Posted on 01/05/2021 9:00:32 AM PST by Red Badger
A massive study published in 2020 found evidence that blood iron levels could play a role in influencing how long you live.
It's always important to take longevity studies with a big grain of salt, but the research was impressive in its breadth, covering genetic information from well over 1 million people across three public databases. It also focused on three key measures of ageing: lifespan, years lived free of disease (referred to as healthspan), and making it to an extremely old age (AKA longevity).
Throughout the analysis, 10 key regions of the genome were shown to be related to these measures of long life, as were gene sets linked to how the body metabolises iron.
Put simply, having too much iron in the blood appeared to be linked to an increased risk of dying earlier.
"We are very excited by these findings as they strongly suggest that high levels of iron in the blood reduces our healthy years of life, and keeping these levels in check could prevent age-related damage," said data analyst Paul Timmers, from the University of Edinburgh in the UK.
"We speculate that our findings on iron metabolism might also start to explain why very high levels of iron-rich red meat in the diet has been linked to age-related conditions such as heart disease."
While correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation, the researchers used a statistical technique called Mendelian randomisation to reduce bias and attempt to infer causation in the data.
As the researchers noted, genetics are thought to have around a 10 percent influence on lifespan and healthspan, and that can make it difficult to pick out the genes involved from all the other factors involved (like your smoking or drinking habits). With that in mind, one of the advantages of this new study is its sheer size and scope.
Five of the genetic markers the researchers found had not previously been highlighted as significant at the genome-wide level. Some, including APOE and FOXO3, have been singled out in the past as being important to the ageing process and human health.
"It is clear from the association of age-related diseases and the well-known ageing loci APOE and FOXO3 that we are capturing the human ageing process to some extent," wrote the researchers in their paper published in July 2020.
While we're still in the early stages for investigating this association with iron metabolism, further down the line we could see the development of drugs designed to lower the levels of iron in the blood - which could potentially add extra years to our lives.
Besides genetics, blood iron is mostly controlled by diet and has already been linked to a number of age-related diseases, including Parkinson's and liver disease. It also affects our body's ability to fight off infection as we get older.
We can add this latest study to the growing evidence that 'iron overload', or not being able to break it down properly, can have an influence on how long we're likely to live, as well as how healthy we're likely to be in our later years.
"Our ultimate aim is to discover how ageing is regulated and find ways to increase health during ageing," says Joris Deelen who studies the biology of ageing at the Max Planck Institute for Biology of Ageing in Germany.
"The 10 regions of the genome we have discovered that are linked to lifespan, healthspan, and longevity are all exciting candidates for further studies."
The research has been published in Nature Communications.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17312-3
A version of this article was first published in July 2020.
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Agenda driven: Eat less meat. Eating less cows lowers C)2 levels, etc., etc.
“While correlation doesn’t necessarily mean causation...”
EXCEPT of course when it comes to “man-made” gore-bull warming and CO2 emissions.
Non Sequitur.
“After this, therefore because of this.” fallacy. Seems to be very common in the media when covering research.
You could just as easily say that oxygen causes a long life ‘cuz old people breath it and die when they stop doing so. Or water causes a long life ‘cuz real old people drink it.
Depending on the population, might be hereditary hemochromatosis...
Well, the naysayers are posting already. But I am heartened by this news.
Years ago, my doctor told me to cut out blood donations because my iron level was too low!
Your takeaway could be to step up to the bar and give blood regularly in order to reduce your iron level. However, the finding results report that the increased lifespan could be due to how the body metabolized iron and not general iron levels. So “bleeding out slowly” by blood donations might not do you any good.
Yeah, I figured there was a hook in there somewhere. They're pushing an agenda.
No, fact driven. You can eat more meat, just remove blood and you don’t increase iron stores.
There is a much greater correlation between shorter lifespan and the element Pb.
Do a ferritin test. If you have a cold or an infection, ferritin increases. But if ferritin is not increased by something like that, you can deduce your iron stores. Ferritin less than 70 ng/ml is iron deficiency. One blood donation reduces ferritin between 20 and 30.
Bleeding may actually be a cure-all?
Medieval doctors are vindicated!
Coming up next - “If you or a loved one ever took Geritol and died before the age of 90, you may be able to rake it in by joining this class action lawsuit - and we’ll sue the doctor that recommended it too.”
Old news.
Having high iron stores increases free radical damage, and many diseases. It has been known for a long time.
Give blood regularly...esp men and menpopausal women...Transgenders ignore that
Vegetarian propaganda.
Yes, Dr. Jonathan Wright and others have reported this for years
Because iron deficiency exists, you find it hard to believe that iron excess also exists?
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