Vitamin D can slow down cell aging
Vitamin D supplements can help prevent the loss of telomeres, DNA sequences that are reduced with aging, according to a large study. But health effects are not yet clear
A new study suggests that vitamin D supplements could slow cell aging through telomere protection.
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Vitamin D supplements could slow cell aging avoiding the loss of telomeres, DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes that are cut in old age, suggests a new study. The health effects of these findings are not yet clear.
Vitamin D had promoted the leg as a panacea for a series of health conditions, from cardiovascular disease to bone loss. In 2020 A Large Randomized Controlled Trial of Supplementation Intead Found Benefits Only In a Few Conditions, Partulaly Autoimmune Disease and Advanced Cases of Cancer, Says The New Study’s Co-Author Joann Manson, A Professor of Medical Medical School and A Prince Medical Medical School and A Prince Medical School and A Prince Medical School and A Prince Medical School and A Prince Medical School and A Prince Medical School and A Prince Medical School and A Prince Medical School and A Prince Medical School and Prince Vitamin D and Omega-3 test (vital). The new study is a vital data analysis. Its finding could explain the protective effect of vitamin D supplements in these specific diseases related to aging, says Manson.
“If it is replicated in another randomized essay of vitamin D supplements, I think this could translate into clinical effects for chronic aging diseases,” he says. “We are already seeing that the despair of vitamins reduces inflammation; it reduces advanced cancers and cancer deaths, as well as autoimmune diseases. This could be a biological mechanism.”
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In the vital project, the researchers registered almost 26,000 women of 55 years or older and men 50 years or older, and assigned random participants to take vitamin D supplements, fish oil supplements, a combination of both or a placebo. For the new study, published today in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, The scientists analyzed a subset of 1,054 participants who lived sufficiently close to the Center for Harvard Clinical and Translational Sciences in Boston so that their blood sits three times for four years so that researchers could measure their telomeres.
Within the nuclei of most cells in the human body, 46 chromosomes reside, where our DNA is perfectly full. Every time a cell is divided, the chromosomes of the thesis are unraveling and copying themes, and the copies become in the nuclei of the new cells. Telomeres are repetitive DNA sequences that limit the ends of chromosomes. They stabilize the cell division of chromosomes, although they shorten every time the cells are divided. When telomeres shorten, cells stop dividing and die. Around time, as more and more of our cells die, the body ages and finally stops working. Telomeres are not a perfect clock for health: my long telomeres can increase the risk of cancer by stabilizing mutated cells, but are often used as biomarkers for aging.
The researchers found that the participants in the placebo groups and supplements had similar lengths of telomeres at the beginning of the study. But during the four years of monitoring, the people assigned to take 2,000 international vitamin D units per day showed less shortening of their telomeres compared to people in the Placebo group. Fish oil did not have a significant effect.
“Vitamin D supplementation can slow down the telomere shortening process, at least duration of the four -year period,” says the first author of the Haidong Zhu study, molecular geneticist of the Medical College of Georgia at the University of August.
The participants began with an average of 8,700 bases of bases or length of DNA telomer, and the supplementation with vitamin D slowed the loss of length in approximately 140 pairs of bases of approximately four years, according to the study.
The implications for the health of that number are not clear. “It is only at the extremes that the length of telomeres really matters in terms of aging,” says Mary Armanios, professor of Oncology and director of the Telomeres Center of the Johns Hopkins University, which did not participate in the research. The magnitude of the difference observed in the vitamin D essay is within the normal range of human variation, which means that it may not match aging or youth in any clinical sense.
“Most of us will be within this normal range, and there is a wide shock absorber for the amount of telomere length,” says Armanians.
In addition, says Armanians, the study used a method called quantitative chain reaction of polymerase (QPCR) to evaluate the length of telomeres, and this method can be very sensitive to the factors, such as when samples were collected and what time the collection elapsed. “The methodology for the measurement of the length of telomeres has been compared to others and it has been found that it is the least reproducible,” she says.
A great study of people over 60 in the United Kingdom also found that the very high levels of vitamin D in the blood were associated with shorter telomeres, suggesting that it is not always better. Participants in the vital study were complemented with a modern amount of vitamin D, says Manson.
The majority of the participants in the new study were white, Zhu adds, so the results must be replicated in a more diverse sample. Researchers are also analyzing the data of the 1,054 vital participants to understand other facets of cell aging, including DNA methylation, a type of regulation of gene expression.
The results are intriguing, says Anastassios Pittas, a professor of Medicine at the Faculty of Medicine of the University of Tufts, which did not participate in the study. Vitamin D supplements are now surpassed by endocrine society for people over 75, as well as for people with prediabetes to prevent the beginning of type 2 diabetes, says Pittas. “These new findings of the vital study provide scientific support to these recommendations, highlighting possible mechanisms through which vitamin D can influence long -term health results,” he says.
The findings are taking researchers towards a better understanding of who should make a daily supplement, says Manson. “It should not be a universal recommendation to be examined to detect blood levels of vitamin D or to take a supplement,” she says. “But it seems that high -risk selected groups can benefit.”
