THE ESSENTIAL
- Age is the main risk factor for many common diseases.
- According to the United Nations, one in six people in the world will be over 65 (16%) by 2050.
We all age differently and it’s not just about our genetics – the characteristics we inherit from our parents.
According to a study published in Nature Communications the researchers found that aging and the environment were much more important than genetic variations in the expression of some 20,000 human genes.
Some diseases are attributable to our lifestyles
In other words, our age, the air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, but also our levels of physical exercise have more impact on the development of diseases of aging like Alzheimer’s, most cancers, heart disease and diabetes, only our genes.
This discovery raises questions about the relevance of identifying genetic variants that predispose to certain diseases of aging. Indeed, they would not be attributable to genetics but to other causes.
The expression of certain genes changes with age
The environment also causes up to a third of the changes in genetic expression with age, summarize the authors of the study. And gene expression evolves throughout life: “While younger individuals are closer to each other in terms of gene expression patterns, older individuals are further apart.said Peter Sudmant, an assistant professor of integrative biology at UC Berkeley and a member of the campus’ Center for Computational Biology.
This is why identical twins, for example, with the same set of genes, can age very differently because with age their gene expression profiles diverge – with some genes expressing themselves more than others. others depending on their environment.