Organs Age at Different Rates, Raising Disease Risks

A ticking time bomb may be hiding inside your body—and a new, simple blood test could reveal if you’re at risk. Scientists have discovered that specific organs in the human body can age prematurely, up to 15 years faster than the rest. This accelerated aging increases the chances of developing diseases like heart failure and Alzheimer’s within a few years.

“The major advance from our study is that we show that we can now measure the biological age of your organs with a blood test,” Hamilton So Hwee Oh, co lead author and a student in the graduate program in Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at Stanford University, told The Epoch Times. Researchers made this discovery by first identifying organ specific proteins in blood samples.

They then trained a machine learning algorithm to correlate protein levels with organ age. Levels substantially different from those of similarly aged people predicted health problems were on the horizon. The study examined 11 major organs, concluding all are susceptible to accelerated aging. Twenty percent of the over 5,600 participants had at least one rapidly aging organ, and almost 2 percent had more than one.

People with accelerated heart aging had 2.5 times the risk of heart failure. Those with older brains were nearly twice as likely to experience cognitive decline over five years. Accelerated brain and vascular aging predicted Alzheimer’s progression as accurately as existing biomarkers. High Troponin Levels “So you come into the doctor’s office; you either have heart failure or you don’t, and we measure this protein,” he noted.

“But maybe what we should be doing is monitoring the level of this protein and many other proteins throughout the healthy aging process.” Neuronal Connection, Not Number, Matters These proteins originate in synapse neurons, which enable cognitive function and reflect brain aging. Analyzing blood levels could, therefore, reveal coming cognitive impairment risks, Mr.

Oh said. One such protein is neurofilament, which is part of the neuron structure. Conventional thinking is that changes in neurofilament signal neuron death. However, the study uncovered a different mechanism that mattered more: deteriorating connections between neurons. People of the same age can differ drastically in biological aging.

This new blood test characterizes biological age across bodily systems. While two 50 year olds may have similar skin aging, for example, one may have a much “older brain,” Mr. Oh noted. “This, of course, has huge implications for which patients are at risk for which diseases so we can help monitor them in a clinical trial design,” he said.

“No one has really looked at aging from this lens of the whole body as a connection of multiple and crucial organ systems.” However, with just over 5,600 participants, the study has limitations. Mr. Oh’s team is now assessing UK Biobank data from 50,000 people to address this..