A major study published last week in Cell has mapped, for the first time that aging accelerates sharply around the age of 50, with some organs, especially blood vessels, growing old much faster than others.

“We present a comprehensive proteomic and histological analysis of 516 samples from 13 human tissues spanning five decades,” the researchers write. “This dynamic atlas reveals widespread transcriptome-proteome decoupling and proteostasis decline, characterized by amyloid accumulation.”

The research, led by Guanghui Liu of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, is being hailed as a milestone. Tissues were collected from 76 individuals (aged 14 to 68) who died of accidental brain injuries. The analysis included 13 different organs from eight major body systems, including cardiovascular, immune, and digestive.

The researchers observed that “aging-associated protein changes” were not linear. Instead, “temporal analysis revealed an aging inflection around age 50.” This is the age when the molecular wear-and-tear suddenly begins to spike.

The most dramatic changes were seen in blood vessels. “Blood vessels being a tissue that ages early and is markedly susceptible to aging.” the study notes. 

Particularly striking was the aorta—the body’s main artery. “Between the ages of 45 and 55 came a turning point marked by large changes in protein levels. The most dramatic shift was found in the aorta, the body’s main artery, which carries oxygenated blood out of the heart,” the researchers found. 

The team identified one protein produced in the aorta that, when administered to mice, triggers signs of accelerated ageing. 

“The findings add to mounting evidence that ageing is not linear, but is instead pockmarked by periods of rapid change,” says the report published in Nature. 

“Even so, larger studies are needed before scientists can label the age of 50 as a crisis point,”, Nature quotes Maja Olecka, who studies ageing at the Leibniz Institute on Aging, Fritz Lipmann Institute in Jena, Germany, and was not involved in the study.

“There are these waves of age-related changes,” she says, quoted by  Nature. “But it is still difficult to make a general conclusion about the timing of the inflection points.”

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