It happens more and more often. One day because an extraordinary elderly person accomplishes a sporting feat at an age previously unimaginable, one day for the daily life lesson of super 90-year-olds who have never stopped dancing, parading, driving, holding conferences. Just last weekend it was the Guinness World Record-breaking gathering of 70 centenarians in Padua that rekindled the spotlight on the myth of long life. Science wonders how to encourage it. Studies on proteins and longevity hormones are pouring in in search of strategies to rewind the tape of time, to ensure healthy aging and a young brain. Decades of research have accumulated on Klotho, a protein related to brain health also from a recent work published in ‘Nature’ which delves into its mechanisms, discovering a common thread that links it to young blood and sport. Fascinating studies, “published in prestigious journals, currently conducted on animals”, reflects Francesco Landi, director of the Department of Aging Sciences at the Gemelli Polyclinic in Rome.
“But I don’t like the message that there can be a single factor and therefore a single protein, as if it were the fountain of eternal youth.” Today what is certain is that longevity must be ‘sweated’. “Let’s say that it is not ‘for free’ – underlines the expert at Adnkronos Salute – Longevity is achieved, it is not a gift of nature. Also because it has now been widely demonstrated that genetics can affect a maximum of 20%. And then, another extraordinarily important fact is that, even if you have good genetics, if you behave ‘badly'” that advantage is lost. Landi, taking stock of the knowledge that has been consolidated so far, points out: “We have one certainty, and as the Catholic University and Policlinico Gemelli we have published it personally: there is a precise trajectory of decline in aging and physical performance. If we talk about muscular strength – measured for example with the handgrip or with the strength to get up and sit down from the chair 5 times without using our arms by measuring how long it takes us – these physical performances are stable more or less up to 50 years and then from 50 years onwards they begin to decline. This aging-related trajectory can be modified. And physical exercise modifies this decline.”
“If a protein like Klotho is able to be a mimetic of physical exercise, this could be good news for sedentary people. But certainly – observes the specialist – we must also always imagine that the mechanisms of action, both from the point of both physical performance and cognitive performance are multifactorial. Therefore, it is likely that by modifying a single mechanism, overall changes are not achieved across the entire organism positively on many factors: certainly on insulin, on vascularisation, on glycemia, on the activation of mediators that also act at a brain level. So it is clear that having the mimetic of physical exercise will probably be a little difficult. like having a camouflage of healthy eating.”
Landi gives some examples to frame a first fixed point: the power of sport. “80-year-olds who have done physical exercise during their lives, both aerobic and anaerobic – so to speak, they also went to the gym in addition to cycling, running, swimming, walking – have the same performance as sedentary people at 50. It therefore means that we can modify this trajectory, so much so as to gain 30 years of physical function” that scientists make “is that if physical exercise can modify the trajectory of decline, evidently something else can too “. If at the moment we cannot draw concrete implications that can be immediately used from the Klotho protein, “it is clear that in the future the approach to ‘senolitic’ therapies”, which counteract senescence, “could certainly help in some way”.
The specialist with the Gemini experts is in the field with various initiatives on longevity. The partnership between the scientific community of preparatory pharmacists supported by Unifarco and the Roman IRCCS was recently made official to promote the culture of longevity in the pharmacy, a point of reference that becomes a prevention hub. The objective is “to intercept people outside the hospital, a sort of third sector mission” which finds the pharmacy as the location “in which to first provide information on longevity, because prevention starts, first and foremost, from adequate information”, he explains . A key word is “longevity check-up. It must be said that longevity is ‘cultivated’ if even as children and adolescents we are interested in correct lifestyles and adequate prevention, based on the age phases” .
The longevity check-ups mentioned by Landi start “from a basic screening, from what the American Heart Association indicates to us as the evaluation of the 8 most important cardiovascular risk factors that correlate with longevity: diet, physical exercise, blood sugar control , body weight, cholesterol, blood pressure, quality of sleep which is in fact the proxy for harmful stress, and then those that can fall under the heading of abuse, from alcohol to smoking and substances. We started with a longevity check -up for physical performance and we are about to decline one on cognitive performance.”
The first thing that is done, continues Landi, “is an internal examination with blood chemistry analysis, and a careful analysis of what the diet is, with a questionnaire on the frequency with which certain foods are eaten and the frequency with which one exercises. physical and of what type. To then go for an electrocardiogram, evaluation of body composition, postural and joint scan in three dimensions, without rays, which also gives us an indication of some important circumferences, such as the waist-hip circumference metabolic bone study, muscle and cognitive function tests, evaluation of sleep quality and so on, possibly extending from basic screening to specific analyzes based on the results. Furthermore, a genetic predisposition test can be carried out in the pharmacy to aging: it is a salivary test that gives further indications, which however will always be correlated with the check-up. Everything must be included in the general evaluation. And there is also the possibility of an evaluation of the intestinal microbiome, another important aspect only if linked to the rest”.
On the one hand, therefore, there is the alliance with the pharmacy “which becomes a bit of a sentinel”, on the other hand, again to raise awareness, there are ‘on the road’ activities: “We organize initiatives such as the ‘Longevity run’ – recalls the expert – a tour that we do around Italy and then end in Rome, in which we build health villages in the field: with the excuse of competitive running, we manage to hook up people to do an initial check -up, from cholesterol control to blood sugar control, blood pressure, weight”. Today, the specialist summarizes, “we know that the two most important factors are lifestyle linked to diet and physical exercise. It is clear that, if we talk about physical exercise, we must do it all our lives, we have precise indications and we cannot escape it. And the problem – he reflects – is that we don’t see the result after a week or a month or a year, but in the decades of our lives”.
Diet “is the other fundamental element. On this level we can speak of ‘Mediterranean integration’ of the Mediterranean diet: that is, there are a series of supplements, to be used in a targeted manner where there is a deficiency in the daily diet of some ingredients that we know have a positive action on the protection of the cell, in particular for example of the mitochondrion, or to counteract the anti-inflammation linked to senescence. For example, today we know well that pomegranate extract has a positive action and we know very well that l ‘arginine has an action on the release of nitric oxide, vasodilation and therefore better vascularisation”. In conclusion, even at the table there is no ingredient of longevity. “There is a longevity diet – concludes Landi – which we can try to supplement where we have deficient elements. We therefore act only where we have specific and particular needs”.
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