An international interdisciplinary team has discovered that a vital human organ, the liver, remains youthful throughout life and on average has always biological age up to three yearswhether it is a young person or an elderly person.
The liver cleanses the toxins from the body and because it is constantly exposed to toxic substances, it is possible that it is often damaged. To overcome this problem, the liver has the unique ability among the organs to regenerate itself.
The nature of this renewal has so far remained a rather mysterious process to humans. Animal studies have yielded conflicting findings, with some agreeing that liver cells are long-livedwhile others that they are constantly dying and being born new in their place.
Researchers (biologists, physicists, mathematicians, doctors), led by Olaf Bergman of the Center for Regenerative Therapies of the Technical University of Dresden, who made the publication in the journal Cell Systems, analyzed the livers of many people who had died between the ages of 20 and 84. To their surprise, they found that the liver cells of all the dead were more or less the same age.
«Whether someone is 20 or 84 years old, their liver has remained on average under the age of three“, Said Bergman. This confirms the continuous replacement of human liver cells and the fact that this process continues into old age.
On the other hand, the average age of liver cells does not exceed three years, but there are some liver cells that are not so young, as they can live up to ten years before they are renewed. These longer-lived cells have more DNA than typical liver cells.
«Typical liver cells regenerate at a rate of about once a year, while DNA-rich cells can remain in the liver for up to a decade. This percentage increases with age and can be a protective mechanism against the accumulation of harmful mutations. “We need to find out if there are similar mechanisms in chronic liver disease, which in some cases can develop into cancer.” said Bergman.
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