While everyone measures their age on how many years their body has been on the planet, separate parts of our bodies are aging at relatively different rates.
While everyone measures their age on how many years their body has been on the planet, separate parts of our bodies are aging at relatively different rates.
By measuring the relative age of different tissue cells in the body, researchers from the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California in Los Angeles have determined that a person’s heart contains some of the youngest cells, and women’s breasts are made up of older cells.
Irregular tumors are the oldest cells, which might help explain how common breast cancer is, while embryonic stem cells were found to be the youngest form of cellular tissue.
Heart tissue was reportedly nine years younger on average than other cells in the body.
To determine the relative age of cells in the human body, researchers analyzed the genetic process known as methylation in the different types of tissue cells from hundreds of subjects that ranged from unborn children to people age 101.
The results of the study might help scientists come up with a way to reverse aging at the cellular level.
What do you think about certain parts of the human body aging at different rates?
