Ageing is a natural and inevitable process. But humans continue to carry a sliver of hope – “if only we could reclaim our youth and return to our childhood”. In order to turn this hope into a reality, we use different products that hide our age, consume foods that promote longevity – all so that we can look and feel young ‘forever’. We may even strive to lead the lifestyle of a monk, just to slow down the aging process! While current research shows that there is nothing that can actively cease the process of ageing or help one to become immortal, there is definitely a lot of progress in understanding the science behind the ageing process. In this short article, we shed light on some of these mechanisms.
Stem Cell Stories: Stem cells in our body have regenerative abilities and can be transformed into any cell type as per the body’s requirement. The hematopoetic stem cells are of particular significance since they have the ability to transform into any blood cell type and are therefore important in the immune system of our body. With age, there is a steady decline in this particular stem cell population, leading to pathological manifestations. In many ways, it is like steadily depleting your fixed deposit accounts with regular withdrawals, to ultimately lead you to bankruptcy. ‘T-cells’ are specialised cells in our body which play a significant role in maintaining a robust immune system. These cells are produced from the hematopoetic stem cells and a deterioration in their population leads to a weakened immune system that not only makes the human body susceptible to more infections, but also paves the way for a lot of autoimmune diseases- where the immune system, instead of attacking foreign particles, attacks the host tissues and cells.
Telomere Tales: Telomeres are the very distant ends of chromosomes which play a significant role in the process of ageing. As we age, the length of the telomere gets shortened, similar to the thread of a candle which gets shortened as long as it keeps burning. Telomerase is an enzyme in our body, which counters this shortening process by adding DNA molecules to the telomeres. In this dance of shortening of telomeres due to the natural ageing process and the countering by telomerase- there are dire consequences, no matter who wins. If the telomerase loses, the telomere shortening process continues, leading to a cell senescence, or cell arrest, preventing the cell from growing any further. If the telomerase wins, there could be activation of cancer-causing genes in cells. Thus, the consequences of aspiring for immortality can be deadly!
Faulty communication: Communication can be an effective solution to most of the human problems but it may not necessarily be so, in the process of ageing. Cellular communication is the backbone of the functioning of human body. With age, there is a greater tendency towards developing a faulty communication system in our body, either by production of faulty communication signals such as hormones or by altering the inherent communication lines ie. signaling pathways in the body.
Lack of decluttering: When our house gets cluttered, we need to take active measures to discard the unwanted material, or else it accumulates dust and leads to the ‘ageing’ of our house. Our body has similar mechanisms to discard the unwanted material- especially unwanted protein complexes that have long served their purpose. This is primarily done by a process known as autophagy and ensures homeostasis of protein population ie. a good balance between essential and non-essential protein complexes. Most of the ageing and age-related disorders have been shown to take place due to a disturbance in this homeostasis and lack of ‘decluttering’ of protein complexes.
While a lot of the studies have used this existing knowledge to produce targeted drug molecules that counter the mechanisms of ageing, it hasn’t necessarily stopped humans from getting any age-related diseases. We always come across this phrase which is, “Prevention is better than cure”. But ageing is something that cannot be prevented. Instead, ageing-related diseases may be managed (or in some cases even prevented) pharmacologically by understanding their true nature and cause.
Ageing biology is a complex research area, and we are just getting started!
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