The Biochemistry Behind The Aging Process
Symptoms of aging can be explained and aren’t really facets of rocket science. How do we make sense of them, though?
Aging is unfortunately an inevitable problem that all of us humans will face.
And when it comes to aging, multiple aspects of our lives can be affected.
Physically, we won’t be able to do things at 60 that we could do at 20.
Mentally, we may face cognitive declines.
We tend to associate white hair with a person as a sign of longevity. It makes them look dignified and respectable.
One question, though. How did their hair colour change from black/brown/red/whatever to white? What was the biochemical mechanism behind all that?
Another question, now. How did those wrinkles come to pass?
If we analyse it at the cellular level, we may find some clues.
Because what we have in our cells are the mitochondria, which are responsible for generating energy for the cell. They are the cell’s powerhouses. The cell obtains fuel in the form of acetyl-CoA, which can be supplied via fats (ketones) or carbohydrates (glucose).
This acetyl-CoA then goes through a series of electron transfer reactions via the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle.
The electrons that are extracted are channelled through the electron transport chain (ETC) via the activity of Coenzyme Q10:
Ideally, these electrons then get shunted into an oxygen molecule, such that the oxygen molecule gets reduced to a water molecule.
And that’s why we do breathe out water vapour during the respiration process. We’re producing it as we’re generating energy. During periods of intense exercise, we need to generate more energy — and we consequently generate more water vapour too.
That’s the end of the energy generation process. Our cells get energy to function, and that’s all fine and dandy.
Of course, in a non-ideal sense…
The problem is that the ETC may not be operating optimally, and the electrons don’t get transferred that properly.
As a result, molecular oxygen may not get completely reduced to water, but it can get partially reduced to the reactive superoxide or hydrogen peroxide forms, which we can term as reactive oxygen species (ROS). This article states that:
The evidence strongly suggests that the electron transport chain, located in the inner mitochondrial membrane, is the major source of reactive oxygen species in animal cells.
The problem being that the ROS, as their name suggests, is reactive.
Hydrogen peroxide, after all, is something that people do use for vanity’s sake — that’s how the derogatory term “peroxide blonde” comes about, after all.
If we can use hydrogen peroxide externally to bleach our hair…
What happens when the cells in our head produce hydrogen peroxide internally?
Keep reading with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Biochemistry Of Human Health to keep reading this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.