Got Aging? ...Epigenetic methylation of DNA can be an indicator of aging & is worsened with higher weight/BMI.
Advances in DNA Methylation Analysis: The New Frontier for Clinical Diagnostics - Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute (plminstitute.org)
Can we improve our health by estimating when we may be going to die? or from what type of condition we may be at risk for? That might help if it leads to making changes that improve health. Sometimes though, we might end up making changes hoping they will help, only to have it turn out that was a wrong idea, or wrong individually. Trying things, re-evaluating and adjusting strategies regularly may be the best approach - replicating homeostatic stability with some ups and downs leading to overall balance. Readjusting before veering too far into ill health can help prevent irreversible chronic degeneration. Healthy aging does not necessarily include all the maladies that are associated with it in our modern lives.
Can you lift 100 pounds? 50 pounds? Can you lift it to your shoulders or above your head? Can you do a squat or deep knee bend? Can you stand on one leg for a minute?
Quality of life ‘biomarkers’ include the daily activities of life. Can you run a block to catch a bus? Can you walk a block? or a mile? or up a mountain for a weekend hike? Doing those things at age 20 might seem natural, but they are achievable at age 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 and probably even some 100-year-olds. Maintaining fitness over time is likely to the best route to having fitness later in life, however, gradually increasing your physical activity can lead to improvements at any age. Movement helps our mitochondria function which helps our function. Stretches in bed has been my morning exercise routine. Some movement is better than no movement for the mitochondrial function.
Lab tests can be helpful but getting out into nature can be a good test of fitness too, or take a lawn chair and just soak in the fresh air, forest or meadow fragrance, and sunshine. Move the lawn chair into the shade as needed. Getting over heated or sunburnt is not healthy.
Addition - I got a Youtube infomercial that had an on-topic video about which gymnasium type calisthenics to do in order to help maintain the quality-of-life muscle fitness and balance that will help with being a physically fit older adult later. Centathon.com is a membership site focused on exercise with screening assessments that inform you of your fitness ‘age’ equivalent. Is your Standing on One Leg equivalent to that of your peer age group or a decade older or two decades, three or four? (centathon.com) I am unaffiliated but feeling out of shape for my preferred biological fitness level.
The linked video is about lab style measurements of aging and it gets into the history and methods for assessing chronological age or biological age - two different measurements or estimates. The 100-year-old who is still hiking in the mountains would likely have a biological age that is younger than 100. The 20-year-old who rarely leaves the couch or video game console likely has a biological age that is older than 20.
People with higher weight/Body Mass Index have been found to have an older biological age than their chronological age. Better Grip Strength (squeezing something in your hand) is associated with a lower biological age. This may seem depressing or it could be viewed as motivating. Get moving, make some changes and the 20-year-old couch potato could become a 21-year-old mountain hiker or stadium stair climber.
Video link: Advances in DNA Methylation Analysis: The New Frontier for Clinical Diagnostics - Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute (plminstitute.org)
Trying to figure out someone’s age from biological age markers has been an area of research used for the purpose of estimating the age of immigrants who don’t have a birth certificate or for other identification purposes. The field has grown to look at other factors of health ‘prognosis’ - looking at the direction a person might be headed, rather than diagnosing diabetes or some other condition right now, might they be headed that direction? Preventative guidance might be useful for people or motivating for people who don’t want to face changing habits they kind of know aren’t helpful to them. A lab test might motivate some people towards making needed changes.
Regarding the image above, Methylation changes are associated with or cause aging, and it might be more or less methylation - down or up regulated genes. Improper methylation in either direction means that important proteins aren’t being made any longer (down regulated, hyper-methylated typically), or inflammatory protein or inappropriate proteins are being made (up regulated, lacking methylation typically).
When we look at more parameters of health, we can have a more complete picture of a person’s health or lack of health.
In the image above, we see that our health is made up of layers or levels including:
our Genome;
our Epigenome - what is methylated and ‘off’ or what is not methylated and is ‘on’ for protein transcription;
our Transcriptome would be which genes are being transcribed and that can be affected by microRNA which can be regulated by plant phytonutrients in our diet;
our Proteome would be what proteins are present I think,
our Metabolome likely involves the function of our mitochondria, nutrients and enzyme function;
our Microbiome would include our gut microbes and the microbes in and on other areas of our body;
Individual Exposome [?];
External Exposome [?];
Phenomics would be referring to our Phenotype - what type of health or physical characteristics is being presented by the person, which may not match a gene screening.
