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Researchers find that a substance indicating oxidative damage increases in urine as people get older. Aging Neuroscience described a way to measure levels of this marker in human urine samples. The new marker potentially provides a method to measure how much human body has aged-biological rather than chronological age.
Everyone born in the same year has the same chronological age, the bodies of different people age at different rates. This means that the risk of many diseases increases with age, the link between age in years and our health and lifespan is relatively loose. Many people enjoy long lives, relatively free of disease, while others suffer chronic illness and premature death.
The rate of cellular damage can vary from person to person, and may be dictated by genetics, lifestyle and the environment we live in. This cellular damage may be a more accurate indication of biological age than the number of years. Measuring biological age could predict the risk of developing age-related diseases and death.
One mechanism thought to underlie biological aging involves a molecule vital to human survival- oxygen-the free radical theory of aging. Oxygen by-products produced during normal metabolism can cause oxidative damage to biomolecules in cells, such as DNA and RNA,” explains Jian-Ping Cai, a researcher involved in the study. “As we age, we suffer increasing oxidative damage , and so the levels of oxidative markers increase in our body.”
One such marker, with the catchy name of 8-oxo-7,8-dihydroguanosine-or 8-oxoGsn for short-results from oxidation of a crucial molecule in our cells called RNA. In previous studies in animals, Cai and colleagues found that 8-oxoGsn levels increase in urine with age. To see if this is true for humans as well, the researchers measured 8-oxoGsn in urine samples from 1,228 Chinese residents aged 2-90 years old, using a rapid analysis technique called ultra-high-performance liquid chromatography. Age-dependent increase in urinary 8-oxoGsn in participants 21 years old and older.”
Therefore, urinary 8-oxoGsn is promising as a new marker of aging. Levels of 8-oxoGsn were roughly the same between men and women, except in post-menopausal women, who showed higher levels. This may have been caused by the decrease in estrogen levels that happens during menopause, as estrogen is known to have anti-oxidant effects. Urinary 8-oxoGsn may reflect the real condition of human body better than chronological age, and may help us to predict the risk of age-related diseases.
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