Who knew that Kid Poo could be a Fountain of Youth?

Apparently, Grandparent babysitters, did.

In past newsletters, I discussed hypothesized ways to prolong life, regenerate tissues, turn back the bioclock. But it could be that just baby sitting those rug rats can lead to longer life. A recent study from Berlin was enlightening:

…we examined whether caregiving within and beyond the family is related to mortality in older adults. Survival analyses based on data from the Berlin Aging Study revealed that mortality hazards for grandparents who provided non-custodial childcare were 37% lower than for grandparents who did not provide childcare and for non-grandparents. These associations held after controlling for physical health, age, socioeconomic status and various characteristics of the children and grandchildren. Furthermore, the effect of caregiving extended to non-grandparents and to childless older adults who helped beyond their families. - S Hilbrand. et al.

The data found that seniors who provided some care, whether for their grandchildren or for others, had a lower risk of death over a 20 year period than those who did not help others. The act of caring for another holds many health benefits. So what could possibly explain the mechanism of the beneficial effect? A recent animal study in mice points to the poo.

Fecal Transplants

Researchers hypothesized that it was the altered intestinal microbiota composition in later life that coincided with increased susceptibility to age-associated chronic diseases. So they tested whether manipulating the intestinal microbiota can influence the development of major comorbidities associated with aging.

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Methods: Using fecal microbiota transplantation, we exchanged the intestinal microbiota of young (3 months), old (18 months), and aged (24 months) mice. Whole metagenomic shotgun sequencing and metabolomics were used to develop a custom analysis workflow, to analyze the changes in gut microbiota composition and metabolic potential. Effects of age and microbiota transfer on the gut barrier, retina, and brain were assessed using protein assays, immunohistology, and behavioral testing.

Results: We show that microbiota composition profiles and key species enriched in young or aged mice are successfully transferred by FMT between young and aged mice and that FMT modulates resulting metabolic pathway profiles. The transfer of aged donor microbiota into young mice accelerates age-associated central nervous system (CNS) inflammation, retinal inflammation, and cytokine signaling and promotes loss of key functional protein in the eye, effects which are coincident with increased intestinal barrier permeability. Conversely, these detrimental effects can be reversed by the transfer of young donor microbiota. - A Parker et al.

Their findings demonstrated that the aging gut microbiota drives detrimental changes in the gut–brain and gut–retina axes. They proposed that microbial interventions may be of therapeutic benefit in later life. [Like exposure to baby poop?}

This idea that protecting your gut microbes may be the secret to the fountain of youth, tracks back to Elie Metchnikoff, a Nobel Prize winning Russian Immunologist. In 1895, as he aged, he changed his focus to what factors prolonged healthy life. He queried what role intestinal bacteria might play in health and disease and suggested that people from parts of eastern Europe lived longer because they ate a lot of fermented foods containing lactic acid bacteria. [Mmmmm … sauerkraut]

Perhaps we could get the same benefits of infant poop by instead eating /drinking fermented foods? Beer, sourdough bread, yogurt, kimchee, kombucha? Or maybe just plunge our hands straight into the dirt, known to elongate life too. [See "In the Spring, at the end of the day, you should smell like dirt"]. Those rug rats are surely already doing so, serving their sitters with juicy mud pies crafted with their dirty lil hands. Yum.

Oh and btw … Happy Mother’s Day to all you nurturers of the lil ones!

Klimt, “Mother”

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REFERENCES

biomedworks.substack.com/p/in-the-spring-at-the-end-of-the-day?s=w

biomedworks.substack.com/p/lifespan-determinants-temperature?s=w

biomedworks.substack.com/p/is-dialysis-a-potential-fountain?s=w

biomedworks.substack.com/p/healing-heart-wounds?s=w

S Hilbrand. et al. 2016 Caregiving within and beyond the family is associated with lower mortality for the caregiver: A prospective study. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2016.11.010

A Parker et al. Fecal microbiota transfer between young and aged mice reverses hallmarks of the aging gut, eye, and brain Microbiome (2022) 10:68 https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-022-01243-w

Gut bacteria rewind aging brain in mice (2021, August 10) https://medicalxpress.com/news/2021-08-gut-bacteria-rewind-aging-brain.html

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Dattatraya Thombare | ArtZolo.com