The Exposome appears to be what other chemicals we make internally or add from external sources:
Jessica Lasky-Su would like to see the Electronic Medical Record (EMR) be more informative for patients about their biological age and what might help based on screening of the various ‘-omic’ layers. What does our genetics and physiology suggest might be disease risks for us? Which drugs might be more problematic for our detox systems? What toxins seem to be in our body or life? Where might our health be headed in five years if we stay on the trajectory we currently at? How might we use nutrition, exercise and supplements to prevent disease?
Dr. Lasky-Su is working with a team on a program that analyze data from the various layers to provide a “whole-omics” assessment which might help inform patients and physicians about routes towards better health with more accuracy or precision than the current epigenomic biological or chronological age estimation methods.
Blurb about the video from the website:
“Technological breakthroughs in Omic technologies have led to a new wave of molecule biomarkers and clinical insights. Now, technology platforms from proteomics, metabolomics, and epigenomics are becoming tested as frequently as genetics and offering even more insight for clinicians to use for their patients. This growth is most prevalent in the field of epigenetic methylation.
DNA methylation is a biomarker which relates to DNA expression. However, unlike genetic testing, this marker is changeable by almost every factor in our lives including nutrition, fitness, environmental factors, medications, aging and disease. In recent years, this has become popular in the setting of biological age testing. As age is the biggest risk factor for almost every disease, DNA methylation based clocks have given us the most accurate tools to quantify this process and treat the aging process preventatively.
In this course, Dr. Jessica Lasky-Su from Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital will elaborate on the developments which have been made to epigenetic age clocks and discuss OMICm Age. OMICm age is the most advanced epigenetic clock which has been developed from a novel multi-omic dataset. Dr. Lasky-Su will talk about how the improvements in this clock make application in clinical medicine much more feasible and improve on limitations of previous age clocks.
DNA methylation is also expanding beyond the field of aging. Over the past few years, algorithms using DNA methylation data have been developed to predict disease, predict clinical response to common drugs such as metformin and Semaglutide, predict smoking and drinking status and even predict death. Ryan Smith, founder of TruDiagnostic, will address other ways to use methylation analysis in your clinic to improve the way you treat patients.
This conference will be “one of a kind” in providing insights into this rapidly evolving field from both the research and clinical perspective. Any health care provider interested in the newest and most accurate tools to measure aging and many other disease conditions in a single test will not want to miss this conference. The focus of this conference will be on delivering useful information that can be translated into clinical practice and patient education. You will not want to miss this program.”
8 months ago / 1,530 views View Event Details
See the video here: Advances in DNA Methylation Analysis: The New Frontier for Clinical Diagnostics - Personalized Lifestyle Medicine Institute (plminstitute.org)
“You may also like”
A different video link: “The Endocrine Symphony – Evaluating and Supporting the Organs of Communication”
Visible or physical signs of aging
If going for a hike seems an accurate enough assessment of your biological age, then other things to take note of is whether your clothes are fitting the same or have you gained some pudge or lost muscle?
Is your tongue a healthy pink or pale or bright red or magenta? smooth and shiny magenta? B vitamins are needed. White coating? poor detox may be happening body-wide or Candida yeast or just unhealthy oral microbiome may be present. Oral health impacts overall health and aging far more than realized and modern dental methods may be more harmful to overall health than realized and to tooth health.
Is your hair growth full and strong? Various minerals and B vitamins and protein are needed for healthy hair. That is my personal Waterloo right now - too many magnesium sulfate baths in the last week seems to have caused half of my ponytail to fall out when combing it. Knots don’t get picked apart; chunks of hair come off instead. Gack - alopecia…. But I had already noticed thinning of the hair shafts too. As we age, autoimmune antibodies can change hair follicles, so a thinner spaghetti noodle is grown or stops growing and falls out. Or just aging changes the hair follicles so thinner hair is produced - and that hair breaks more easily or the changed hair follicle might let go of the hair more easily.
I am a little sad and not sure about a haircut now - the length tangles too much for such fragile hair. But maybe I am due for a change. Less stress, less formaldehyde and less dust and dust-mites may be a need for reducing autoimmune antibodies in my bloodstream. A few years ago, my ponytail got caught in an old drill while I was making shiitake mushroom logs - and the drill broke, not my hair. I had to unwind it from the drill.
