Age Expert Answers Aging Questions From Twitter

Hi, I'm Dr. Morgan Levine.

I'm a professor who specializes in the biology of aging.

Today, I'll be answering your questions from Twitter.

This is Aging Support.

[upbeat music]

First up @bamabrat74,

Why does the aging process have to be so dang painful?

Over our lifespans,

we have a lot of biological and molecular changes

that accumulate in our bodies,

and ultimately, this makes our bodies function less ideally,

and causes a lot of these manifestations

we see with the aging, the aches, the pains,

the chronic diseases.

However, in aging science,

we actually think that we can disentangle chronological time

from biological aging.

So chronological age is what it says

on your driver's license.

However, this is different from what we call biological age,

which is really measuring the state of the organism.

We might say that even though you're chronologically

50 years old,

you have a biological state that actually resembles someone

who's more like a 60 year old.

And what that means is we can actually slow the rate

at which these changes accumulate,

or maybe even reverse them

and go back to a better functioning state.

And with that, we would actually give people

more years of life without the painful parts of aging.

All right, next up from @wildchild,

beep My head hurts so bad hahahah,

why are hangovers getting worse as we age?

Science doesn't have an answer for this,

and actually, a lot of scientists think that

it's just that you have poor recall

of what your hangovers used to be.

And actually, there is no evidence that hangovers get worse

necessarily as we age,

and you might just be forgetting how bad they were

when you were younger.

This could also be in terms of childbirth,

why women might actually be more willing to have a kid again

because they don't remember how shitty it was

to give birth the first time.

Next up, Jihane asks, Why do we age?

Why do we grow old and die?

And how does the world really work?

This is a fundamental question in biology.

I think of it as up there with what is life,

it's actually why I got really interested in this field

as a whole.

So an aging system is what we call a very complex system,

you have to have all your molecules and cells

in a very particular pattern to support aging.

So almost I like to use the analogy of the sand art,

you can lay out these different things

in a very specific manner.

And when it comes to life,

if you don't have that exact pattern, you don't have life.

The problem is that it's hard to maintain this.

So with any biochemical reaction that your body undergoes,

you can get a slight shift,

and over time, these accumulate in your system,

and we think that these are why you're manifesting is aging,

because you develop a state that is less compatible

with life than you originally had.

Next up, Eleanor Sheekey asked,

How much of aging is genetic?

Is longevity heritable?

The good news is, it isn't that heritable,

we actually that only about 10 to maybe 20% of your lifespan

is dictated by your genes.

And this is good news 'cause it actually means

we have a lot more control over how fast we're aging.

All right, next up a question from @MegSugaPop,

Can the aging process stop?

The science doesn't say that it can't happen,

but we're not close to doing this.

We are closed to showing that we can slow the aging process.

There is even some evidence that we can reverse aging

in some degree, especially in cells,

you can take cells from someone who is,

let's say 65 years old, and convert them back

to a cell that actually looks like an embryonic stem cell.

So we do think we have some power to change aging,

but to take an entire person stop the aging process

all together and hold them frozen at that age forever,

I think is probably a little farfetched.

@katrinadrcelic ask,

Tell me then without saying anything misogynistic,

how do men and women age differently?

Even though we might not be doing quite as well

in terms of the pay gap,

we're actually doing better than men

in terms of the longevity gap.

Women tend to live about four and a half years longer

than men when you look at the world population.

And even more than that, if we look at centenarians,

so these are people who live to at least age a hundred,

women make up 83% of that population.

But unfortunately, it's actually not all good news,

so there are definitely sex differences

in terms of kind of how we age.

So women tend to be much more at risk

for things like frailty

and for diseases like Alzheimer's disease and osteoporosis.

So even though we might live longer,

we do tend to suffer more for some of these debilitating

conditions.

So next up from @jayhans_3,

I've plant-based for a minute,

but last week, I ate meat and I feel my absolute best

right now, like how and why?

LOL.

What is the secret to longevity?

Laughing my ass off.

Actually, longevity science says plant-based diet

is probably the best diet.

There's a lot of evidence from both epidemiological,

which is the science when you actually look at populations,

as well as some more emerging clinical trials,

that suggests that a diet rich in mostly plant-based foods

can actually extend your lifespan and prevent disease.

Next up from Subita Rahman,

What are the barriers to figuring out biomarkers

or hallmarks to aging?

Is it that no one else has focused in on it too much

or lack of funding and people believing in it?

I feel a little hurt by this question

because this is what I work on,

and I work really hard on it,

so I don't think this is just for lack of effort,

but this is actually a really complex,

difficult thing to figure out.

