Your proteins can show your age

[braumeister]

Not exactly health related, but I found this study fascinating. Raises more questions than it answers, but very interesting. A few snippets:

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The proteins in blood seem to undergo three waves of changes as we age, and can be used to determine a person’s biological age from a blood sample.

Quote:

three waves of changes – at about ages 34, 60 and 78. The changes at 60 are likely to represent the fact that it is around then that most age-related diseases make themselves known

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Lehallier and his colleagues have used their findings to develop a “proteomic clock” that can guess a person’s biological age based on 373 of the proteins found in their blood. The clock’s estimate, which applies to both men and women, strongly correlated with the volunteers’ chronological age.

The article is probably behind a paywall, but here is the abstract from the study:
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/751115v1

[davebarnes]

Full article (not behind paywall)
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/751115v1.full

[donheff]

The article is behind a paywall but somebody in the comments section linked to a pre-publication PDF. You can read that here but you might need a PHD to understand it.

Edit: use davebarnes link -- full publication article.

[braumeister]

Another squib from the report sounds pretty exciting, although it's extremely early days yet:

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Lehallier’s team hopes to be able to identify the specific proteins in blood that might be responsible for its rejuvenating effects. “Identifying proteins within plasma that promote or antagonise ageing at different stages of life could lead to more targeted therapeutics, as well as preventative therapies”.