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Longevity briefs provides a short summary of novel research in biology, medicine, or biotechnology that caught the attention of our researchers in Oxford, due to its potential to improve our health, wellbeing, and longevity.
The problem:
As we age, our bones become more susceptible to diseases like osteoporosis, osteoarthritis, and spinal degeneration. These conditions arise due to an imbalance between bone formation by cells called osteoblasts, and bone resorption (breakdown) by their counterpart cells – osteoclasts. Both these cell types are necessary for healthy bone maintenance, but in old age the activity of osteoclasts begins to outstrip that of osteoblasts, leading to a net loss of bone mass. This bone degeneration is a major cause of frailty in old age, as it is related to frequent fractures and disability.
The gut microbiota is a vast community of microorganisms living in our intestines, and it appears to influence many aspects of our health, including bone health. In this review article, researchers give an overview of what we know about how the gut microbiota promotes bone maintenance, as well as how we might harness them to delay or reverse bone ageing.
The discovery:
Based on their review of existing research, the authors started by highlighting the major known mechanisms explaining how the gut microbiota affects bone metabolism:
The implications:
The composition and diversity of the gut microbiota declines with increasing age, which may contribute to bone ageing in humans. Compared to the other fundamental changes that occur during ageing, it seems to be relatively easy to restore the gut microbiota of an older person to a younger state using faecal microbiota transplantation (FMT). Simply transferring gut microbes from the faeces of a young, healthy donor into the gut of the recipient produces lasting beneficial changes to microbiota composition, but the human health benefits of this are understudied. In the meantime, targeting the gut microbiota through probiotics, prebiotics, and dietary interventions could be a more straightforward way (with a better established safety than FMT) to maintain bone health and prevent diseases like osteoporosis and osteoarthritis.
Microbiota-bone axis in ageing-related bone diseases https://doi.org/10.3389/fendo.2024.1414350
Title image by Otto Norin, Upslash
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