Sixty is the new forty! We’ve all heard it. And for some aging individuals, this saying couldn’t be truer. Have you ever seen pictures that compare two different people of the same age? One image the face of health with a body that could hike Kilimanjaro; the other frail, withered, and on the brink of bed rest. Yet both the same age. How can human bodies of the same age differ so dramatically?
A recent study set out to answer this very question. Researchers analyzed the oral microbiome of 1357 adults aged 35 to 70 years and compared their microbial footprints to age and frailty index (FI), a scale that measures biological aging by analyzing the deterioration of the mental and physical systems that make up our bodies.
Findings showed that as age and frailty increase, healthy microbial characteristics decrease. The observed decrease in diversity in the microbiome is strongly linked to adverse mental health characteristics measured in the FI
These findings tell us that the health of the microbiome, especially diversity and composition, is strongly linked to frailty risk, and a more diverse and balanced microbiome may actually delay frailty as we age. Researchers believe that further research may show the oral microbiome to be an accurate indicator of frailty risk, and a useful tool in healthy aging.
For more information on this topic, check out these Gutbliss resources:
- From Dr. Chutkan’s Office Hours series, The Microbiome & Aging
- From Dr. Chutkan’s Office Hours series, Inflammaging: The Connection Between Inflammation, Your Gut, & Aging
- From The Gutbliss Blog, Gut microbiome holds key to healthy aging
- From The Gutbliss Blog, Anthocyanins influence gut microbes and delay age-related decline
