On Ageing

Being a master athlete, the question of ageing is highly important for me. That been said, I am not obsessed to the point of following closely the scientific literature on this subject. Still, whenever an interesting article attracts my attention I take the time to read and understand it. This is the case with a recent article which appeared in Nature Medicine, authored by a team of Stanford University.

The team analysed data from blood samples from more than 4000 persons aged from 18 to 95 and in particular the levels of 3000 different proteins. They found that more than 1000 of the latter were varying with age.

The interesting finding is that, most of the time, the levels of these proteins were practically constant but, at certain ages, there were massive shifts. To put it simply, linking the protein concentrations in the blood plasma to ageing, the findings of the Stanford team would support the idea that ageing is not a continuous process. We do not age uniformly: there exist special age thresholds.

In the graphic above it is clear that something important happens around 35 and 80 years of age, as well as something minor around 60. 

Using these results the Stanford team was able to set up a system, using a set of circa 400 proteins, allowing to predict the age of an individual based on the analysis of its blood proteins. The correlation between the predictions from the protein measurements and the actual age of the subjects is impressive. 

The research team pointed out that individuals who were predicted to be younger than their chronological age performed better on cognitive and physical tests.

The link between ageing and blood is something that has been spotted in previous studies.  In fact it has been observed that old mice can be rejuvenated with blood infusions from younger mice. Conversely, giving the younger mice "old blood" led to an increase of cognitive ageing. We shall not pursue these, verging on the vampiric, considerations. What is interesting is that, when the Stanford team method becomes well established, it will be, hopefully, possible to measure how well is one ageing through just a blood test. Ideally, linking specific proteins to the various organs, it would be possible, by measuring their concentration and its variation, to detect premature deterioration of some bodily function and perhaps find methods to counteract this.  

Be that as it may, it is funny to remark that the thresholds found above materialise the usual intuitive separations of age groups: one is young till 35, then of middle age till 60, then belonging to the third age till 80, and, then "insert something non-derogatory here" for the over-80 group.