Why Cellular Health (and C15:0) Count

Healthy Aging

The science behind cellular health and C15:0

Over the past decade, robust science dedicated to understanding and improving cellular health has excitedly translated to health products that can meaningfully improve whole-body health. As such, the goal of optimizing cellular health has gained momentum beyond lab-bench science to positively impact our daily lives, from the weights bench to the park bench. This week, we’re covering the science-driven 101 basics on cellular health and C15:0. Let’s dive in.

I’m in. But, is optimizing “cellular health” really different than how we’ve approached health in the past?

Good question! Yes, it really is different.

Let’s start with the pharmaceutical industry, which is primarily intended to discover and advance newly made molecules (aka, molecules not present in nature) that are potent and target very specific pathways to treat and manage very specific diseases. Traditionally, drugs have been intentionally developed to not have broad impacts, which could otherwise increase their risk of unwanted side effects.

On the flip side, old-school nutrition approaches have been used to identify diets, and foods within diets, that protect (or harm) population health. This long-used approach has resulted in today’s broad dietary guidelines intended to keep the majority of people healthy.

In contrast to pharmaceutical and whole-food nutrition approaches, the focus of most cellular health science has been around identifying natural molecules in our diets or bodies to safely support well-established cellular mechanisms that can improve healthspan and longevity. What makes cellular health so exciting is the benefit of pharma-like targeting of natural molecules for specific cellular and whole-body benefits, but with the broadness and safety of whole-food nutrition. Go, science.

Got it. What exactly are “specific cellular and whole body benefits” that makes cellular health so exciting?

While there are many ways to go about improving cellular health to improve our healthspan and longevity, the scientific literature rallies around two good starting points. One is a list, the other is a map.

First up, Lopez-Otin et al. defined a list of 12 “hallmarks of aging” that define, primarily at the cellular level, how we age. These hallmarks of aging are as follows:

1. Deregulated nutrient-sensing. Cells don’t respond to nutrients the way they should, causing imbalanced responses to food.
2. Mitochondrial dysfunction. The powerhouses of our cells aren’t working properly, resulting in less cellular energy.
3. Cellular senescence. Cells don’t develop or die properly, resulting in “zombie” cells that drive inflammation.
4. Stem cell exhaustion. The availability to make new cells, how we need them and when we need them, decreases. This means our renewal system is on vacation.
5. Altered intercellular communication. Cells don’t send the right messages to each other, resulting in whole-body imbalances.
6. Chronic inflammation. Ongoing, low-level inflammation (aka, “inflammaging”) results in an ongoing attack throughout the body that happens over decades.
7. Dysbiosis. Imbalanced microbes in the gut translate to imbalanced health.
8. Genomic instability. Increased mutations and alterations of DNA and chromosomes result in faulty genomic infrastructure.
9. Telomere attrition. Protective caps at the end of chromosomes shorten, resulting in increasing genomic instability (see above).
10. Epigenetic alterations. Chemicals that attach to our DNA to turn genes on and off… without our permission.
11. Loss of proteostasis. Mishandling of how proteins are made and broken down result in a buildup of misfit proteins.
12. Disabled macroautophagy. Decreasing ability to take out and recycle damaged stuff inside of cells makes our body like a teenager’s messy room.

Beyond these listed hallmarks of aging, there is also a KEGG map that describes a set of cell-based pathways that lead to the holy grail of improved longevity. This map is conveniently called the Human Longevity Regulating Pathway (or if you want to be fancy about it, it has the KEGG Pathway ID of hsa04211). A picture of this pathway is provided below, but core and central components of the human longevity pathway include:

• Activating AMPK, which not only supports healthy glucose control, but also is the gatekeeper to supporting healthy NAD+ and sirtuins, while also inhibiting mTOR.
• Inhibiting mTOR, which results in clearing out old, senescent cells and preventing “zombie cells” from agitating and angering our tissues.

Together, these pathways help to balance glucose metabolism, lower pro-inflammatory cytokines and protect mitochondrial function, all of which are (how about that?) also ways to reverse multiple hallmarks of aging… which then support longevity.

Thus, there are indeed a healthy number of specific cellular benefits understood to translate to whole body benefits, including our healthspan and longevity.

So, how are natural, bioactive molecules from our diet and bodies actually discovered to target cell-based aging and optimize our cellular health?

That’s where the science of metabolomics comes in. Metabolomics leverages advanced biochemical AND statistical analytics to help discover which molecules, among hundreds to thousands of small molecules present in our diet and serum, actively contribute to long-term health. Especially as they relate to cellular health. Extra-especially as they relate to cellular health mechanisms that support our healthspan and longevity.

While we can leverage bioactive molecules that are readily made by our bodies (aka, metabolites), of particular interest are bioactive nutrients. This is because our bodies are already hardwired to:

• Readily absorb these nutrients through the gut.
• Respond appropriately to these nutrients via receptors and many of the cellular health mechanisms listed above… which evolved over millions of years specifically to respond to nutrients (vs pharmaceuticals).
• Be safe.

As described by Jones et al. and others, nutritional metabolomics enables us to discover nutrients that can optimize cellular health. In their review, Asteria et al. concluded that the advanced biochemical and statistical analytical methods of metabolomics have been driving “a remarkable transformation” of nutrition research. So, pretty exciting stuff.