Is Stress the Fountain of Youth?

New research suggests some stress could extend your lifespan

Everyone experiences stress, nearly everyday if you’re a normal human being. In fact, you’re probably stressed right now. Stress is just a part of life and comes with being human, but new research suggests that some stress could actually be a good thing.

If you’re questioning that, you’d be right to do so but there is research behind this new theory.

A group of researchers at the University of Michigan recently discovered that stress experienced in the early stages of life could increase your resistance to stress later in life.

This happens through a process called oxidative stress — when cells produce more oxidants than they can deal with. This type of stress happens naturally with the aging process but also occurs under stressful conditions and environments.

You can thank the humble worm for this bit of research as the research team found that when roundworms produced more oxidants during development, they lived longer than the same type of worm who produced less oxidants.

Researchers have long wondered what contributes to varying lifespans. Ursula Jakob a professor of molecular, cellular and developmental biology, says that one factor is genetics — the other is environment.

Other random factors involved in varying rates of lifespan become more clear in the results of the research teams observance of the roundworms. These tiny organisms are often used for research on age because every hermaphroditic mother produced hundreds of genetically identical offspring.

With hundreds of identical worms in the same environment, put under the same conditions, the results of the report were surprising for the team of researchers.

All of the worms had varying lifespans despite the controlled test, a result that Jakob did not expect.

“If lifespan was determined solely by genes and environment, we would expect that genetically identical worms grown on the same petri dish would all drop dead at about the same time, but this is not at all what happens. Some worms live only three days while others are still happily moving around after 20 days,” she said. “The question then is, what is it, apart from genetics and environment, that is causing this big difference in lifespan?”

Jakob and Daphne Bazopoulou, a researcher and lead author of the paper found one part of the answer they were looking for in the surprising results — the amount of reactive oxygen species they produced varied significantly.

These reactive oxygen's are something that every air-breathing organism produces. ROS’s are a substantial part of the aging process, as their oxidative damaging effects are what anti-aging ointments and medicines claim to fight against.

In a surprise twist, what scientists thought would shorten the worms lifespan actually extended it.

“Experiencing stress at this early point in life may make you better able to fight stress you might encounter later in life,” Bazopoulou said.

To further study this finding, the team of researchers exposed the whole worm population to an external supply of ROS during development. This small change extended the lifespan of the entire population.

The team of researchers sorted through thousands of the roundworms according to their stress levels experienced during development. What the researchers found was that some of the worm population harbored a “histone modifier”, whose activity is sensitive to oxidative stress.

Using the temporary production of ROS’s during the worm’s development caused changes in that modifier early in the worms life. This isn’t the only species that has a similar effect, early-life interventions have also proved to be successful in extending lifespans in mammals.

“The general idea that early life events have such profound, positive effects later in life is truly fascinating. Given the strong connection between stress, aging and age-related diseases, it is possible that early events in life might also affect the predisposition for age-associated diseases, such as dementia and Alzheimer’s disease,” said Jakob.

In the coming years, the team of researchers wants to figure out what changes are key to triggering these early-life events in the attempts to discover ways to develop lifespan extending interventions that work in later stages in life.