Wrinkles can be a confusing measurement of age because lots of sun or smoking or both will increase wrinkles compared to chronological age. Dehydration and lack of collagen and vitamin C in the diet might add to wrinkles. Poor lymphatic flow is part of cellulite. Magnesium can help skin and fluid balance.
Standing on one leg and timing how long the person can maintain balance is used as a simple assessment of aging and maybe fall risk. Practicing it may help improve cerebellum function and help extend lifespan.
Standing on one leg - a life lengthening skill.
Balancing takes cerebellum interaction with the muscles and the inner ear vestibular system. It can be at risk to inflammation due to the fragile hair cells that are also found within the hearing area of the inner ear. The hair cells physically wave in a jelly like surrounding that cushion them from breakage with sudden motion or repetitive noise. Magne…
My learning has come a long way - the post linked at the end, from 2017, is a brief introduction to oxidative stress chemicals and the minerals that are important for detoxing. Stress chemicals are produced from normal activity or are made in excess during physical or emotional stress. Manganese and zinc and copper in balance are highlighted minerals. They are needed for Manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) which protects mitochondria from oxidative stress chemicals, (Li and Zhou, 2011) and Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase. (Altobelli, et al., 2020)
Production of MnSOD is upregulated by inflammatory signals (Li and Zhou, 2011) - which would add more MnSOD to the person’s transcriptome. The epigenetic methylation would be removed from the gene when increased transcription of the protein chain is required. The protein chain, a length of amino acids, then will fold into the enzyme shape and the electrical power of manganese will be incorporated into the folded shape.
While a bunch of inflammatory markers associated with chronic disease can cause upregulation of MnSOD production, levels of the enzyme tend to be low in many chronic illnesses (Li and Zhou, 2011) - suggesting that the body can’t make the MnSOD for some reason … and maybe chronic illness follows lack of it. See quote below.
“Manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD), an enzyme located in mitochondria, is the key enzyme that protects the energy-generating mitochondria from oxidative damage. Levels of MnSOD are reduced in many diseases, including cancer, neurodegenerative diseases, and psoriasis.” […]
“MnSOD mRNA levels can be upregulated by several factors: LPS [8], cytokines such as TNF [9], IL-1 [10], and VEGF [11], UVB irradiation, ROS [12], and thioredoxin [13].” (Li and Zhou, 2011)
A lack of dietary manganese copper and zinc could be a reason a person couldn’t make the enzymes. Or excess of copper might prevent adequacy of zinc or vice versa. Lack of B vitamins might prevent normal methylation and then epigenetic changes couldn’t be made properly. Lack of protein in the diet or certain amino acids might be a limiting factor.
When health goes correctly, count your lucky stars, or thank your good self-care habits or family genetics or positive mental attitude - and keep up the good job!
Oxidative stress and aging; trace minerals and antioxidants
For a more detailed review of the current understanding of how oxidative stress and inflammation are involved in the aging process see this chapter from a longer book: Oxidative Stress and the Aging Brain: From Theory to Prevention, [1] Mitochondria are the main energy producers in cells. They are involved in breaking down each molecule of glucose (one h…
Disclaimer: This information is being provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of Fair Use and is not intended to provide individual health care guidance.
Reference List
(Altobelli, et al., 2020) Altobelli GG, Van Noorden S, Balato A, Cimini V. Copper/Zinc Superoxide Dismutase in Human Skin: Current Knowledge. Front Med (Lausanne). 2020 May 12;7:183. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2020.00183. PMID: 32478084; PMCID: PMC7235401. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7235401/
(Li and Zhou, 2011) Li C, Zhou HM. The role of manganese superoxide dismutase in inflammation defense. Enzyme Res. 2011;2011:387176. doi: 10.4061/2011/387176. Epub 2011 Oct 3. PMID: 21977313; PMCID: PMC3185262. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3185262/
JD - "A few years ago, my ponytail got caught in an old drill while I was making shiitake mushroom logs - and the drill broke, not my hair. I had to unwind it from the drill."
Brings to mind, your only as old as you feel and think you are.
https://youtu.be/n9T7AtNal_A?
+1 for bed yoga! My routine is 1) knee-down twist both sides, 2) sphinx / cobra, 3) child's pose. 5 mins total.