Latest news with #Tony Wyss-Coray
Yahoo
4 days ago
- Health
- Yahoo
Your organs have their own age – and it may predict health risks better than your birthday
If you've always thought your birthday was the best way to define how old you are, think again. Your organs, it turns out, are aging on their own schedules. A growing body of scientific research is shifting focus from chronological age to biological age, where your body's roughly 30 trillion cells, tissues and organs each have their own 'clocks' that can tick at different speeds. According to a groundbreaking peer-reviewed study published last week in Nature Medicine, Stanford University researchers found that an organ that is substantially 'older' than a person's actual age is at greater risk of disease. Researchers tracked this hidden timeline by analyzing thousands of proteins flowing through our blood. The body's cells, tissues and organs all have different 'clocks' ticking at different speeds (Getty Images) 'With this indicator, we can assess the age of an organ today and predict the odds of your getting a disease associated with that organ 10 years late,' Tony Wyss-Coray, a professor of neurology and neurological sciences at the university's Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, said in a statement. Take the brain, for example: an older one increases your risk of death by about 182 percent within the next 15 years, compared with people whose brains are aging normally, researchers found. On the flip side, those with brains biologically younger than their chronological age are believed to live longer. The study's authors concluded that having an older brain increased the risk of dementia threefold, while those with youthful brains have just a quarter of the usual risk. 'The brain is the gatekeeper of longevity,' Wyss-Coray said. 'If you've got an old brain, you have an increased likelihood of mortality.' An older biological heart age was linked to a higher risk of atrial fibrillation and heart failure, while aging lungs signaled an increased likelihood of developing chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). While your chronological age only goes up, the good news is that biological age can be slowed, paused or even reversed. Forty-year-old soccer star Cristiano Ronaldo has an estimated biological age of just under 29, according to data from the health tech brand Whoop. Bryan Johnson has documented his journey to reverse his biological age to that of a teenager (Dustin Giallanza) Kim Kardashian may be blowing out 44 candles on her next birthday but her biological age came in nearly a decade younger, according to results from an epigenetic clock test taken on The Kardashians last year. Meanwhile, Bryan Johnson, 47, the anti-aging tech guru and 'biohacker,' has documented his bizarre journey in an attempt to reverse his biological age to that of a teenager. You don't need to be into biohacking to change your organ's age — they can shift depending on a variety of factors, including your genes, how much you move, what you eat, your sleep habits and how you manage stress. Regular exercise, good nutrition and avoiding harmful habits like smoking all contribute to younger organ age and better health outcomes, according to Stanford University's research. Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Your Brain's Youthfulness (or Lack of It) Could Predict How Long You Live
We celebrate our birthdays on the same day each year, but the truth is that different parts of our bodies are aging at different speeds. New research suggests brain age could be a strong predictor for lifespan. This comes from a team from Stanford University, who applied a blood analysis technique on records of 44,498 individuals in a UK health research database, aged between 40 and 70 years old. The analysis gave them an estimated biological age for 11 key organs in the body, including the brain. These organ ages were then compared against the health records of the participants, for up to 17 years. Generally, the more 'aged' organs a participant had, the higher their risk of dying within the follow-up period. Related: If one organ had to be chosen as the best single representative, it would be the brain: the data showed that people with a younger brain age tended to have a longer lifespan. "The brain is the gatekeeper of longevity," says neuroscientist Tony Wyss-Coray, from Stanford University. "If you've got an old brain, you have an increased likelihood of mortality. If you've got a young brain, you're probably going to live longer." The blood test used here works by measuring protein levels, and matching those proteins to the organs that produce them. Through some complex calculations, this indicates how well each organ is functioning – whether they're working more like a brand new, souped-up sports car, or a dilapidated old vehicle on the verge of collapse. As you might expect, the older an organ was – essentially, the more wear and tear indicated by its proteins – the more likely the chances of disease in that organ. The greater the number of 'elderly' organs, the greater the likelihood of disease or an early death. It was the brain stats that really stood out though. People with "extremely aged" brains (in the top 7 percent in terms of old age) were almost twice as likely to die over a 15-year period, compared to those whose biological brain ages were more in line with their chronological age. Those with "extremely youthful" brains had a 40 percent lower risk of dying within the study period. There were other interesting associations too: Alzheimer's disease was around 3.1 times more likely in extremely aged brains compared to normally aged brains. Extremely youthful brains, meanwhile, were 74 percent less likely to develop Alzheimer's than those closer to chronological age. We know that a whole host of factors combine to increase or decrease our chances of dying or developing diseases, and previous studies have shown that poverty, obesity, and physical activity might all have an impact on brain aging. And brain aging is just one variable linked to lifespan – everything from how carefully you cross the road to your eating habits adds up to determine how long you're going to live, so we can't say brain aging is the direct cause here. What's more, there's likely to be two-way feedback here, with disease also contributing to organ aging. However, it's important to understand which variables can make the most difference, and to get as full a picture as possible of the contributors to disease and mortality, in order to maximize our chances of aging healthily. "This approach could lead to human experiments testing new longevity interventions for their effects on the biological ages of individual organs in individual people," says Wyss-Coray. "The cost will come down as we focus on fewer key organs, such as the brain, heart and immune system, to get more resolution and stronger links to specific diseases." The research has been published in Nature Medicine. This Foot Scan Could Stop Your Small Cut From Costing You a Limb Here's Why Weather Can Trigger Your Migraines, And How to Ease The Pain A Simple Daily Habit Could Help Lower Your Blood Pressure
