Latest news with #TonyWyss-Coray
UPI
10-07-2025
- Health
- UPI
'Old' brains increase risk of death, Alzheimer's, study says
Study results show that having an extremely aged brain nearly triples a person's risk of dying during a roughly 15-year period. Adobe stock/Hea;thDay July 10 (UPI) -- They say age is all in your mind -- and that might literally be true, a new study reveals. People with "young" brains -- brains aging more slowly than their actual age -- are much less likely to die or develop Alzheimer's disease than those with "old" brains suffering from accelerated aging, researchers reported Wednesday in the journal Nature Medicine. Results show that having an extremely aged brain nearly triples a person's risk of dying during a roughly 15-year period. At the same time, people with extremely youthful brains had a 40% lower risk of early death, researchers found. In other words, the biological age of the brain plays an outsized role in determining how long a person has left to live, said senior researcher Tony Wyss-Coray, director of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford Medicine. "The brain is the gatekeeper of longevity," he said. "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." Previous research has shown that a person's body can age from wear-and-tear more rapidly that what is reflected by their birth date. Essentially, a person's biological age can be older than their calendar age. For this study, researchers analyzed blood samples from nearly 44,500 people 40 to 70 participating in the UK Biobank, a large-scale health research project in the United Kingdom. Researchers used proteins found in the blood samples to estimate the biological age of 11 distinct organs or organ systems for each person, including the brain. About 6% to 7% of participants had "extremely youthful" brains, and a similar proportion had "extremely aged" brains. Overall, researchers found that any organ's biological age increased its likelihood of disease. For example, an extremely aged heart increased risk of abnormal heart rhythm or heart failure, and aged lungs increased COPD risk. But the association between an aged brain and Alzheimer's was particularly powerful - more than three times that of a person with a normally aging brain, researchers said. On the other hand, people with youthful brains had a quarter of the Alzheimer's risk linked to brains that were aging normally, the study found. In other words, someone with a biologically old brain is about 12 times as likely to be diagnosed with Alzheimer's as a person the same age with a biologically young brain, researchers concluded. These results could open the door to new medical screenings that could determine people's risk for various diseases based on the biological age of their organs, Wyss-Coray said. Future research also could figure out whether existing approved drugs might restore organ youth before people develop a disease based on that aging organ, he added. "This is, ideally, the future of medicine," Wyss-Coray said. "Today, you go to the doctor because something aches, and they take a look to see what's broken. We're trying to shift from sick care to health care and intervene before people get organ-specific disease." Wyss-Coray plans to commercialize the blood sample test, working with companies to get it on the market within a few years. "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," he said. More information The Mayo Clinic has more on biological versus chronological age. Copyright © 2025 HealthDay. All rights reserved.
San Francisco Chronicle
09-07-2025
- Health
- San Francisco Chronicle
New test could identify your body's ‘weakest link' as you age, Stanford research finds
A team of Stanford scientists has developed a tool that can determine from a blood test whether a person's brain, heart or other organs appear 'younger' or 'older' than their chronological age, according to new research. Additionally, the scientists found that older-appearing organs are associated with a higher risk of developing a disease or other complication in that organ. Of most interest, though, was the brain: An 'extremely aged' brain was associated not only with an increased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease, but a 182% increased risk of dying in the next 15 years. The work was based on an assessment of nearly 45,000 participants who contributed to a European biobank that collects blood samples and other health information. It was published Wednesday in the journal Nature Medicine. 'This test opens the possibility for a relatively simple assessment of the state of your body — of the different organs — and identifying the weakest link as you get older,' said Tony Wyss-Coray, senior author of the study and director of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at Stanford. 'It's almost like a sentinel that we can listen to and it tells us if there is something going on with this organ that isn't normal.' The Stanford work adds to a growing catalog of research into aging and how scientists can best monitor it and, ultimately, slow it down. There are now a variety of tools, including body scans, that can help scientists understand the aging process in individual organs. Taken all together, these tools could someday be used in the doctor's office to help patients make health care decisions. 'There are more of these things emerging to track aging, especially in the brain,' said Saul Villeda, associate director of the Bakar Aging Research Institute at UCSF. Villeda was not involved in the Stanford work, but he said it looked promising and he could imagine it being one of several strategies for monitoring people's health. 'Maybe we could use multiple approaches,' Villeda said. 