{"id":198,"date":"2021-01-25T16:31:50","date_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:31:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/?p=198"},"modified":"2021-12-01T09:40:09","modified_gmt":"2021-12-01T09:40:09","slug":"198-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.westminster.ac.uk\/difference\/198-2\/","title":{"rendered":"What science tells us about successful ageing"},"content":{"rendered":"
Ruslan Guzov\/Shutterstock<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Bradley Elliott<\/a>, University of Westminster<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

There have been some noteworthy examples of successful human ageing in the press recently. It was announced that Prince Phillip will be retiring from royal duties<\/a> in the autumn, at the age of 96. A couple of days later we heard the sad news that 85-year-old Min Bahadur Sharchan died<\/a> in an attempt to summit Everest (having successfully climbed the mountain at 76 years of age).<\/p>\n

Last week, we were also told about<\/a> Bill Frankland, who, at 105 years of age, still works in immunology research, publishing regularly in scientific journals. What allows some people to be so vital in old age? Are they mere outliers, or can anyone, potentially, reach a ripe old age in good health?<\/p>\n

Chronological age reflects how long you\u2019ve been alive, whereas biological age is a measure of how well your body functions compared with your chronological age. Chronological age is both easy to measure and has a high degree of precision. At the time of writing this, I\u2019m 33 years, 2 months and 27 days old (or 12,140 days, including leap years). Biological age is a bit more intangible. We have population averages for blood pressure and heart rate at various ages. We also have good data on how muscle mass and grip strength tends to diminish with age. So if you are better than the population average for your age, you are biologically \u201cyounger\u201d.<\/p>\n

What separates chronological from biological age? People often think that the two are intrinsically linked; that is, as we age, we become frailer \u2013 as our cardiovascular, muscular and neurological capacities decrease. Indeed, it is well understood that these variables, across population groups, tend to decrease with time from about 30 years of age. However, the rate of change in function differs between individuals, as measured by either physical function, cardiovascular function or neurological ability (decision making, reaction time, memory and cognitive function). Also, lower rates of change \u2013 that is, better maintenance of function \u2013 lead to better health, independence and longevity. In other words: successful ageing.<\/p>\n

Of mole rats and men<\/h2>\n

If we look to animal models of successful ageing, biological and chronological ageing don\u2019t always go hand in hand. Lobsters live a very long time and they don\u2019t seem to show reductions in function with ageing<\/a> (nature\u2019s cruellest joke \u2013 nearly immortal, yet delicious). One type of jellyfish (Turritopsis nutricula<\/em>) is biologically immortal. They can essentially \u201cage backwards\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"
Subterranean sabre-toothed sausages (aka naked mole rats).<\/span>
\nSmithsonian’s National Zoo\/flickr<\/a>, CC BY-NC-ND<\/a><\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And naked mole rats show reduced ageing. Their chronological age differs from their biological age and their mortality rates don\u2019t accelerate<\/a> as they age, like in most mammals. Of course, humans aren\u2019t jellyfish or subterranean sabre-toothed sausages. What evidence do we have of human functionality being preserved with age?<\/p>\n

A couple of years ago, Ross Pollock and colleagues at King\u2019s College London examined<\/a> a group of 142 successfully ageing people. Participants were cycling enthusiasts, aged 55 and 79 years. To be eligible for the study, men had to be able to cycle 100km in under six-and-a-half hours, and women had to be able to cycle 60km in five-and-a-half hours. Smokers, heavy drinkers and those with high blood pressure or other health conditions were excluded from the study.<\/p>\n

The researchers attempted to differentiate between chronological and biological age, and they did indeed tease out some interesting differences. These participants showed remarkable levels of muscular and cardiovascular function, with VO2max (the maximum rate of oxygen consumption as measured during incremental exercise) values more commonly seen in people 30 to 40 years of age. Importantly, the participants\u2019 VO2max values had decreased with age \u2013 although not as much as in the general population \u2013 suggesting they had delayed, but not prevented, chronological age. Also, there was a wide variation in VO2max \u2013 lifelong exercise helped this functional measure but did not totally explain successful ageing. In other words, exercise is good for you but not to the same degree in different people.<\/p>\n

Following on from this work, we targeted a group of successfully aged male athletes, with similar criteria as Pollock and colleagues, and compared them with a group of older, inactive people. Both Pollock\u2019s results and ours<\/a> showed a preservation of testosterone levels and physical function in this successfully ageing group of men compared with the inactive group.<\/p>\n

We found that getting our inactive group to complete high intensity intermittent training for six weeks offset lost physical function<\/a> differences and increased one form of testosterone to a degree that was closer to that of our successful ageing group. But it\u2019s important to point out that this relatively short six weeks of training didn\u2019t remove all the differences between the groups, nor would it be expected to. Six weeks of training shouldn\u2019t equal a life\u2019s effort.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re continuing to conduct research on this model of successful ageing to see if we can establish the effect of genes, environment and training history, and gain insight into cause and effect. Do these individuals maintain high levels of physical activity and thus successfully age better? Or do they successfully age better and thus maintain physical activity for longer?<\/p>\n

We do know, however, that it\u2019s never too late to introduce supervised exercise into older people\u2019s lives, no matter their chronological or biological age. But, for the final answer as to how genetics, lifelong activity levels and environment all come together to result in successful ageing, we\u2019ve got more work to do yet to establish the role these all play in making the naked mole rats and Prince Philips of this world.\"The<\/p>\n

Bradley Elliott<\/a>, Lecturer in Physiology, University of Westminster<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

This article is republished from The Conversation<\/a> under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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