Today we explore how scientists are trying to find a way to make an “aging clock” that can determine your age and health by looking at your DNA, how looking at our gut could help us treat mental health disorders, and how there may be a new treatment option in the form of a vaccine for people suffering from brain tumors!
Today we explore how scientists are trying to find a way to make an “aging clock” that can determine your age and health by looking at your DNA, how looking at our gut could help us treat mental health disorders, and how there may be a new treatment option in the form of a vaccine for people suffering from brain tumors!
Aging Clock
Mental Health in Your Gut
Brain Tumor Vaccine
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/aging-clock-mental-health-in-your-gut-brain-tumor-vaccine
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today you’ll learn about how scientists are trying to find out a way to make an “aging clock” that can determine your age and health by looking at your DNA, how looking at our gut could help us treat mental health disorders, and how there may be a new treatment option in the form of a vaccine for people suffering from brain tumors.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: Nate, I know your birthday, but do you have any idea how old your body really is? I don’t mean your chronological age, I mean your biological age.
NATE: Biological age? I don’t think I’ve ever heard of that, or seen it on a doctors chart, what is it?
CALLI: Well you might actually see it someday! Biological age is how old your body and organs seem, especially when compared to people the same age as you. It could be a better prediction of your health than your chronological age, and differ by years, if not decades! Researchers have long been trying to create “Aging clocks” to track just how old we really are.
NATE: Why would my body seem older or younger? Why wouldn't they just be…my age?
CALLI: Well researchers say that things like stress, sleep, diet, and other lifestyle choices can have a real effect on the wear and tear of your body and organs. Having a biological age could be a great way to track these over time and easily communicate them to patients in a way they could understand.
NATE: Aha, alright I get it. So, Calli, how do I find out my biological age then?
CALLI: Alright, well unfortunately, it’s not that easy yet. Calculating it is complicated. Even if you do, I should say, it's not a measure of how long you’ll live, it's just a little warning sign that you might be aging faster than you think. So to figure it out, researchers and scientists turn to these “aging clocks”
NATE: Okay, you just said it’s not that easy, and calculating it is complicated. Clocks sound pretty simple, so what is it these clocks look at to come up with their numbers?
CALLI: I mean, it’s still not that simple. Some look at measurements from specific organs. Others look at what are called epigenetic markers. These include how molecules called methyl groups attach to your DNA in thousands of places. The way they attach to DNA changes with age. We aren’t sure why, but looking at how they are attached can give researchers clues to see if your biological age is more advanced than your real age!
NATE: Okay, does that really work? Just looking at patterns of how these things attach?
CALLI: I mean, isn’t that just most of science, looking at patterns? Just saying. Researchers at UCLA say they can help them guess your chronological age within 5 years most of the time! They created clocks that looked at stats about your health, including your blood glucose levels, white blood cell count, and your actual age. Another group took this method a step farther. They tracked the health of 954 volunteers in their mid 20s to mid 40s and tracked stats that showed how well their organs functioned. They used these measurements to make a speedometer, for how fast someone ages. They can predict how those metrics will change over time for an individual.
NATE: Ok I get that having an older biological age sounds generally bad, but what are the specific consequences?
CALLI: One researcher says that it can be a warning sign for increased risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease. Even an increase in death from any cause!
NATE: Ok that sounds pretty serious. I think I need to try and find out my biological age!
CALLI: Okay, but no, actually. Gonna stop you right there. Biological age is a great idea, it’s a really cool concept, and some day, it could be a powerful tool in personalized health care, but we are just not there yet. Even researchers who are deeply invested in the space say it can be hard to know why your biological age changes. The kind of calculations necessary to make aging clocks are really hard, and prone to mistakes. Tiny mistakes in examining your DNA might magnify to years of difference in your biological age.
NATE: So I won’t be replacing my doctor's visit with an algorithm and a thumb prick any time soon?
CALLI: Not quite. They say even if they wildly improve the tech, it’ll never replace your standard doctor's visits. But it will hopefully be another tool in our belt soon. In the meantime, consider that our bodies can age at different rates. Even if we don't know exactly what that rate is, we can make choices, like eating well, and getting enough sleep, to slow it down!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: We’ve talked about the effects of the human microbiome before. And there’s still a ton of research being done about how those tiny organisms in our gut affect different parts of our health, but did you know that the microorganisms might not just control how your belly feels, they might control how your…brain feels?
CALLI: Are you telling me that the tiny organisms that help me digest my food are also helping determine my mood?
NATE: So poetic. That is exactly what I am telling you, yes. Not only has our gut biome previously been linked to some psychological disorders, but watching how our biomes work might soon help researchers find their patients the right treatments for mental disorders!
CALLI: That is fascinating, and to think it's just a few little organisms in your belly doing that.
NATE: Not just a few, try like 39 trillion microorganisms. The more we study the gut, the more we realize how important it is for our whole body’s health. We already know there is a microbiome-brain connection, and it's a two-way street. There’s more and more evidence that your microbiome might play a part in how your body releases hormones and even how we develop diseases like ALS or Lou Gherig’s disease.
CALLI: Ok so that also is very interesting but kind of gives a bit of a wrinkle to the whole, you are what you eat situation.
