The secret for living longer is in two systems

A new study reveals a blood test capable of assessing the biological age of different organs, highlighting the significant impact of brain and immune system health on lifespan and disease risk, and demonstrating that lifestyle choices directly influence organ aging, potentially paving the way for proactive health management and personalized interventions.

Read the full article at https://www.paperleap.com/blog/articles/the-secret-for-living-longer-is-in-two-systems-0cccup

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to the paper Leap podcast, where a science takes
the mic. Each episode, we discuss cutting edge research, groundbreaking discoveries,
and the incredible people behind them, across disciplines and across
the world. Whether you're a curious mind, a researcher, or
just love learning, you're in the right place. Before we start,

(00:21):
don't forget to subscribe so you never miss an insight.
All the content is also available on paperleap dot com. Okay, ready,
let's start. Let's be honest here. Everybody's dream is to
be able to go to the doctor and instead of
just checking your cholesterol or blood pressure, they tell you

(00:43):
exactly how you are aging. For instance, they might tell you, hey,
your brain is five years younger than average. Or if
things don't go as well as planned, you might hear
you should do something about your lungs because they are aging.
Device is fast. Well, that's not science fiction anymore. It's

(01:05):
the direction aging research is heading. Thanks to a study
published in Nature Medicine by a team of researchers at
Stanford University and collaborators. The study reveals that proteins floating
in our blood can reveal the biological age of different organs.
And that the state of two organs, in particular the

(01:27):
brain and the immune system, may hold the keys to
living a longer, healthier life. We usually think of age
as a single number the candles on your birthday cake,
but biologists have long known that our bodies don't all
age in lockstep. Your liver might be spry while your
kidneys are lagging behind. Some seventy year olds are sharp

(01:50):
and active, while others struggle with multiple chronic illnesses. What's
been missing is a reliable way to measure biological age,
how old your body really is organ by organ Traditional
tools like MRI scans, DNA methylation tests, epigenetic clocks, or

(02:11):
general blood chemistry gave pieces of the puzzle, but not
the full picture. The Stanford team, led by Hamiltons, Say
Hui Ho and Tony Wiskore, turned to plasma proteomics, the
study of thousands of proteins circulating in the blood. Since
many of these proteins come from specific organs, they can

(02:33):
act like reporters, carrying news from inside your brain, liver, heart,
or lungs straight into your veins. The researchers analyze blood
samples from nearly forty five thousand people in the UK Biobank,
a massive health study that has followed volunteers for decades.
Using machine learning, they trained models to estimate the biological

(02:56):
age of eleven major organs, including the brain, heart, liver, kidney, lungs, pancreas,
and immune system, based on levels of almost three thousand proteins.
They ask several questions, including the following Do these organ
age gaps predict future disease? Do they influence how long

(03:17):
people live? Can lifestyle or medications slow down or even
reverse organ aging? Well? The answers were multifaceted, but the
key point is that your grain and immune system matter most.
In fact, while all organ's biological ages mattered for health,
two stood out in the study, the brain and the

(03:39):
immune system. People with an aged brain were three times
more likely to develop Alzheimer's disease, similar to the risk
from carrying one copy of the apo E four gene,
the strongest known genetic risk factor. A youthful brain, on
the other hand, cut Alzheimer's risk by seventy four percent,

(04:00):
as protective as carrying two copies of APOE two, the
rare good gene variant. Having multiple aged organs stack the
odds against you with eight or more aged organs, people
had an eightfold higher risk of death within fifteen years.
But here's the good news. Individuals with youthful brains and

(04:22):
immune systems together had about half the risk of dying
compared to their peers. In other words, while every organ's
health matters, protecting your brain and immune system may give
you the biggest return on investment for living longer. One
of the most encouraging findings is that organ aging isn't

(04:43):
set in stone. The study showed that lifestyle choices directly
shape how fast organs age. Factors that contribute to faster
aging include smucking, heavy drinking, processed meat, poor sleep, and
socioeconomic stress. Instead, if you want to slow down aging,
you should aim for vigorous exercise, eating oily fish and poultry,

(05:07):
and higher education levels. Even medications and supplements made a difference. Ibuprofen, glucosamine,
a joint supplement, cod liver oil, multivitamins, and vitamin C
were all linked to more youthful organs in certain cases.
Estrogen treatment in women after menopause also seemed to slow

(05:28):
down the aging of some organs. It's a reminder that
the choices we make every day leave fingerprints in our blood.
Think of this research as the prototype for a blood
test of aging. In the near future. A simple blood
draw might tell you not just your cholesterol levels, but
whether your brain, heart, or kidneys are aging faster than average,

(05:50):
and whether lifestyle changes or treatments are making a difference.
This could transform medicine. Instead of waiting until disease shows up,
doctors could track organ health proactively. Imagine adjusting your diet
or exercise and seeing your organ age scores improve, like
watching your fitness tracker, but at a molecular level. The

(06:12):
implications of this research ripple far beyond the lab. For individuals,
it opens the possibility of personalized aging profiles, knowing where
you're most vulnerable and how to strengthen it. For medicine,
it provides a new set of biomarkers that could guide
prevention and treatment, especially for age related diseases like Alzheimer's

(06:34):
heart failure or COPD. For our society as a whole,
it shifts the focus from lifespan just adding years to
health span, making sure those years are good ones, and
it highlights an elegant truth aging isn't uniform. We don't
all decline the same way, and by understanding which organs

(06:55):
matter most, we can make smarter choices and design better inns.
Of course, while the blood tests are powerful, they don't
yet replace traditional diagnostics for specific diseases. Still, the vision
is clear. One day routine blood work could come with
an organ aging report card showing not just how old

(07:17):
you are, but how old your organs feel. And if
your brain and immune system come back looking youthful, you
might just have bought yourself more healthy years. Now, if
you could measure the hidden age of your organs, would
you want to know? Thanks to this groundbreaking work, that
question may not stay hypothetical for long. The science suggests

(07:40):
that by protecting our brains and calming our immune systems,
we might not just add years to our lives. We
might add life to our years. And perhaps the most
empowering message is this, Your choices matter, from what you
eat to how you move to how you rest. Your
daily habits are written in your blood, shaping not just

(08:02):
how long you live, but how well. That's it for
this episode of the paper Leaf podcast. If you found
it thought provoking, fascinating, or just informative, share it with
the fellow science nerd. For more research highlights and full articles,
visit paperleaf dot com. Also make sure to subscribe to

(08:24):
the podcast. We've got plenty more discoveries to unpack. Until
next time, Keep questioning, keep learning,