A new study revealed the reasons for the sudden health deterioration that affects most people following reaching the age of seventy.
According to the British newspaper, The Guardian, researchers from the University of Cambridge have discovered a “catastrophic” change in blood composition in the elderly, which increases their risk of leukemia and anemia, and weakens the effectiveness of white blood cells in fighting infection.
Additionally, researchers believe similar changes occur in organs throughout the body, from the skin to the brain.
The study team analyzed the blood cells of a number of children and young adults and compared them to blood analyzes of people in their seventies and eighties.
The researchers found that people under the age of 65 had a wide range of red and white blood cells produced by between 20,000 and 200,000 different types of stem cells in their bone marrow.
In people over the age of 65, it was quite different. About half of their blood cells were produced from 10 or 20 stem cells, dramatically reducing a person’s blood cell diversity, with consequences for their health.
The researchers pointed out that this change in the composition of blood cells leads to the growth of mutations that lead to serious health problems over time. Also, these changes often happen to everyone, even if they did not suffer from any health problems before this age.
Dr Peter Campbell, senior author of the study and head of the Cancer, Aging and Somatic Mutations Program at the Sanger Institute in Cambridge, said: “These changes in blood cells are associated with leukemias and anemia, and they also make people less able to tolerate infections and medical treatments such as chemotherapy.” .
Campbell indicated that these results may help in devising new treatments to slow the aging process and address the health problems experienced by the elderly.
The new study was published in the scientific journal Nature.