In terms of actually developing biomarkers of aging

or hallmarks of aging,

we have to first be able to actually measure these changes,

which is hard in and of itself.

But even after we can measure it,

we have tons and tons of data,

imagine millions or billions of variables

that we can actually have to put together

to identify patterns.

So this isn't just some easy feat

that, oh, you just need to look in a cell

and figure out what happens with age

because aging processes so multifactorial,

so many things happen.

We actually have to use a lot of computer science

and machine learning coupled with molecular biology

to really figure out not just what's going on,

but what things are actually causing

or driving the aging process.

From Pretty Matty,

Does the aging process slow down in space?

Asking for a friend...

There was a twin study with actually the Kelly twins

who actually looked when one stayed on earth

and one went to space,

what happened to them in comparison to their aging?

And unfortunately, they actually found that going into space

seemed to accelerate a lot of these hallmarks of aging,

or things that we associate with the aging process.

So we know that there's gravitational time dilation,

so actually, it would slow down the closer you are to earth,

but there's also time dilation

in terms of the speed at which you're traveling.

So if you're traveling faster,

time slows down, it's kind of counterbalance.

So it's hard to say, depends on what you're doing in space.

KenekEdge asked, Is health span like lifespan?

Most of us know what lifespan is,

it's basically how long you're alive.

But a lot of people haven't heard this term, health span.

And really what we use the term house span to mean

is the amount of time you're alive without disease,

or without some age-related functional impairment.

So even though health span and lifespan are linked,

we think if you can extend your health span,

you'll probably also live longer.

They are actually two different things,

and health span is more the part we care about.

We don't all want to just have more and more years

in a kind of more debilitated disease state,

we wanna have more healthy years,

so this is the part that aging research is trying to target.

Next up, we have a question from Amy Harmon,

Science-y people, have there been some definitive debunking

and or validation of 'blue zones'?

Do centenarians in fact cluster there or no?

So for those of you who don't know,

blue zones are these places throughout the world

where they tend to have an enrichment

of people who survive to age a hundred,

they tend to be like longevity hotspots.

There have not been debunking of blue zones,

statistics don't lie.

Longer live people do live in these places,

but the reason that they're longer lived is still debatable.

So a lot of people speculate that they have really good,

healthy lifestyles,

they tend to be people who eat more plant-based diet,

have really active lifestyles and less stress.

But again, this is from looking at populations,

these aren't randomized controlled trials

where we pick a set of people,

we make them live in these places

and we see how long they live.

Next up from @carly_solstice,

Does the aging process just go to warp speed

as approach 40?

I feel like my gray hairs have quadrupled

and my wrinkles madly increase in just the last few months.

What we see in the aging process

does seem to increase exponentially later in life.

Things like graying of hair, wrinkles,

the onset of different diseases,

but actually what's underlying that

in the biological aging process,

all these molecular and cellular changes

that we think are actually the root causes

of those manifestations happen much earlier in life.

However, it takes time for those to accumulate

before we actually see them on our skin, in our hair

or feel them in our bodies.

And that's why it actually feels like the aging process

is really accelerating towards the end of life,

but actually a lot of the changes happen much earlier.

Next up, we have a question from Sairira,

Is aging a disease?

My view on it is that, I don't like the definition

of disease.

When we think of chronic disease,

things like diabetes or heart disease,

these are not binary states, you have it, or you don't.

These are continuous processes,

they are things that lie on a continuum,

you can be more sick or less sick.

And actually, rather than saying aging is disease,

I would argue that most of these chronic diseases

are just manifestations of aging,

so I would actually flip it around.

So next up from @kaiser9798,

I'm getting old, why do all my joints hurt now?

I didn't do nothing to warrant the pain.

So unfortunately, Kaiser,

this is something that's gonna happen to all of us,

we're all constantly getting older, we're all aging.

There are various reasons why your joints

might start hurting with age,

so you can actually lose some of the lubrication

between joints.

People can also develop things called osteoarthritis,

where you actually lose cartilage

and you have more kind of bone on bone.

We also lose strength in terms of our ligaments and tendons

and muscles that just make everything kind of not work

as well and start aching over time.

So next up, we have a question from Natali Marmion,

Is 45, the new 35?

when it comes to pregnancy,

how safe is it to have a baby later in life?

People alive today basically look like people from the past

who are only two and a half years younger,

so we're looking better,

but maybe not a whole decade better,

so you could say 45 is the new 42 and a half.

For the second question when it comes to pregnancy,

how safe is it to have a baby later in life?

The answer is, it probably depends on you.

The oldest woman to ever give birth,

I believe was just shy of 66 years old.

So for her, she was able to give birth to a healthy baby

and there was no issues.

