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

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.