Role of Diet and Nutrition on the Alteration of the Quality and Quantity of Stem Cells in Human Aging and the Diseases of Aging

Abstract

An integrative synthesis of concepts and an explosion of experimental and epidemiological findings allow new insights as to how the interactions of genetic, environmental, dietary, cultural (social, psychological, economic) factors can influence the aging and diseases of aging processes. Although the net effect of the best dietary maintenance of homeostatic control of cell proliferation, cell differentiation and apoptosis, systems breakdown of the human being and death will inevitably be the ultimate end result. Reduction of the quantity of the stem cell pool in any tissue will affect the "aging" of that organ. This, in turn, will affect the homeostatic maintenance of the organ systems of the human. Clearly, not all organs of the body age uniformly. The quality of the stem cells in any organ, depending on circumstances, can contribute to various disease pathogeneses. In the case where the quality of the stem cells is altered in utero or early postnatal development by some mutagenic mechanism that could lead to the initiation step of carcinogenesis, then the individual can, to some degree, control the fate of those prenatally and early postnatally-derived initiated stem cells by choosing those environmentally and dietary factors that either enhance or prevent the clonal expansion of these initiated stem cells during the promotion phase of carcinogenesis. This might explain the Barker hypothesis which suggests that prenatal and early postnatal exposures to toxic agents can lead to diseases later in life.

Evolution of Energy Metabolism, Stem Cells and Cancer Stem Cells: How the Warburg and Barker Hypotheses Might Be Linked

“…The "Barker Hypothesis" (73) speculates that many chronic diseases, later in life, might be the result of embryo/fetal exposures during in utero exposure/behavior of the mother. It was then hypothesized that the underlying mechanism for this "Barker Hypothesis" could be the modulation of adult stem cells (74)(75)(76). This, then, could increase or decrease the risk of initiation of cancer later in life.…”

“…Even other cultural factors, such as early pregnancies to reduce breast cancers, would have influenced the reduced risk for these cancers. In today's cultures, postponing marriage and pregnancies, together with poor diets, might contribute to the increased risk to breast cancers of the modern age (75,76).…”

Do genetically modified crops affect animal reproduction? A review of the ongoing debate

“…As it is well known, alterations in dietary agents during the pre-mating period will affect oocyte maturity, blastocyst yield, prenatal survival and the number of offspring born alive (Trosko, 2008;Ashworth et al, 2009). Therefore, given the characteristics of GM crops, DNA and proteins are broken down rapidly into small fragments by digestive enzymes: DNA into fragments and nucleotides within the digestive tract; proteins into polypeptides, peptides and amino acids (Faust and Glenn, 2002).…”

MicroRNA-141-3p plays a role in human mesenchymal stem cell aging by directly targeting ZMPSTE24

“…Adult stem cells present in mammalian organs are essential for tissue generation, maintenance and injury repair throughout adult life. Similar to other somatic cells, adult stem cells experience lifelong exposure to intrinsic and extrinsic factors, throughout the lifetime of the organism, which lead to an age-associated decline in their number and function (Janzen et al, 2006;Kasper et al, 2009;Rao and Mattson, 2001;Trosko, 2008).…”