User:Socratic mindset/Biomarkers of aging

(3/4/2020)

Applications of Aging Biomarkers
The applications of aging biomarkers are very broad. The various aging clocks may be associated with the prevalence of chronic diseases and frailty, predictive of mortality or future incidence of specific diseases.

A study of smokers and non-smokers using the hematological biomarkers of aging demonstrated that smokers in their 20s are biologically older than non-smokers. An independent study of biomarkers of aging and frailty in human physical activity records revealed that the aging acceleration effect of smoking is reversible: the biological age in age- and sex-matched cohorts of smokers exceeded that of non-smokers, whereas there was no statistically significant difference in cohorts of smokers and those who quit smoking early in life.

(3/2/2020)

Applications of Aging Biomarkers
The main mechanisms identified as potential biomarkers of aging are DNA methylation, loss of histones, and histone modification. The uses for biomarkers of aging are ubiquitous and identifying a physical parameter of biological aging would allow humans to determine our true age, mortality, and morbidity. The change in the physical biomarker should be proportional to the change in the age of the species. Thus after establishing a biomarker of aging, humans would be able to dive into research on extending life spans and finding timelines for the arise of potential genetic diseases.

One of the applications of this finding would allow for identification of the biological age of a person. DNA methylation uses he structure of dna at different stages of life to determine an age. DNA methylation is the methylation of the cysteine in the CG or Cpg region. The hypermethylation of this region is associated with decrease transcriptional activity and the opposite for hypomethylation. In other words, the more "tightly" held the DNA region then the more stable and "younger" the species. Looking at DNA methylation's properties in tissues, it was found to be almost zero for embryonic tissues, it can be used to determine acceleration of age and the results can be reproduced in chimpanzee tissue.