The evidence is convergent. Multiple independent sources reach the same conclusion, the underlying mechanism is well-characterized, and even the field's most cautious voices treat it as worth doing.
In 2008, we showed movement of the NAD-dependent enzyme SIRT1 away from regulated genes to DNA breaks (which happen every day in every cell) is a key process in the loss of epigenetic information that we have proposed leads to aging and diseases
Every Sunday: the week’s new conflicts and verdict changes — and nothing else.
Native comments, Twitter mentions, and Reddit threads about this claim — surfaced together so the conversation isn't fragmented across platforms.
Bookmarking — the dossier-vs-overview split is the right call. Most of the time I want overview; sometimes I want receipts.
Would love a "what would change this verdict" RSS feed. Sign me up if it exists.
This study in 2008 was the first evidence for the information theory of aging in mammals - the idea that DNA breaks and other major stresses cause chromatin modifiers like SIRT1 to relocate, which disrupts the epigenome & changes the expression of genes in ways that cause aging
Excitingly, it’s consistent with The Information Theory of Aging & our discovery of this same phenomenon in 1997, 1999, 2008 & 2023
it’s consistent with The Information Theory of Aging & our discovery of this same phenomenon in 1997, 1999, 2008 & 2023
ITOA states DNA breaks (and other stresses) create epigenetic noise that contributes to a loss of gene expression/cell identity & this leads to aging (exdifferentiation).
the problem is that works well when you're young but as you get older and older it screws up the epigenome and you lose that original structure that epigenetic information
when they get old they have a lot of dna breaks and those distract the sortuans from their protective role and they go from one place on the genome to help repair the dna like the army corps of engineers would if you know there's a hurricane but not all of them go back to where they came from and if you do that lots of times or keep having hurricane after hurricane the genes that the sirtuins should be regulating become dysregulated and we think that is a model for why we age
if you're getting more dna breaks whether they're single standard or double stranded what you might actually be having is loss of epigenetic coding lots of epigenetic information that is methylation on histones and a variety of other proteins around which dna is wrapped and that that might be sort of the arbiter of aging