Elevated levels of lactic acid are a symptom of aging brains – at least in mice, reports New Scientist.
Jaime Ross from the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm and colleagues studied the relationship between aging and DNA damage in the mitochondria of mouse cells (mitochondria provide energy to cells).
Scientists modified the mitochondria to obtain a strain of mice that aged prematurely. Studies of both this strain and healthy mice have shown that the amount of time lactic acid levels in their brains doubled was related to the rate of aging.
Since lactic acid is a product of metabolism, Ross’s team speculated that age-related damage to the mitochondria might affect the metabolic process. Indeed, the brains of both varieties of mice showed damage to the genes responsible for regulating lactic acid levels (PAP).