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If you’ve ever felt like everything in your body was falling apart at once, it might not just be your imagination. A new study from researchers at the Stanford University School of Medicine suggests that many molecules and microbes in your body experience “dramatic” increases or decreases between the ages of 40 and 60.
The researchers evaluated thousands of different molecules and their microbiomes (the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live on the body and skin) in people aged 25 to 75 and found that the abundance of most molecules and microbes does not change gradually over time. The big changes occur between the ages of 44 and 60 Experts say we go through two periods of rapid change in our lives, around the ages of 44 and 60. A paper describing the findings was published Wednesday in the journal Nature Aging.
“We’re not just seeing gradual changes over time; we’re seeing gradual changes over time. There are really some big changes,” said the study’s lead author, genetics professor Michael Snyder, PhD. “It looks like the mid-1940s was a time of big changes, just like the early 1960s. This was true regardless of which class of molecules we were looking at,” the scientist said.
These complex changes could have health consequences, the authors say. The study found that the number of molecules associated with cardiovascular disease changed significantly at both time points, while the number of molecules associated with immune function also changed in the 60-year-olds. The Stanford researchers analyzed the speed of molecular and microbial changes, inspired by the observation that the risk of many age-related diseases does not increase gradually with age. For example, the risk of Alzheimer’s disease and cardiovascular disease increases sharply after a certain age, while the risk increases gradually in people under 60. The researchers used data from 108 people they followed to better understand the biology of aging. Previous findings from the same group of study volunteers included the discovery of four different “ageotypes,” which indicate that individuals’ kidneys, livers, metabolisms and immune systems age at different rates. The new study looked at participants who donated blood and other biological samples every few months over several years. The scientists tracked several different types of molecules in these samples, including RNA, proteins and metabolites, as well as changes in the participants’ microbiomes. The researchers tracked age-related changes in more than 135,000 molecules and different microbes, for a total of nearly 250 billion different data points. They found that thousands of molecules and microbes changed in abundance, either increasing or decreasing — and that about 81 percent of the molecules studied showed nonlinear fluctuations in their abundance in the body, meaning they changed more at some ages than at others. When they looked for groups of molecules that changed in abundance the most, they found that these shifts occurred most frequently during two periods: when people were in their mid-40s and in their early 60s. While many studies have focused on how different molecules increase or decrease with age and how biological age differs from chronological age, few have looked at the rate of biological aging. It’s not surprising that so many dramatic changes occur in the early 60s, since it’s known that many age-related disease risks and other age-related phenomena increase at that point in life, said Dr. Snyder, a professor of genetics at Stanford University. But the series of changes that occur in the body starting in the mid-40s surprised the scientists a bit. At first, they thought that menopause or perimenopause caused major changes in the women in the study, skewing the results for the entire group, but when they split the study group by sex, the researchers found that these major changes also occurred in men in their 40s. “This suggests that while menopause or perimenopause may contribute to the changes seen in women in their 40s, there may be other more important factors that influence these changes in both men and women. Identifying and studying these factors should be a priority for future research,” said Xiaotao Shen, a former postdoctoral fellow at the Stanford University School of Medicine and first author of the study, who is currently an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. Changes Affect Health and Disease Risk In the 40-year-olds, significant changes were observed in the number of molecules associated with alcohol, caffeine and lipid metabolism, cardiovascular, and skin and muscle diseases. For the 60-year-olds, changes were associated with carbohydrate and caffeine metabolism, immune regulation, kidney function, cardiovascular disease, and skin and muscle. Dr. Snyder believes that some of these changes may be related to lifestyle or behavioral factors that are concentrated in these age groups, rather than being driven by biological factors. For example, alcohol metabolism dysfunction may be caused by increased drinking around the 40s, which is typically a very stressful time in life. The researchers said the team plans to further explore the determinants of these changes, but regardless of their cause, their presence suggests that people need to pay attention to their health, especially those between the ages of 40 and 60. That could mean increasing exercise at both ages to protect the heart and maintain muscle mass, or cutting back on alcohol in your 40s, when your ability to metabolize alcohol slows. “I firmly believe that we should try to adjust our lifestyles as long as it’s healthy,” Dr. Snyder concluded.
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