik, del Brigham and Women’s Hospital – it’s about the reversibility of the changes we’ve encountered. We hypothesized that other natural situations could also trigger reversible alterations of the normal biological trend”.
“Our results – he comments Gladyshev – imply that severe stress can accelerate the aging of the organism. For this reason, the ability to recover from moments of stress could be a determining factor in the success of aging and longevity ‘. Further investigations suggested that human DNA methylation clocks provide data consistent with these insights.
“Despite the limitations – conclude White – our study paves the way for a new approach related to the dynamics of aging that should be considered in future research investigations. Indeed, it will be interesting to try to understand how transient increases in biological age or successful recovery from such increases can contribute to accelerated aging in the course of life”.