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In most people, the proteins that keep cells resilient—regulating immunity, energy, and inflammation—gradually drift out of balance with age. Among centenarians in a new Swiss study, however, 37 of those proteins remained youthful.
The Biology of Aging–Why It Varies
Aging affects everyone differently. While many older adults face chronic disease and frailty, some remain remarkably healthy well into their hundreds. Scientists have long suspected that genes deserve much of the credit. New research suggests the answer is more specific and more actionable than that.
The study, published in Aging Cell, analyzed the blood of centenarians and compared their immune and cardiometabolic protein profiles with those of healthy adults aged 30 to 60, and with hospitalized older adults aged 80 to 90. Using proteomics, a technique that measures hundreds of proteins at once, the team examined how protein levels shift across the lifespan to identify pathways that may explain exceptional resilience in extreme old age.
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