Science and Technology Daily, Tel Aviv, November 9th (Reporter Mao Li) A research team from Bar Ilan University in Israel recently completed a study that confirmed the new theory of human aging proposed by scientists 15 years ago.
The theory proposes that over time, what the human body actually decreases is cell coordination, not cell function.
This research result is expected to provide new ideas for the treatment of aging.
The most common theory of aging is that over time, human cells undergo a process of "wear and tear".
However, the current findings indicate that the occurrence of major cell damage does not have overall consistency, but randomly occurs in a group of non-functional cells, and the remaining cells are not damaged.
The question that researchers face is that if different types and groups of cells lose their function over time in different human bodies, why do all people experience the same symptoms as they age?
For example, the hair turns white, the skin is wrinkled, and the overall function is reduced.
In this regard, Professor Jean Vijag, head of the Department of Genetics at the Albert Einstein School of Medicine, offered his own explanation 15 years ago.
He believes that cell function will properly decline with age, but this is not because a single non-functional cell has a major breakdown, but because many cells have lost the ability to regulate and coordinate genes.
In the "Nature Metabolism" earlier this month, a research team led by Dr. Amir Bashan from the Department of Physics at Baylan University stated that they confirmed Vijag's theory through research.
The results not only paved the way for people to conduct in-depth research on aging, but also helped to modify the methods of treating aging diseases.
The research team analyzed data collected from six different global laboratories that tested the level of coordination among the cells of various organisms such as humans, mice, and fruit flies during the aging process.
They also focused on analyzing different brain cells and pancreatic cells.
The results confirmed that during aging, the cells always lose their coordination.
The researchers also pointed out that with the coordinated destruction of cells and their genes, they observed an increase in the level of damage to cells.
Therefore, research on potential treatments should focus on removing those highly damaged cells.
Guy Amit, a member of the research team, said that the discovery of evidence for the coordination of cells and their genes is surprising, but the more important finding is that this coordination declines sharply with age.