A pioneering study from Stanford Medicine unveils that the biological age of your brain, rather than your chronological age, plays a critical role in determining longevity and the risk of developing age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s.
In a new study published in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers from Stanford Medicine have discovered that a person’s brain age significantly impacts their lifespan and their susceptibility to age-related diseases.
The Study and Its Findings
The research team has developed a blood-based indicator that evaluates the biological age of 11 organ systems, including the brain, muscle, heart, lungs, arteries, liver, kidneys, pancreas, immune system, intestine and fat.
Using this indicator, scientists can assess the current biological age of an organ and predict the odds of developing diseases related to that organ up to 10 years later.
“We’ve developed a blood-based indicator of the age of your organs,” senior author Tony Wyss-Coray, a professor of neurology and neurological sciences and director of the Knight Initiative for Brain Resilience at the Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, said in a news release. “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 later.”
The Role of the Brain
The study reveals that the biological age of the brain is particularly influential in determining longevity.
“The brain is the gatekeeper of longevity,” Wyss-Coray explained. “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 study analyzed data from 44,498 participants aged 40 to 70, as part of the UK Biobank project. Over several years, these participants provided multiple blood samples, allowing the research team to measure nearly 3,000 proteins in their blood.
The derived data helped the researchers develop an algorithm to establish the biological age of various organs.
Health Outcomes and Predictions
The study’s algorithm was able to predict the likelihood of developing 15 different diseases, including Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, heart failure, Type 2 diabetes, COPD and rheumatoid arthritis.
Notably, having an “extremely aged” brain increased the risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease by a factor of 3.1 compared to those with a normally aging brain.
Conversely, those with “extremely youthful” brains had substantially lower risks.
In terms of overall mortality, having an “extremely aged” brain was associated with a 182% increase in the risk of death over approximately 15 years. Meanwhile, individuals with “extremely youthful” brains had a 40% reduced risk of dying within the same period.
Future Implications
“This approach could lead to human experiments testing new longevity interventions for their effects on the biological ages of individual organs in individual people,” Wyss-Coray added.
The ability to determine the biological age of organs such as the brain could revolutionize medicine by enabling earlier interventions for diseases like Alzheimer’s before symptoms manifest.
Commercialization and Availability
Though currently available only for research purposes, Wyss-Coray plans to commercialize the analytical tool. As a co-founder and scientific officer of the companies Teal Omics and Vero Bioscience, he aims to bring the test to market within two to three years.
The groundbreaking nature of this research offers promising avenues for preventative health care, potentially shifting focus from reactive medicine to proactive health management.
“We’re trying to shift from sick care to health care and intervene before people get organ-specific disease,” added Wyss-Coray.
Source: Stanford Medicine