Time may march on predictably, but biological aging is not constant. Stanford Medicine researchers report finding massive biomolecular shifts occur in our 40s and 60s, their paper describing these findings has been published in the journal Nature Aging.
Have you ever felt that everything in your body just felt off all at the same time? Well, it may not be your imagination. While stress could be playing a part in that, this study shows that many of our microorganisms and molecules rise and fall in numbers rather dramatically during our 40s and 60s.
“We’re not just changing gradually over time; there are some really dramatic changes,” said Michael Snyder, PhD, professor of genetics and the study’s senior author. “It turns out the mid-40s is a time of dramatic change, as is the early 60s. And that’s true no matter what class of molecules you look at.”
The study
During this study, thousands of different molecules and microbiomes were assessed every few months over the span of several years in 108 people between the ages of 25 to 75 years old. The participants were individuals that the researchers had been following to investigate the biology of aging, and had previously led to the discovery of 4 distinct “ageotypes”.
Many different kinds of molecules were tracked from these samples, including RNA, proteins, and metabolites, as well as shifts in microbiomes. The age-related changes were tracked in over 135,000 different molecules and microbes, for a total of close to 250 billion distinct data points.
Abrupt clusters of change
The results showed that the abundances of most of the microbes and molecules did not change in a gradual, chronological manner. Rather surprisingly, they shift in two periods of rapid changes during the human lifespan, on average at around the ages of 44 and 60 years old, according to the researchers.
Thousands of molecules and microbes were found to undergo shifts in their abundance, either increasing or decreasing. Around 81% of all the molecules they studied showed non-linear fluctuations in number, meaning that they changed more at certain ages than at other times. Clusters of molecules with the largest changes in abundance were found to have these transformations occurring the most in two time periods: when people were in their mid-40s, and when they were in their early 60s.
Occurs in both sexes
At first, the large cluster of changes in the mid-40s was being driven by menopause or perimenopause in the study, but looking at the group by gender revealed that the shift was occurring in men in their 40s as well.
“This suggests that while menopause or perimenopause may contribute to the changes observed in women in their mid-40s, there are likely other, more significant factors influencing these changes in both men and women. Identifying and studying these factors should be a priority for future research,” said Xiaotao Shen, PhD, a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral scholar, who was the first author of the study. Shen is now an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.
These changes may influence health and risk of disease
It is probably safe to say that these big changes will likely impact our health. For example, the number of molecules related to cardiovascular disease significantly shifted at both times, and those related to immune function changed in those in their early 60s. Perhaps, not surprisingly, many age-related disease risks and other age-related phenomena are also known to increase at that point in life.
Significant changes were seen in the number of molecules among those in their 40s related to alcohol, caffeine, and lipid metabolism; cardiovascular disease; and skin and muscle. The significant changes seen in the number of molecules among those in their 60s were related to carbohydrate and caffeine metabolism, immune regulation, kidney function, cardiovascular disease, and skin and muscle. This means that some of the changes could be related to certain behavioral or lifestyle factors that cluster in these age groups rather than being driven by biological factors.
Moving forward
The researchers plan to further explore these bursts of clusters of molecular change and investigate their drivers. Whatever the causes of the clusters are, their existence highlights the fact that people need to pay closer attention to their health, especially in their 40s and 60s.
Making simple lifestyle changes like increasing how much you exercise to protect your heart and maintain muscle mass at both ages or decreasing your alcohol consumption in your 40s as your ability to metabolize alcohol slows could positively affect these clusters of changes.
“I’m a big believer that we should try to adjust our lifestyles while we’re still healthy,” Snyder said.
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References/Sources/Materials provided by:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43587-024-00692-2
clodato@stanfordhealthcare.org
https://worldhealth.net/news/trying-exercise-more-do-something-you-enjoy/
