Iron Levels in the Blood Could be Key to Slowing Aging

Maintaining healthy levels of iron in the blood could be a key to aging better and living longer, according to a new study.

Genes involved in metabolizing iron in the blood are partially responsible for long healthy life, reports a new study. The findings of the study are published in the journal Nature Communications.//

Genes linked to aging that could help explain why some people age at different rates to others has been identified by scientists.

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‘The key to slowing down aging could be found in blood iron levels. ’

The findings could accelerate the development of drugs to reduce age-related diseases, extend healthy years of life, and increase the chances of living to old age free of disease, the researchers say.

Scientists from the University of Edinburgh and the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Germany focused on three measures linked to biological aging - lifespan, years of life lived free of disease (healthspan), and being extremely long-lived (longevity).

Biological aging - the rate at which our bodies decline over time - varies between people and drives the world's most fatal diseases, including heart disease, dementia, and cancers.

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The researchers pooled information from three public datasets to enable analysis in unprecedented detail. The combined dataset was equivalent to studying 1.75 million lifespans or more than 60,000 extremely long-lived people.

The team pinpointed ten regions of the genome linked to a long lifespan, healthspan, and longevity. They also found that gene sets linked to iron were overrepresented in their analysis of all three measures of aging.

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The researchers confirmed this using a statistical method - known as Mendelian randomization - that suggested that genes involved in metabolizing iron in the blood are partly responsible for long healthy life.

Blood iron is affected by diet, and abnormally high or low levels are linked to age-related conditions such as Parkinson's disease, liver disease, and a decline in the body's ability to fight infection in older age.

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The researchers say that designing a drug that could mimic the influence of genetic variation on iron metabolism could be a future step to overcome some of the effects of aging, but caution that more work is required.

Anonymized datasets linking genetic variation to healthspan, lifespan, and longevity were downloaded from the publically available Zenodo, Edinburgh DataShare, and Longevity Genomics servers.

Dr. Paul Timmers from the Usher Institute at the University of Edinburgh, said: "We are very excited by these findings as they strongly suggest that high levels of iron in the blood reduce our healthy years of life, and keeping these levels in check could prevent age-related damage. We speculate that our findings on iron metabolism might also start to explain why very high levels of iron-rich red meat in the diet have been linked to age-related conditions such as heart disease."

Dr. Joris Deelen from the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Germany, said: "Our ultimate aim is to discover how aging is regulated and find ways to increase health during aging. The ten regions of the genome we have discovered that are linked to lifespan, healthspan, and longevity are all exciting candidates for further studies."

Source-Eurekalert