Five biological traces revealing aging

Agency
Madrid Spain.- "I do not know anything that improves with old age from a biological point of view, "says Dr. Manuel Serrano from the Spanish National Cancer Research Center, and although this sounds daunting, it's the starting point for finding a way to deal with the deterioration that we have all suffered over the years.

According to Televisa News, Serrano, along with other researchers, is a co-author of the study "The signs of aging", which lists the main processes that occur in our body over time.

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"These are inevitable factors," says Serrano. "They may be more or less accused in some people because of their lifestyle or their genetics, but to a greater or lesser extent, they still happen."

These are five factors that highlight the age of mammals, including humans.

The damage accumulates in our DNA

The DNA is like a code that is transmitted between cells. With age, errors that can occur during the transfer of information are multiplied. And these "mistakes" accumulate in the cells.

This phenomenon, called "Genomic instability"This is particularly relevant when DNA damage affects stem cell functions, jeopardizing their role in tissue turnover.

Chromosomes use

DNA chains have protective layers called "telomeres" at their ends. When you get older, these telomeres wear out, leaving the chromosomes unprotected. Research has linked the deterioration of telomeres to the development of diseases such as pulmonary fibrosis and aplastic anemiawhich causes the loss of regenerative capacity of different tissues.

Gene expression is impaired

Our body develops epigenetic processes, which determine how the DNA should be expressed. This process is the one tells each cell how to behavein the form of skin or brain, for example.

We lose the ability to renew cells

Our body has the ability to prevent the accumulation of "damaged" components and to ensure the continuous renewal of our cells. This capacity decreases however with the years. Thus, cells accumulate unusable or toxic proteins that in some cases are linked to diseases such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and cataracts.

Cells become "zombies"

When a cell accumulates a lot of damage, it stops its cycles, which avoids producing other defective cells, but at the same time accelerate your own aging. This aging, in turn, can cause other damage related to the passage of years at the cellular level.