Эпигенетик цагийн хэмжүүрүүдийг ашиглан хийсэн судалгаагаар ядуурал болон нийгмийн гадуурхал нь хүний биеийн биологийн хөгшрөлтийг хурдасгадаг болохыг баталлаа.
Германы Max Planck Institute for Human Development болон АНУ-ын Columbia University-ийн судлаачид 66,000 орчим хүнийг хамруулсан 140 өмнөх судалгааны өгөгдөлд дүн шинжилгээ хийжээ. Судалгаанд биологийн хөгшрөлтийг хэмждэг гурван үеийн эпигенетик цагийн технологийг ашигласан байна. Эпигенетик цаг гэдэг нь хүний ДНХ-ийн молекулын өөрчлөлтийн хэв шинжийг тайлбарлах замаар бие махбодын хөгшрөлтийн явцыг тодорхойлдог арга юм.
Судалгааны үр дүнгээс үзэхэд, нийгэм, эдийн засгийн доогуур түвшинд амьдардаг хүмүүс, тэр дундаа бага насны хүүхдүүд илүү чинээлэг орчинд өссөн үе тэнгийнхнээсээ илүү хурдан биологийн хөгшрөлтөд өртдөг байна. Мөн арьс өнгө, үндэстний ялгаварлан гадуурхалт нь биологийн хөгшрөлтөд сөргөөр нөлөөлдөг бөгөөд энэхүү нөлөөлөл нь гурав дахь үеийн эпигенетик цагийн хэмжүүрээр хамгийн тод илэрчээ.
Судлаачид хүүхдүүдийн дунд хийсэн хэмжилтийг тайлбарлахдаа болгоомжтой хандахыг анхааруулсан байна. Учир нь эпигенетик цагийг голчлон насанд хүрэгчдэд зориулан боловсруулсан тул хүүхдийн өсөлт хөгжлийн үйл явцыг хөгшрөлттэй андуурах магадлалтай аж. Түүнчлэн арьс өнгө, үндэстний ялгаатай байдлыг судлахдаа өөрсдийн мэдүүлсэн мэдээлэлд тулгуурласан нь бүтцийн болон хувь хүний түвшний ялгаварлан гадуурхалтыг бүрэн илэрхийлэхэд хязгаарлалттай болохыг тэмдэглэжээ.
Энэхүү судалгааны үр дүн нь Nature Human Behavior сэтгүүлд нийтлэгдсэн бөгөөд цаашид эрүүл мэндийн тэгш байдлыг хангах хөндлөнгийн оролцоо, арга хэмжээний үр нөлөөг үнэлэхэд эпигенетик цагийн хэмжүүрийг ашиглах боломжтойг харуулж байна.
Дэлгэрэнгүйг эх сурвалжаас харах
↓Эх сурвалжийг нээх ↓
The wellness industry loves biological ‘clocks’.
They’re a way of using particular measurements in your body (samples from your blood, your cheek cells, your saliva, etc) to get a sense of how old you are, not in actual years, but in physical health trajectory.
Research using biological clocks points to a wide range of lifestyle adjustments with the potential to keep you biologically ‘young’: from supplements, to sleep hygiene, diet, drugs, cultural activities, and exercise.
All these wellsprings of youth become much harder to access under financial stress and other forms of social marginalization.
And, as new research shows, that lack of access impacts entire populations – and may even begin in childhood.
A new study confirms that lower socioeconomic status, and possibly racial or ethnic marginalization, is consistently linked to faster biological aging, a link that shows up most strongly in the newest generation of epigenetic clocks.
To be clear, these aren’t literal clocks. They’re a way of interpreting patterns of molecular change in a person’s DNA to estimate what stage of life a person’s body has reached and how similar that is to a defined idea of a ‘normal’ aging trajectory.
A person with slower biological aging, according to the epigenetic clock, may seem younger than their years; a person with fast biological aging, on the other hand, may suffer age-related health problems earlier in life than expected.
We already knew socioeconomic status and experiences of racism are strong determinants of health. Countless studies show that people in poverty live shorter lives and experience disease onset earlier in life.
The structural inequalities many people face due to their racial or ethnic identities can have similar effects, and often overlap with experiences of poverty.
The new study, conducted by researchers at Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Germany and Columbia University in the US, was designed to assess how sensitive epigenetic clocks are in detecting those associations.
Bringing together data from 140 different pre-existing scientific studies, involving nearly 66,000 individuals altogether, the researchers put three different generations of epigenetic clocks to the test.
The effects of poverty on biological aging were captured most clearly by the most recent generation of clocks, rather than some older models, which were primarily designed to estimate chronological age.
Second-gen clocks focus more on health and mortality risk, while third-gen clocks (the most recent batch) measure the pace of aging at an epigenetic level.
The broad dataset included people from across 23 countries, aged 0 to 86 years.
By focusing on the data for children specifically, the researchers also found that the patterns for low socioeconomic status begin early in life, with poorer children tending to age faster than their more affluent peers.
However, the authors note, “because clocks were trained in adults with different blood composition and no active developmental programs, pediatric estimates may be less accurate and reflect both aging and development, which is why we should interpret them with caution.”
Nonetheless, adults who had grown up in low socioeconomic circumstances also tended to have a faster pace of aging than those who grew up in richer families, further emphasizing the impacts of wealth on health.
To determine whether these trends extended to people with marginalized racial or ethnic identities, the researchers performed two analyses of US cohorts: one comparing the biological aging results of White and Black individuals, and another comparing White and Latinx individuals.
Biological aging was slower for White individuals in both comparisons, but the gap was widest between Black and White. Those racial disparities were, again, clearest in the third-gen biological clock data.
“We did find evidence for publication bias for some clocks for race and ethnicity results; however, caution is warranted in the interpretation given the high level of heterogeneity,” the authors note.
“Racism intersects with socioeconomic disadvantage and other health risks, creating complex challenges. Effect sizes were larger for racial and ethnic than socioeconomic status disparities. However, studies relying on self-reported race and ethnicity cannot capture structural or individual-level racism (for example, segregation, discrimination).”
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Knowing that epigenetic clocks can detect these impacts (and which are the best at doing so) means scientists can use them for further research.
Perhaps they could even be used to highlight which interventions are most effective at achieving a more equitable experience of health.
The research was published in Nature Human Behavior.
