Aaron Hartman, MDFunctional Medicine Specialist | Clinical Researcher

Factors that Affect Aging: Alterations and Nutrient Sensing

9 Oct 2023 · 1 min

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0:56

Short excerpt from a YouTube lecture by Aaron Hartman, MD explaining that aging impairs cells' ability to sense and utilize nutrients (vitamins B12, folate, D, C, minerals), creating a feed-forward cycle that accelerates aging. The speaker cites the MTHFR gene as a concrete example affecting folate utilization and recommends metabolic testing to identify and address individual nutrient-insensitivities with targeted supplementation.

Chapters

Alterations and nutrient sensing. So as the aging process happens, it can be sped up. So you might have vitamin B, B12 or folic acid in your body, for example, but your body can't utilize it and can't use it and it doesn't work properly. This is altered nutrition sensing. One of the most well known things related to this is actually the MTHFR gene. It's related to how your body uses folic acid. This is one of the reasons why folate's put in food and prenatal vitamins have folate in it. Because with this gene defect, your body does not use folate quite as well, even if you have it in your diet. What happens is our cells as we age can have a similar effect with all your vit, vitamin D, vitamin C, your B vitamins, minerals, et cetera. And so they just don't work quite as well. And it's almost like aging begets aging. So as your cells get a little older, they don't sense the nutrients quite as well, so they don't work quite as well. So you age a little quicker and just has this feed forward cycle. So finding the weaknesses in your metabolism, addressing those through metabolic testing, can actually help you have a focused targeted nutrient program that actually helps with your own personal nutrient insensitivities.