Scientists have discovered that weakening muscles with age is a natural part of the aging process.
Muscle loss with age (or senile muscle loss (SARCOPENIA)) is a term that refers to a gradual and increasing loss of muscle mass as a result of aging, as the muscles become smaller and weaker as a person moves into the fall and winter of life.
Everyone ages with aging, but how does our body react to this process of degeneration? Scientists have discovered this.
Experts from the UK’s Wellcome Sanger Institute and China’s Sun Yat-sen University have created a muscle map of the human body to identify the special part that helps rebuild connections to age-related nerve degeneration.
The goal of this research is to create a systematic map of all human cells to make advances in physical health, disease diagnosis, and treatment. Meanwhile, the researchers also examined why muscles weaken over time. For this purpose, muscle samples from 17 people aged 20 to 75 years were analyzed.
The research discovered the genes that control ribosomes. Ribosomes are important for building proteins in the body and were found to be less active in the muscle cells of older people.
As a result, our body’s ability to regenerate muscle fibers is affected as we age. The research also discovered why CCL2 molecules, which cause inflammation, are produced.
These molecules attract the immune cells in the muscles and accelerate the process of muscle degeneration. According to the researchers, this discovery could help shape future approaches to improving muscle health and quality of life with aging.
He added that we are learning a lot about the body by mapping human cells.
He said these new details could help experts control edema, restore muscles, preserve nerve connections, and more.
Experiments on laboratory-grown samples of human muscle cells confirmed the importance of specialized compartments in maintaining muscle function. According to the researchers, the door has been opened for further research.
He said that the research will help develop new treatments to maintain muscle health in the near future. The results of the study were published in the journal Nature Aging.
Physically inactive people can lose about 3-5% of their muscle mass every decade after the age of thirty, and even physically active people can have a small loss of muscle mass. Senile muscle loss is seen in 10% of adults after the age of fifty, with varying degrees from one person to another and from one country to another.
Senile muscle loss tends to occur faster starting in the seventh decade of life or earlier starting in middle age when some factors encourage it. The risks of senile muscle loss lie in its increasing negative consequences for those affected by it, such as weakness, frailty, falls, fractures, and death.
It can be said that muscles maintain their size and strength as a result of a strategic balance between construction and catabolism in the muscles, but with age, catabolism outweighs construction processes, leading to muscle loss. Four main factors accelerate muscle loss:
1 – A life of inactivity and laziness
2- A diet low in calories and proteins
3- Inflammation
4- Extreme stress
