Rhonda Patrick· PhD
So for example, some of the cytokines that senescent cells produce cause what's called an epithelial to mesenchymal transition. So what is that? Most of the organs in your body are composed of epithelial cells and these are cells that absolutely must talk to each other. Mesenchymal cells are the support cells, like in the skin, the epithelial cells are the outer layer, the support cells are in the dermis. Those are the mesenchymal cells. They don't need to talk to each other, they need to signal. They're basically telling the epithelium what to do. Now, when an epithelial cell becomes more mesenchyme-like, it stops talking to its neighbors and that means the tissue is going to start losing function.