“This notion immediately suggests that mortality may be decreased by reducing biological age and that the ability to recover from stress may be an important determinant of successful aging and longevity. “The findings imply that severe stress increases mortality, at least in part, by increasing biological age,” Gladyshev says. Similarly, pregnant subjects experienced postpartum recovery of biological age at varying rates and magnitudes, and an immunosuppressive drug called tocilizumab enhanced the biological age recovery of convalescent COVID-19 patients. Nevertheless, this increase was reversed and biological age was restored to baseline in the days following the surgery. For example, trauma patients experienced a strong and rapid increase in biological age following emergency surgery. From this initial insight, we hypothesized that other naturally occurring situations might also trigger reversible changes in biological age.”Īs predicted, transient changes in biological age also occurred during major surgery, pregnancy, and severe COVID-19 in humans or mice. “However, reversibility of such changes, as we observed, has not yet been reported. “An increase in biological age upon exposure to aged blood is consistent with previous reports of detrimental age-related changes upon heterochronic blood-exchange procedures,” says first author Jesse Poganik of Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Harvard Medical School. At epigenetic, transcriptomic, and metabolomic levels, the biological age of young mice was increased by heterochronic parabiosis and restored following surgical detachment. The results revealed that biological age may increase over relatively short time periods in response to stress, but this increase is transient and trends back toward baseline following recovery from stress. In one set of experiments, the researchers surgically attached pairs of mice that were 3 months old and 20 months old in a procedure known as heterochronic parabiosis. They measured changes in biological age in humans and mice in response to various stressful stimuli. To address this knowledge gap, the researchers leveraged the power of DNA methylation clocks, which were innovated based on the observation that methylation levels of various sites throughout the genome predictably change over the course of chronological age. Severe stress induces increases in biological age that are reversed upon recovery. Critically, the triggers of such changes were also unknown.” “Previous reports have hinted at the possibility of short-term fluctuations in biological age, but the question of whether such changes are reversible has, until now, remained unexplored. “This finding of fluid, fluctuating, malleable age challenges the longstanding conception of a unidirectional upward trajectory of biological age over the life course,” says co-senior study author James White of Duke University School of Medicine. These changes occur over relatively short time periods of days or months, according to multiple independent epigenetic aging clocks. The biological age of humans and mice undergoes a rapid increase in response to diverse forms of stress, which is reversed following recovery from stress, according to a study published on April 21 in the journal Cell Metabolism. Transient changes in biological age were observed during major surgery, pregnancy, and severe COVID-19, suggesting stress recovery could be a key factor in aging and longevity. New research reveals that biological age in humans and mice can rapidly increase due to stress but is reversible upon stress recovery, challenging the traditional view of aging. Transient changes in biological age were also observed during major surgery, pregnancy, and severe COVID-19 in humans or mice, indicating that the ability to recover from stress might play a significant role in aging and longevity. Researchers used DNA methylation clocks to measure changes in biological age in response to stress and found that biological age increased over short time periods but reverted to baseline following stress recovery. ![]() ![]() ![]() This challenges the long-held belief of a unidirectional upward trajectory of biological age throughout life. A study published in Cell Metabolism shows that humans and mice experience rapid increases in biological age due to stress, but these increases can be reversed following stress recovery.
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