Is walking speed linked to cell death? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Walking speed is a commonly used measure for health, as it’s easy to do and doesn’t cost much. Now a study by Peter Abadir, a Johns Hopkins geriatrics expert, links walking speed to cell death, as measured by release of DNA into the circulation from mitochondria.

Abadir: Longitudinally the more you're losing of those mitochondria the more they are linked to worse gait speeds. That tells us that decline in mitochondrial energetics is one of the primary theories of aging. As we see more loss of mitochondria as what we are seeing in association with gait force and that cytokine TNF alpha receptor 1 was associated with significantly higher mortality. People died more as their inflammation levels were higher.  :29

Abadir has been focusing on so called circulating cell free DNA for years, linking increased amounts to Alzheimer’s disease, for example. He says the cell death, release of DNA, increased inflammation model makes sense and may provide an early warning of a person’s decline. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.