How attitudes affect aging

Calendar and biological age

In 1979, psychology professor Ellen Langer and her students rebuilt an old monastery in New Hampshire in great detail to recreate the atmosphere that existed there twenty years ago. They then invited a group of older men aged 70–80 to conduct an experiment. The participants had to spend a week there and live as if it were 1959. So Langer wanted to bring the participants back, at least mentally, to a time when they were young and healthy, and see how this would affect their well-being. Environmental determinants of memory improvement in late adulthood. …

Every day, Langer and the students met with the participants and discussed "current" events. They talked about the first American satellite launch and the Cuban Revolution, watched old broadcasts on black and white television and listened to Nat King Cole on the radio. All this was supposed to transfer the participants to 1959.

When Langer analyzed the participants' well-being after such a week's immersion in the past, she found that their memory, vision and hearing improved. She then compared these results with those of the control group. They also spent a week in similar conditions, but they were not told about the essence of the experiment and were not asked to "live in the past." The first group became "younger" in all respects. The researchers also photographed the participants before and after the experiment and asked strangers to determine the age of the men. Everyone said that the men in the pictures after the experiment looked younger.

This experiment has surprisingly demonstrated that our calendar age, which we count from the date of our birth, is not such a reliable indicator of aging.

Ellen Langer primarily explored how the mind affects our perception of our own age and thus our well-being. Other scientists have focused on the problem of determining biological age. This term covers the physiological development of the body and its extinction, and can also predict the risks of developing various diseases and life expectancy with relatively high accuracy. It turned out that tissues and organs age at different rates, so it is difficult to reduce biological age to any one figure. However, most scientists agree with Langer's findings: the subjective perception of our age influences how quickly we age.

Biological markers of aging

Evolutionary biologists perceive aging as a process of loss of the ability to survive and reproduce due to "internal physiological wear and tear." Wear, in turn, is easier to understand by the example of cell functioning: the older the cells in a particular organ, the more likely they will stop dividing and die, or they will develop mutations that cause cancer. This suggests that our body still has a true biological age.

However, it turned out to be not so easy to define it. Scientists first began looking for so-called biomarkers of aging - characteristics that change in the body and that can predict the likelihood of senile disease or life expectancy. These biomarkers at different times included blood pressure and weight, as well as telomeres - the end portions of chromosomes that protect chromosomes from breakage. But all these theories have not been confirmed.

Then the attention of scientists switched to how quickly the number of stem cells in the body decreases, and to other physiological processes. Steve Horvath, professor of genetics and biostatistics at the University of California, has studied the relationship between gene expression and aging. Then he made an interesting discovery.

DNA methylation and the epigenetic clock

In 2009, Horvat took up the analysis of DNA methylation levels at different sites in the human genome. DNA methylation is a process used to turn off genes. To cytosine, one of the four bases from which DNA nucleotides are built, is added the so-called methyl group - the connection of one carbon atom with three hydrogen atoms. Since methylation does not change the sequence of nucleotides in DNA, but only regulates gene expression, it is called an epigenetic process. Before the start of the study, Horvath had never imagined that epigenetics might have anything to do with aging, but the results were startling.

Horvath identified 353 regions in the human genome (epigenetic markers) that are present in cells of all tissues and organs. He then developed an algorithm for creating an "epigenetic clock" at these sites - a mechanism that measures natural levels of DNA methylation to determine the biological age of tissue.

In 2013, Horvat published the results of the analysis of 8,000 samples taken from 51 types of healthy cells and tissues DNA methylation age of human tissues and cell types. … And these results amazed everyone. When Horvath calculated the biological age of an organism based on the mean of methylation levels at 353 sites, he found that this number was close to the calendar age of a person. In 50% of cases, the difference was less than 3.6 years - this is the best indicator among the results obtained when analyzing various biomarkers. In addition, Horvath found that in middle-aged and older people, the epigenetic clock begins to slow down or speed up. This is the way to determine how a person is aging: faster or slower than the calendar count of years.

