Lipid Metabolism in Aging and Age-Related Disease

Lipids are everywhere in our biochemistry. Where they are present in cell structures and molecular mechanisms that are important to any specific age-related disease, or are among the underlying root causes of aging, it will tend to be the case that differences between species (and possibly individuals) can lead to changes in the pace of aging and disease. For example, lipid composition determines resistance to oxidative damage to cell membranes. A range of evidence supports the membrane pacemaker hypothesis of aging, in that longer-lived species tend to have more resilient cell membranes, based on their lipid composition. Today's open access paper uses lipids as an anchoring point for a wide-ranging discussion on aging, biomarkers of aging, and the differences in aging between species. The authors are, I feel, justifiably pessimistic about the prospects for the eventual production of therapies based on most of the means to slow aging demonstrated in short-lived laboratory species. There are indeed radical differences between the biochemistry of short-lived species and long-lived species such as our own. Yet even when mechanisms are in fact proven to be much the same in all of worms, flies, mice, and humans, as is the case for calorie restriction and its upregulation of cellular maintenance processes, we cannot expect that therapies will automatically be effective enough to justify development. The practice of calorie restriction extends life in mice by up to 40%, but w...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs