A recent study by researchers in the Edwin S.H. Leong Healthy Aging Program and collaborators determined that there are sex differences in measures of biological age in individuals living in high longevity “Blue Zones” in the Mediterranean. The study was published in Frontiers in Aging .
UBC Authors: Hannah-Ruth Engelbrecht, Sarah Merrill, Julie MacIasaac, and Michael Kobor
Summary: There are differences between men and women in health outcomes with age. This is seen in differences in disease prevalence, physical health, and lifespan, where women tend to have greater longevity relative to men. However, in the Mediterranean Blue Zones of Sardinia (Italy) and Ikaria (Greece), where there exists a greater proportion of individuals who live to very old age, men are as likely as women to live to 100. This makes these regions particularly interesting to investigate sex differences in longevity and aging. In a recent study, members of the Kobor Lab and Edwin S.H. Leong Healthy Aging Program, together with collaborators from Stanford University, University College London, the University of Athens and the University of Sassari, investigated sex differences in biological age in individuals from these regions. Biological age is a measurement of the age-related biological changes within an individual, as opposed to chronological age, which is the count of years lived. Specifically, the investigators used epigenetic clocks, a type of biochemical test that uses epigenetic modifications to estimate biological age. Using several epigenetic clocks, they found that men exhibited greater epigenetic age acceleration compared to women. Thus, despite their equal survival to older ages in these Mediterranean Blue Zones, men in these regions remain biologically older, as assessed by epigenetic clocks, than women.
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