Obesity accelerates aging by several years: PROMOMED expert spoke about new approaches to biological age management

At the II Forum "Russia and the World: Trends in healthy Longevity," Peter Bely, Founder and Chairman of the Board of Directors of PROMOMED, presented the position of the domestic
biopharmaceutical industry in the field of active longevity. The presentation took place within the framework of the session "Engineering healthy Longevity", moderated by Anton Alikhanov, Minister of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation.

Petr Bely stressed that modern science has significantly changed the understanding of aging. Today, this process is considered as a set of modifiable factors that can be controlled. One of the key factors is obesity. Excess body weight negatively affects the main markers of aging, provokes an increase in systemic inflammation. It has been established that each unit of body mass index (BMI) correlates with four years of accelerated aging. Obesity increases the activity of pro-inflammatory cells and the level of cytokines, which significantly increases the risk of damage to the liver, kidneys and cardiovascular system.

A 5% reduction in body weight contributes to better glycemic control and prevention of type 2 diabetes; a 10% reduction helps to overcome insulin resistance, improve the course of sleep apnea syndrome and reduce the frequency of cardiovascular events; a loss of 15% of body weight can lead to remission of type 2 diabetes and reduce the risk of cancer.

The PROMMED expert noted the limited long-term effectiveness of traditional weight correction methods based on calorie restriction: such approaches are often unable to eliminate the epigenetic memory of adipose tissue. A breakthrough in the treatment of obesity was the development of drugs based on glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1). The potential effects of such therapy include reducing chronic inflammation, activating autophagy, optimizing mitochondrial function, and protecting the endothelium.