‘Biological aging’ speeds up in times of great stress, but it can be reversed during recovery
Our “biological age,” which reflects signs of age-related decline in our cells and tissues, doesn’t steadily increase along with our chronological age. Instead, new research suggests that biological aging can accelerate during stressful events and then reverse after those events.
In other words, there are measurable biological markers linked to age-related changes in cell function, and these markers can appear in times of stress and then disappear during recovery.
Scientists already knew that biological age’s relationship to chronological age was somewhat flexible. But now, researchers say they have uncovered the possibility of biological age reversal.
Biological age is “much more dynamic than people previously thought,” Jesse Poganik, a postdoctoral researcher and chemical biologist at Harvard Medical School who led the new research, told Live Science. “You can have these very severe stress events, which trigger an increase in the biological age, but it can be short-lived, if the stress is short-lived, and then the age can be restored.” [Continue reading…]