How COVID-19 Accelerates Brain Aging and 1 Way to Protect Yourself

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Is it merely a coincidence that COVID-19 and aging are both accompanied by cognitive decline? Could COVID-19 alone cause aging? Do aging and COVID-19 combine to make cognitive function worse, or do they impair cognitive function separately? What can we do to prevent cognitive decline? This paper will examine these questions.

Summary of Key Facts

• COVID-19 accelerates brain aging and increases the risk of dementia even after two years in severe cases.
• Researchers found common ground at the genetic level for both COVID-19 and aging.
• Meditation can help preserve brain function and volume at the genetic level.

COVID-19 Accelerates Brain Aging and Increases Risks of Dementia

A large-scale UK study published in Lancet Psychiatry analyzed a two-year retrospective cohort including 1,284,437 patients. It revealed that the risk of dementia was significantly higher in the COVID-19 group than in the control group. Moreover, this risk remained higher even two years after recovery.

Risk of dementia increases even after two years in COVID-19 patients. Lancet Psychiatry

Another UK study evaluated the cognitive function of 46 patients with severe COVID-19 infection.

These patients had a significant decline in attention, complex problem-solving skills, and memory. Their cognitive deficits were equivalent to aging by two decades and losing 10 IQ points.

Profile of cognitive deficits after severe COVID-19 similar to more than two decades of age-related decline. eClinical Medicine

How COVID-19 Accelerates Aging

Research in Europe investigated the correlation between COVID-19 infection and aging. The authors compared the brain images in seven hospitalized patients in the acute phase, one month later, and six months after COVID-19 onset.

During the acute phase, all seven patients presented severe cognitive dysfunction and prominent low metabolism condition in the frontal cortex.

After one and six months of recovery, though symptoms improved in seven patients, they still reported abnormal cognitive function. Their brain images displayed lower metabolism status in the frontal cortex area.

The long-term changes in brain structure and function suggested that COVID-19 infection might be responsible for persistent cognitive and behavioral symptoms.

Molecular-level Explanation of Aging

Scientists have discovered that our internal epigenetic clock controls human experiences of birth, aging, illness, and death. It is similar to the observation that everything in our universe has its cycle of formation, stasis, degeneration, and destruction.

Cells become senescent as we age. That means they stop dividing and enter a stasis. Instead of dying off as they usually would, they persist but change shape and size and secrete inflammatory molecules that cause other nearby cells to become senescent.

In an article published in Nature Reviews Genetics, Steve Horvath, a professor of human genetics and biostatistician at the University of California–Los Angeles, concluded that as people age and have more senescent cells, there are characteristic changes in the methylation status of human DNA. DNA methylation could regulate the gene expression level.

Genes are like seeds lying dormant in the soil. Some will grow, but some will not. The “switches,” including methylation switches, determine whether these seeds will succeed.

Aging Genes Regulated in COVID-19 Patients

Recent research by Maria Mavrikaki at Harvard Medical School has found convincing evidence that COVID-19 is causing brain aging at the gene level.

Researchers performed a complete gene sequencing analysis in 54 postmortem brain samples. Results showed striking similarities in gene expression patterns between COVID-19 samples and naturally aged controls.

It demonstrated that those genes up-regulated in aging were also up-regulated in severe COVID-19 infection; likewise, other genes down-regulated in aging were also down-regulated in severe COVID-19.

To further validate the results, the researchers collated gene-wide datasets from five independent aging cohort studies and confirmed this association.

Mavrikaki’s research showed that the cognitive deficits reported in COVID-19 patients might result from aging-associated changes in brain structure and gene expression.

Genes expression in five independent aging cohorts was associated with that in COVID-19 cases.

Meditation Can Preserve Brain Function and Volume

The work by Mavrikaki is preliminary but informative. It could guide treatment for people who have lingering cognitive difficulties after COVID-19.

Research in 2014 analyzing a large sample (n = 100) of long-term meditators and control subjects aged between 24 and 77 years revealed that meditation could preserve brain volume.

A 2017 study suggests long-term meditation could reduce age-associated structural and functional brain changes. For example, researchers found increased gray matter volume and brain glucose metabolism markers in elderly expert meditators compared to controls.

A 2020 review summarized 25 published studies on mindfulness meditation and confirmed the effects of mindfulness meditation on increasing brain size, based on brain imaging studies and cognitive function assessment.

Meditation Can Slow the Aging Process at the Gene Expression Level

Furthermore, meditation could influence the expression level of genes.

As reported previously, a study focused on subjects practicing mindfulness and compassion meditation revealed that the aging rate measured at the genetic level in meditators significantly decreased.

Meditation could slow down aging acceleration. Psychoneuroendocrinology

In a follow-up study, the same researchers showed that even short meditation breaks could affect the methylation level of genes associated with immune response, metabolism, and aging.

Aging and COVID-19 share the same types of intracellular pathways related to glucose metabolism, neuronal communication, and inflammation. Because the same types of pathways are also regulated by meditation, practicing meditation can have a profound, positive effect on your health.

One key feature of epigenetic information is its potential reversibility.

In the studies above, the aging rate in meditators significantly decreased. Meditation every day has the potential benefits to slow down the aging process and reverse COVID-19 disease at genetic levels.

Conclusion

Aging and severe COVID-19 have epigenetic-level connections.

Meditation practice can target the gene expression involved in both aging and COVID-19. Accordingly, meditation can prevent or reverse COVID-19-induced dementia, cognitive decline, and COVID-19-induced aging. Even for people who have not experienced COVID-19 infection, meditation has many benefits, including slowing the process of cognitive decline.