Renormalized Basal Metabolic Rate as a Biomarker of Aging

The research community is very interested in producing biomarkers that can accurately measure the progression of aging, and the variance in the pace of aging from individual to individual. In a world in which therapies to slow or reverse aging are being developed and tested, progress will be slow until such time as there are easy, cost-effective ways to measure the state of aging before and after a treatment. It is an important area of research. While a universal biomarker of aging, one that works equally well to assess any class of therapy to treat aging, is probably too much to hope for, given that aging is caused by many distinct processes, the diversity of efforts to produce such a biomarker of aging should nonetheless lead to useful tools as the field advances.

Recent aging theories have proposed various causative biomarkers such as reactive oxygen species, calorie restriction, telomere length, insulin signaling, mitochondrial (mt) DNA mutations, fatty acid composition of membranes, and methylation. To date, the validity of these biomarkers has been examined mainly by investigating their age dependency. However, they are not satisfactory for an accurate description of the aging process, and they seem to interact with each other in a complex way. Thus, it is essential to explain how these biomarkers can show that the survival curve and mortality rate are directly related to longevity. Indeed, the probability of survival drops markedly in individuals over the age ...

Source: Fight Aging! - June 19, 2019 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs