STUDY/ Accelerated aging is related to the risk of cancer, the factors that cause it

2024-04-10 12:56:00, Shëndeti CNA

STUDY/ Accelerated aging is related to the risk of cancer, the factors that

Researchers searching for clues as to why certain types of cancer are on the rise in adults say they have found an interesting lead: a link to accelerated biological aging.

Aging is the main risk factor for many types of cancer, meaning the older you get, the more likely you are to be diagnosed. And increasingly, experts agree that age is more than the number of candles on a birthday cake. It is also the wear and tear on the body, caused by lifestyle, stress and genetics, that is sometimes referred to as a person's biological age.

Biological aging factors

The study looked at 148,724 people aged 37 to 54 who are participants in a large database called Biobank UK.

They included nine blood-based markers that have been shown to correlate with biological age:

Albumin: a protein produced by the liver that decreases with age.
Creatinine: a waste product in the blood produced by the digestion of protein and the breakdown of muscle tissue. Lower levels are associated with better longevity.
Glucose: As we age, blood sugar stays higher for longer after meals.
C-reactive protein: produced by the liver in response to inflammation; relatively higher levels correspond to faster aging.

Percentage of lymphocytes: The concentration of these white blood cells related to immune function tends to decrease with age.

Mean cell volume: a measure of the average size of red blood cells, which increases with age.

Red cell distribution width: the difference between the size of a person's smallest and largest red blood cells, which tends to increase with age.

Alkaline phosphatase : an enzyme produced mainly by the liver and bones that tends to increase with age
White blood cell count : A white blood cell count in the high end of the normal range in the blood may correspond to greater aging.

These nine values ??were then fed into an algorithm called "PhenoAge" that was used to calculate each person's biological age. The researchers determined accelerated aging by comparing people's biological ages to their chronological ages.

They then checked cancer registries to see how many in the group had been diagnosed with early cancers, which the researchers defined as cancers that appear before age 55. There were almost 3,200 such cancers diagnosed.

Researchers found that people born in 1965 or later were 17% more likely to experience accelerated aging than those born between 1950 and 1954./ CNA