Chronic stress is hazardous to health and can lead to early ageing, death from heart disease, cancer and other health problems. This we know. Now a new study published in the journal Cell Metabolism said, “When stress was relieved, biological age could be restored. This means that that finding ways to help the body recover from stress could increase longevity.”
The study led by investigators from Brigham and Women’s Hospital has found these strong evidence, from both humans and preclinical models.
“Traditionally, biological age has been thought to just go up and up, but we hypothesized that it’s actually much more dynamic,” said lead author Jesse Poganik, PhD, of the Brigham’s Division of Genetics. “Severe stress can trigger biological age to increase, but if that stress is short lived, the signs of biological aging can be reversed.”
Poganik and colleagues gathered data from several situations that are likely to cause severe physiological stress. In one experiment, they examined blood samples from elderly patients undergoing emergency surgery, looking at samples collected immediately before surgery, a few days after surgery and before discharge from the hospital. The team also looked at blood samples from pregnant mice and pregnant people, looking at samples from early and late phases of pregnancy and after giving birth. And in a third analysis, the team examined samples from patients who test positive for COVID-19 and were admitted to the intensive care unit.
They analyzed samples taken when the patient was admitted to the ICU and samples collected over the span of their stay. The team also used a classic mouse model in which, through a surgical procedure, the circulatory systems of younger and older mouse are joined together.