However, we don't all age at the same rate

and some of us are able to reproduce much later in life,

and some of us are going to age faster and it's not healthy.

So ultimately, it's probably up to you

and your doctor to figure out what's best for you.

So next up, we have a question from Denis Wirtz,

Cellular hallmarks of aging,

what are the most predictive determinants of aging,

the biochemical properties of cells

or biophysical ones?

For that, I would argue that actually the hallmark

that I study, epigenetic modifications

is probably the most predictive as of right now.

So what I mean by that is these are biochemical

modifications to your genome,

so one might say, okay, their biochemical properties,

but actually, they changed the biophysical structure

of your DNA.

So I don't actually think we can group things

into either biochemical or biophysical,

because in biology, we learn form equals function,

so the physical structure

will affect the biochemical functioning

of a lot of these molecules.

Next up a question from @57thSnowflake,

Are you aware of any studies on epigenetics

and the impact on longevity,

and if so, what impacts have been seen?

Yes, I'm aware of these,

these are actually what my lab focuses on

day in and day out, we studied the epigenetics of aging.

So what I mean by that is the epigenetics are changes,

so these are chemical modifications to the DNA

without changing the sequence.

And the exciting thing about epigenetics

is even though every cell in your body

has essentially the same DNA,

you're at the genetics is what gives cells their identity,

it's what makes a skin cell different from a brain cell.

The interesting thing is,

it also is what makes a young cell

different from an old cell.

So we actually see specific epigenetic changes,

so these chemical changes that occur as a function of age,

we can measure them and we can actually use that information

to infer something about how quickly someone to aging,

and this tells us something about the probability

that they're gonna die in the next 10 or 20 years,

and also the probability that they're gonna develop

various chronic diseases of aging.

So next up from Stormy Leather, New York,

Are there any anti-aging remedies for hands?

'Cause that's what's aging on me the fastest,

my hands look 80!

Probably not, I would recommend sunscreen.

Next up, question from @HeickShannon,

What is senescence?

This is actually the term people used to use

instead of aging, so we called it senescence.

More recently, people have actually started to study

something called cellular senescence.

And what cellular senescence is,

is when a cell undergoes some stress

or has reached the end of its lifespan,

it'll actually transition to what we call a senescent cell,

which means it's no longer dividing,

but you can't kill it,

so it doesn't have this, what we call apoptosis

or this selective cell suicide.

But the issue is that these cells accumulate in our bodies

as we age, and they actually have a really damaging profile,

so they're excreting all of these pro-inflammatory factors

that can damage the nearby cells

and cause a lot of tissue inflammation.

And so people in the aging field

have actually been trying to target senescent cells

to try and remove them from aging tissues,

thinking that this'll restore some anti-aging benefits.

So next up from @ethanjweiss,

Is it true that calorie restriction does,

while exercise does not increase lifespan in mice?

If so, why?

And is that interesting?

Well, actually there's evidence now

looking at different mouse strains,

so these are mice with different genetic backgrounds,

that actually showing calorie restriction

doesn't work quite as well in all of them.

In some of them, they actually live shorter

when they restrict their calories.

In terms of exercise,

I actually don't think that there's good evidence

that exercise is not beneficial.

There was a study that showed

that there was a very limited increase in lifespan

for the exercised mice versus sedentary mice.

But the important thing in that study

is they showed there was an increase in health span,

which ultimately to me is the more important thing.

All right, next up @BDolanSFR asked,

What are the neurological effects of excessive consumption

of the modern American diet

over the lifespan of an adult male?

How many 60s and 70s babies

are experiencing pre-diabetic irritability

and accelerated brain aging

due to a lifetime of eating garbage?

The American diet is shit,

and it's not good for the aging process,

and we actually need to change our dietary habits

if we want to live longer, healthier lives.

And this can be even more problematic

for people who have genetic predispositions

to some of these diseases of aging.

So, you can imagine the average American diet,

which is basically the McDonald's diet,

could be really problematic

to someone whose body is actually not doing quite so well

in this area.

And finally from @drroyps,

Medical science have made great strides and thus longevity,

and life expectancy has increased significantly.

Major pitfalls has been the exponential rise in dementia,

cognitive impairment and Alzheimer's.

Is there anything to rejoice?

These conditions are worse than death!

So ideally what we would want

is not for people to spend 60 years disease-free,

then develop a disease

and then you keep them alive for another 40 years,

we actually want them to stay disease-free

for let's say 95 years, maybe do have the disease,

and then you only have five years with that disease.

So this is what we call health span extension

rather than just lifespan extension

and it's really what we need to work towards.

All right, so that's it for now,

thank you so much for your questions,

I think they were great ones

and I hope you guys learned something.