According to this research published in “Nature Communications”, genetics is not the factor that most determines a person’s health as they age. Indeed, “age is the primary risk factor for many common human diseases”, explain the authors of the study from the University of California, Berkeley.

“As individuals age, many biological processes deteriorate, resulting in impaired function and disease,” they continue.

The research team measured the impact of genetics and ageing on 27 different human tissues taken from about 1,000 participants. The results showed that genetics mattered less as people aged.

Meanwhile, they found that the impact of ageing varied greatly – more than 20-fold – among tissues.

“Across all the tissues in your body, genetics matters about the same amount. It doesn’t seem like it plays more of a role in one tissue or another tissue,” said Peter Sudmant, UC Berkeley assistant professor of integrative biology.

“But ageing is vastly different between different tissues. In your blood, colon, arteries, esophagus and fat tissue, age plays a much stronger role than your genetics in driving your gene expression patterns.”

The study also indirectly indicates the role of people’s environment on ageing. In fact, lifestyles (air quality, diet, exercise, and so on) could account for up to a third of the changes in gene expression with age, the researchers note.

“Almost all human common diseases are diseases of ageing: Alzheimer’s, cancers, heart disease, diabetes. All of these diseases increase their prevalence with age,” Sudmant adds.

“What our study is showing is that as you get older, genes matter less. And so, perhaps, we need to be mindful of that when we’re trying to identify the causes of these diseases of ageing.”