Losing muscle strength is a natural part of aging. At the core of this decline is a drop in the number of muscle stem cells (MuSCs), the specialized cells responsible for maintaining and regenerating muscle tissue throughout our lives. Loss of muscle strength can severely affect mobility, increasing the risk of falls, fractures and, most importantly, the loss of independence.
Published in Nature Aging, a recent study took a crucial first step toward restoring stem cell function in aging muscles—gaining a clearer understanding of how metabolism changes when stem cells are activated and how these critical processes weaken with age.
The researchers’ investigation led them to glutamine metabolism, the process by which cells use the amino acid glutamine to support essential functions. They found that for MuSCs, glutamine is more than just a nutrient. It provides the raw material needed to produce fatty acids that help cells grow, divide, and repair damaged muscles.
Eyes, the high-resolution biological devices that help us visualize the outside world, are now being used as a portal to assess our internal health. Scientists have found that a closer evaluation of how one’s retina is aging can provide crucial hints about bone health, especially in conditions such as osteoporosis, which makes bones weaker and more prone to fractures.
A recent study conducted in Singapore and the UK collected over 45,000 retinal images and used an artificial intelligence (AI) tool called RetiAGE to estimate a person’s retinal biological age. When researchers compared retinal age with bone mineral density, they found an inverse relationship between the two.
Among participants in Singapore, people with older-looking retinas tended to have lower bone mineral density and higher fracture risk scores. Meanwhile, the UK-based cohort, where participants were studied for over a decade, revealed that a higher retinal biological age at the start of the study was a predictor for a greater chance of developing osteoporosis by the end of it.
Age-related macular degeneration (AMD) is the leading cause of irreversible blindness among aging people globally. Around one in seven Australians over the age of 50 have some signs of AMD.
The disease results in blurred and distorted vision, and often loss of function at the center of the eye’s visual field.
The best current treatment involves a series of injections to slow the progression of the disease, but this process can be expensive and difficult with potentially negative long-term effects.
From the article:
To put this in quantitative terms: consider an individual at the 5th percentile of genetic vitality. Even with an impeccable lifestyle, such a person might only reach the 25th percentile of vitality (energy levels, mood, motivation). Now consider someone at the 95th percentile of genetic vitality. Even with a mediocre or actively harmful lifestyle, this person might still operate at the 75th percentile or above. The gap between these two individuals, after both have optimized (or neglected) every modifiable factor, is entirely genetic.
The single most effective thing one can do to guarantee great energy, mood, motivation, metabolism, cognition, physique, and longevity is to pick the right parents.
This is not to say that lifestyle, hormones, and pharmaceuticals are unimportant. They clearly matter, often enormously. Rather, the point is that these interventions operate within a window whose size, position, and ceiling are defined by inherited genetic variation.
Vitality is affected by many things which I extensively discuss on my blog. These include metabolic health, hormones, inflammation, diet, exercise, and sleep, among other things. Each of these domains is important, and each is modifiable to varying degrees through lifestyle choices, pharmaceutical interventions, or behavioral change.
However, every one of these discussions has implicitly assumed a background variable that I have largely unaddressed: genetics.
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