Massive Biomolecular Shifts Occur in Our 40S and 60S, Researchers Find
15th August 2024
Researchers assessed many thousands of different molecules in people from age 25 to 75, as well as their microbiomes—the bacteria, viruses and fungi that live inside us and on our skin—and found that the abundance of most molecules and microbes do not shift in a gradual, chronological fashion. Rather, we undergo two periods of rapid change during our life span, averaging around age 44 and age 60. A paper describing these findings appears in Nature Aging.
“We’re not just changing gradually over time; there are some really dramatic changes,” said Michael Snyder, Ph.D., chair of genetics and the study’s senior author. “It turns out the mid-40s is a time of dramatic change, as is the early 60s. And that’s true no matter what class of molecules you look at.”
Xiaotao Shen, Ph.D., a former Stanford Medicine postdoctoral scholar, was the first author of the study. Shen is now an assistant professor at Nanyang Technological University Singapore.