NATE: Oh absolutely. And researchers have already done animal studies that show a link between the microbes in your gut and how likely you are to experience anxiety! Certain microbes increase your likelihood of more anxious behavior and brain function! There is still a lot more work to be done to solidify that link in humans but researchers are particularly curious about how these microbes can influence things like depression.
CALLI: That would definitely help a ton of people.
NATE: Yep, for sure, and the reason that they are looking into the biology is because it shows up in SO many people with different backgrounds so there’s not necessarily always a throughline in how it’s caused. Previously, they looked at blood samples to see if there was any evidence of a connection between inflammation and depression, but they have also started looking at…stool samples.
CALLI: Again? Really?
NATE: It comes up.
CALLI: You mean poop. I guess it is kind of like a postcard from your gut biome telling you exactly what is going on in there.
NATE: Pretty much! And that could soon help our brains too! Researchers looked at samples from a depression study. And what they found could seriously help patients. You see, right now, there are a lot of treatments to choose from for depression, including antidepressants, but they don’t always work as well as we might think, usually only about 40%.
CALLI: Yikes! Well then I suppose getting the right treatment to the right person as quickly as possible would make a real difference.
NATE: Exactly! And scientists were able to look at patients who had successful treatments, and identify some microbes the successfully treated patients had in common. With this finding, they can pre-screen new patients, and look for microbes that might suggest more success for one treatment vs another.
CALLI: Ok so that’s amazing, real bodily feedback!
NATE: Exactly! Before this, the best you could rely on was a patient self-reporting how they felt, but now, you can screen for success and build a more specific profile of your patient, which should help a lot of people find the right treatment.
CALLI: Wow! Talking about feeling something in your gut, I’d like to thank my stomach for this good science.
NATE: And the 39 trillion little organisms helping out in there!
CALLI: Yeah, I don’t want to think about that part.
NATE: Thank them individually, please.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: So, we talk about vaccines a lot on this show and today is no different because I found a super interesting study about a vaccine that can be used to treat brain tumors.
NATE: Whoa, okay. A brain tumor vaccine? How would that even work?
CALLI: Think of it less like a normal vaccine and more like immunotherapy. Once you get the vaccine, your immune system gets reprogrammed to track down and fight the tumor. The shot is personalized towards each patient’s individual immune system so it’s not a “one size fits all” vaccine.
NATE: Okay. What do you mean “personalized”?
CALLI: So this gets a little complicated, bear with me. It’s made from proteins extracted from a patient’s own Glioblastoma, which is the kind of brain cancer surveyed here, as well as a sample of their own white blood cells, which tells the existing white cells how to track down the tumor. Think of it like one of those dogs that sniff for drugs at airports, except the vaccine isn’t going to arrest the tumor - it’s going to kill it.
NATE: Okay, I can understand that. Is the vaccine effective?
CALLI: Yep. 331 people took part in a clinical trial in the UK to test the vaccine, which is known as DCVax, with 232 taking DCVax and 99 taking a placebo. All 331 had surgery beforehand, followed by radiotherapy and chemotherapy, to remove as much of their tumor as possible beforehand, which is a standard treatment for Glioblastoma. Over 13% of the participants lived for more than five years after taking the vaccine. On average, the participants survived anywhere from 13 to 19 months after DCVax did its job.
NATE: Hm. On one hand, that’s amazing. But on the other - 13 to 19 months doesn’t feel like that long of a timeframe.
CALLI: I know but I’ll let the results speak for themselves: so, the study had a monitored control group who didn’t take DCVax and, on average, they lived around 7 months after the study, which isn’t great. The group that did take DCVax? Their average was closer to 13 months, with some people even living more than seven years after receiving the vaccine. I know it doesn’t seem like a lot but the point is that DCVax allowed people to live a lot longer than they would have.
Glioblastoma is one of the most aggressive kinds of cancer a person can have and it makes up nearly 50 percent of all malignant brain tumors in the US, so in this case, any increased lifespan as a result of the vaccine is great news.
NATE: Okay, yeah that’s really awesome. When can we expect to see this go mainstream?
CALLI: Like a lot of things we talk about it still needs to be approved by medical regulators in the UK, so it’s even further away for people suffering from Glioblastoma in the US. However, the company that makes DCVax is planning to seek regulatory approval so it can become available ASAP.
NATE: Is there a reason they want it out so soon?
CALLI: Yeah. Because DCVax would be the first new treatment in over 17 years for newly diagnosed patients, as well as the first in 27 years for people who saw Glioblastoma return. A vaccine like this might not be a perfect way to fight brain tumors, but it would be a blessing that could allow people to live longer and suffer less.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up.
CALLI: Age isn’t just a number, especially when you consider your biological age. Though the systems are not perfect yet, aging clocks are helping us track, and fight, how quickly we age.
NATE: Researchers say our brain and gut biome are intimately connected. While we have long known they can affect each other, researchers are currently working to see how they can use our guts to find more effective treatment for mental health disorders.
CALLI: Introducing the newest way to treat brain cancer: a vaccine! A new vaccine treatment out of the UK has found a way to extend Glioblastoma patients’ lives by anywhere from half a year to nearly a decade! Widespread accessibility is still many years away, but if this vaccine passes trial, it will be the first new treatment for GBM patients in nearly 20 years!