Fight Aging!

Frailty in older people is usually diagnosed in a symptomatic way, by assessment of physical weakness. The condition has other components, however, such as chronic inflammation, cognitive decline, greater immune dysfunction, and so forth. Researchers here produce a biomarker for frailty based on a selection of metabolites in blood. This is a step towards a more rigorous class of test that might be able to pick out those in the earlier stages of frailty who are more likely to progress absent some form of intervention, such as strength training or therapies like senolytics that will reduce the burden of inflammation.

Researchers looked at 19 elderly patients, all above the age of 75, and measured whether they suffered from frailty through three clinical analysis tests - the Edmonton frail scale (EFS), the Montreal cognition assessment (MoCA-J), and the Timed Up and Go Test (TUG). "Both the EFS and the MoCA-J gave us an indication of the individuals cognitive function, whereas the TUG allowed us to assess their motor ability. Between them, they also showed health status, mood, short-term memory, and other indications, so they gave us a clear idea of who suffered from the disorder." By using these three tests, the researchers found that nine out of the 19 individuals fit into the category of being frail whereas the other ten did not, however some still did suffer from cognitive impairment or hypomobility, a syndrome which hinders movement.

Next, the researchers took blood samples from the 19 patients and had a close look at the metabolites - small molecules of amino acids, sugars, nucleotides, and more that make up our blood. They tested 131 metabolites and found that 22 of them correlated with frailty, cognitive impairment and hypomobility. Patients who suffered from these disorders tended to have lower levels of most of these metabolites. The 22 metabolites identified included antioxidant metabolites, amino acids and muscle or nitrogen related metabolites. Fifteen of them correlated with frailty, six indicated cognitive impairment and twelve indicated hypomobility. The metabolites that correlated with frailty overlapped with five of those that indicated cognitive impairment and six that indicated hypomobility.

These metabolites include some of the aging markers in healthy people reported by the same group in 2016. This suggests that the severity of biological aging, which varies between individuals, could be monitored from an early stage of old age by measuring blood biomarkers. The research indicates that frailty has a distinct metabolomic profile when compared to other age-related disorders. By demonstrating a link between these metabolites and the symptoms of the disorder, these findings could lead to a different approach to diagnosing and treating frailty.

Link: https://www.oist.jp/news-center/press-releases/leaving-its-mark-how-frailty-impacts-blood