'You can imagine an elderly person gets a brain scan and their blood taken, and from that we can understand if a therapy is working.' The Stanford test looks at the levels of organ-specific proteins in the blood. Wyss-Coray's team studied nearly 3,000 proteins in each participants' blood; about 15% of the proteins could be traced to a single organ, meaning only the heart or lung or some other organ produced that protein. The scientists first used samples from about 20,000 individuals to train an artificial intelligence model that determined the expected protein levels for a given organ at a certain chronological age. Then, scientists determined the difference between individuals' actual protein levels and the expected levels based on their age. A difference of more than 1.5 standard deviation from the average organ placed someone in the 'extremely aged' or 'extremely youthful' category. A third of people in the study had at least one organ that was extremely old or extremely young; one fourth of people had multiple old or young organs. The scientists next looked at health outcomes for the individuals in the study. Generally, an older organ was associated with a greater risk of disease in that organ. But the association was especially powerful for the brain and the risk of dementia. People with extremely old brains had a three-times greater risk of developing Alzheimer's disease than those with normal brains; their risk was 12 times greater compared to people with extremely young brains. In fact, having an extremely old brain carried the same risk of Alzheimer's as having the APEO4 gene, the primary genetic risk factor for the disease. That association wasn't surprising, Wyss-Coray said, but the associated risk of death from having an older brain was unexpected. Not only were extremely old brains tied with a significantly increased risk of dying, but extremely young brains were associated with a 40% reduction. People with older brains 'had the highest risk of mortality of all the other organs that we looked at,' Wyss-Coray said, though he couldn't explain why there was such a strong association. 'Maybe it's the central role of the brain in orchestrating our body and regulating all body function, ultimately.' There remain many questions about the test results and how they could be applied, Wyss-Coray said. The test could be commercially available in two or three years, but how much it will cost and how people will access it is not yet clear. Wyss-Coray said the test costs about $1,000 for research purposes. He noted that the test has ethical considerations — not everyone will want to know the age of their internal organs, especially if they feel like there's not much they can do to change their status. But Wyss-Coray's team also looked at the role of lifestyle behaviors on protein levels, and found that things like exercise and not smoking were tied to younger organs. Unlike genetic testing, which may reveal risks people can do very little about, an organ protein test could help people narrow down where they want to focus their lifestyle improvements, Wyss-Coray said. But he added that more research is needed to determine whether lifestyle changes would have a direct impact on organ age. For example, he'd now like to conduct double-blinded trials looking at whether certain lifestyle interventions are reflected in an organ's age. 'I have tested myself with an early version,' Wyss-Coray said, 'but I'm going to test myself again. I want to know. I think I can do something about it.'
Yahoo
16-03-2025
- Health
- Yahoo
Having a poor socioeconomic background could speed up biological ageing, new study finds
People with a good socioeconomic background tend to show fewer signs of biological ageing, according to a new study. Researchers from the UK studied different cohorts of patients and looked at 83 diseases known to be linked to ageing, such as osteoporosis, cataracts, or an enlarged prostate and blood tests measuring proteins circulating in the blood's plasma. They then analysed the patients' data related to their social and economic background such as education level, quality of neighbourhood life, or household income. Related German scientists make a 'major discovery' that could slow down the ageing process Those who were the least privileged showed a 20 per cent higher risk of disease compared to their more privileged counterparts, according to the findings published in the journal Nature Medicine. "For decades, we've known that social advantage is linked to better health, but our findings suggest it may also slow down the ageing process itself," Mika Kivimaki, a professor at the University College London (UCL) and the study's lead author, said in a statement. "Our study highlights that healthy ageing is an achievable goal for society as a whole, as it is already a reality for people with favourable socioeconomic conditions," she added. For certain conditions, the disparity is particularly stark, with a risk twice as high in the most disadvantaged group for type 2 diabetes, liver disease, heart disease, lung cancer, and stroke compared to the most advantaged. Related Ageing is not gradual with people undergoing 'dramatic changes' in their 40s and 60s, study finds Researchers also looked at the proteins in the blood's plasma. "Ageing is reflected in the makeup of proteins in our blood, which includes thousands of circulating proteins linked to biological ageing processes across multiple organ systems," said Tony Wyss-Coray, a professor at Stanford University in the US and one of the study's authors. The levels of 14 plasma proteins were affected by a person's socioeconomic situation, including proteins known to regulate inflammatory and cellular stress responses, both linked to ageing. The study's findings suggest that upward social mobility can positively influence biological ageing. Related Scientists find lifestyle and living conditions have greater impact on healthy ageing than genes Individuals who started with low education but later had middle or high social status showed more favourable protein profiles. The studies pooled by researchers are observational and can't determine cause-and-effect, however, the authors suggested factors such as stress, smoking, diet, exercise, and access to healthcare could play a role.