Despite this, Horvath believes that the concept of biological age is more applicable not to the whole organism as a whole, but to certain tissues and organs. The difference between biological and calendar age can be negative, zero or positive. A negative deviation means that the tissue or organ is younger than expected, zero - aging occurs at a normal pace, positive - the tissue or organ is older than their chronological (calendar) age suggests.

As a rule, aging is accelerated by various diseases, this is especially noticeable in patients with Down syndrome or those infected with HIV. Obesity leads to the rapid aging of the liver. Studies of those who have died from Alzheimer's show that the prefrontal cortex in these patients also undergoes accelerated aging.

Despite the abundance of data, we still know very little about the relationship between methylation markers and biological age. “The downside to epigenetic clocks is that we just don't understand exactly how they work at the molecular level,” Horvath says.

But even without an accurate understanding of how this mechanism works, researchers may be testing anti-aging treatments. Horvat himself is currently researching the possibilities of hormone therapy.

Influence of subjective perception of age on physiological processes

An experiment conducted by Ellen Langer in 1979 suggests that we can influence our bodies with the help of the mind. According to Langer, mind and body are interconnected. Therefore, she wondered if a subjective mental state could affect an objective characteristic such as blood sugar levels in patients with type 2 diabetes. …

Participants in Langer's new study were required to play computer games for 90 minutes. A clock was placed on the table next to them. The participants had to change the game every 15 minutes. The researchers changed the speed of the clock in advance: for one third of the participants they walked slower, for another - faster, and for the last - at a normal speed.

“We wanted to know how the blood sugar level will change: in accordance with the present or subjective time,” says Langer. - It turned out that it was subjective. This surprisingly demonstrated that psychological processes can influence metabolic processes.

Although Langer has not researched the links between mind and epigenetic change, other scientists believe there is such a link. In 2013, Richard Davidson of the University of Wisconsin at Madison published data from his study, according to which even one day of mindfulness meditation can affect gene expression. … As part of the study, Davidson and his colleagues observed 19 experienced "meditators" before and after a full day of intense meditation. For comparison, the researchers also observed a group of people who were idle all day. At the end of the day, those who meditated had decreased levels of inflammatory genes, a similar effect seen with anti-inflammatory drugs. It turns out that mental attitude can have an epigenetic effect.

All of these studies explain why being in the past for a week (Langer's first experiment) had such an impact on some of the age-related characteristics of older men. Due to the fact that their minds were transferred during the time when they were younger, the body also "returned" at this time, and due to this improved hearing, vision and memory.

Nevertheless, it is worth noting that biological aging is inevitable and sooner or later the time comes when no positive thoughts will slow down this process. Yet Ellen Langer believes that the way we age has a lot to do with our concept of old age. And it is often reinforced by stereotypes widespread in society.

When we are surrounded by people who expect certain behaviors from us, we usually try to live up to those expectations.

Ellen Langer professor of psychology

Summing up

Most of us obey and behave according to our calendar age. For example, young people usually take proactive steps to recover faster, even after a minor injury. And those who are already over 80 often simply resign themselves to the pain and say: "Well, what do you want, old age is not a joy." They don't care about themselves and their belief becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The subjective perception of age varies greatly among different groups of people. People between the ages of 40 and 80, for example, tend to think they are younger. Sixty-year-olds may say they feel 50 or 55, sometimes even 45. Very rarely will anyone say they feel older. In their twenties, most often the subjective age coincides with the calendar age or even runs a little ahead.

Scientists have found that subjective age is associated with several physiological markers of aging, such as walking speed, lung capacity, and even blood C-reactive protein levels (which signal inflammation in the body). The younger you feel, the better these indicators are: you walk faster, you have more lung capacity and less inflammation.

Of course, this does not guarantee that only a subjective feeling of youthfulness will make you healthier.

But the conclusion from all these studies suggests itself: the calendar age is just a number.

“If people think that with age they are doomed to idleness, if they break all ties and have a negative attitude towards life, they themselves reduce their opportunities,” the scientists say."A positive outlook on life, communication and openness to everything new can definitely have a positive effect."