Research may reveal why people can suddenly become frail in their 70s

A groundbreaking theory of ageing that explains why people can suddenly become frail after reaching their 70s has raised the prospect of new therapies for the decline and diseases of old age.

The scientists believe similar changes occur in organs throughout the body, from the skin to the brain, potentially underpinning why people often age healthily for decades before experiencing a more rapid decline in their 70s and 80s.

Working with scientists at the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute, Campbell and his colleagues studied blood cells across the age range from newborns to people in their 70s and 80s. They found that adults under 65 had a wide range of red and white blood cells produced by a diverse population of 20,000 to 200,000 different types of stem cells in their bone marrow.

Dr Elisa Laurenti, an assistant professor at the Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute and joint senior researcher on the study, said chronic inflammation, smoking, infection and chemotherapy could all produce stem cells with cancer-causing mutations.