Worms help scientists research 'true physical age'
Scientists have identified biomarkers that may help them determine “true” physical age, as distinct from the number of years someone has lived.
Not everyone ages at the same rate. While some septuagenarians function as if they are in their 50s, other people seem to get old before their time.
Researchers found that much the same is true for the laboratory worm, Caenorhabditis elegans.
With an average life span of three weeks, some worms remain spry for much longer than others of the same age.
Others show signs of premature ageing, by having an unsymmetrical appearance, becoming sluggish, and moving in an uncoordinated way.
Profiling the genetic make-up of 104 worms and matching the results with age-related behaviour and survival revealed a suite of genes with a major impact on ageing.
By looking at the activity of these genes, it was possible to tell which worms were ageing fast and which more slowly.
The scientists believe a similar process could be applied to humans, which also have age-related genes.
“This is the first evidence that physiological age can be predicted non-subjectively,” research leader Dr Simon Melov, from the Buck Institute for Age Research in Novato, California, said.
“This is a first step; our results were not perfect, but we were able to predict the ages of the animals 70% of the time, which is far better than anything that has been done before.”
Examining human versions of the biomarkers could help scientists carrying out trials of anti-ageing medicines, the researchers said.
The technology would also provide a means of determining whether an individual was ageing faster or slower than would normally be expected.
The findings were reported yesterday in the online journal Ageing Cell.
Dr Melov is now planning mouse studies looking at ageing biomarkers in different types of body tissue. They may, for instance, be able to show whether heart muscle ages faster than liver tissue as a result of a certain diet or environment.
Another study may focus on humans undertaking various forms of exercise over a set length of time.
In 2007, Dr Melov showed that regular strength training reversed aspects of ageing in the skeletal muscle of older people.
“Research into the biology of ageing in humans has been hampered by the lack of irrefutable biomarkers that correlate with the ageing process,” he said.
“I am confident that at some point there will be a non-subjective method of determining how old someone is with a high level of confidence.”
