NEW YORK, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- Scientists at Stanford University have found that aging is much more haphazard than we once thought, starting in different parts of our bodies at different times, possibly long before we're even thinking about aging, reported The Washington Post on Monday.
"It's also personal, occurring at a unique molecular level inside each of us, and the process may be partially within our control," said the report. "Once we know how our own organs are aging, we may be able to brake or speed that process by how we live."
By using advanced molecular biology, genetics and big data to analyze blood samples from people, scientists can tell that some of us are "heart agers," meaning our hearts appear much older than the rest of our bodies, or we're "brain agers," with a relatively old brain in our skulls, or if we're fortunate, we might be "brain youthers," with a brain relatively younger than any other organ we possess. Or we could be "muscle agers" or "liver youthers." Almost any organ can be the first to show signs of extreme aging.
"The consequences for our health are considerable. In one of the largest human studies to date of organ aging, Stanford scientists found that heart agers are far more likely to develop heart failure than other people, while brain youthers are about 80 percent less likely to develop dementia in later years than people with average or old brains," said the report.
The results underscore "just how complicated aging is," Hamilton Se-Hwee Oh, a postdoctoral researcher who led the study while at Stanford, was quoted as saying. They also represent one of the first and potentially most practical takeaways from the broader and often wildly hyped science of human aging. ■