Universal relation for life-span energy consumption in living organisms: Insights for the origin of aging

Metabolic energy consumption has long been thought to play a major role in the aging process (Pearl, The rate of living. University of London Press, London, 1928). Across species, a gram of tissue expends approximately the same amount of energy during the lifespan on average (Speakman, J Exp Biol 208:1717-1730, 2005). Energy restriction has also been shown to increase the maximum lifespan (McCay et al. J Nutr 10:63-79, 1935) and to retard age-associated changes (Weindruch and Walford, The retardation of aging and disease by dietary restriction. CC Thomas, Springfield, 1988). However, there are significant exceptions to universal energy consumption during the lifespan, mainly found by interclass comparison (Ramsey et al. Free Rad Biol Med 29:946-968, 2000; Atanasov, Trakia J Sci 10(3):1-14, 2012). Here, we present a universal relation that relates lifespan energy consumption to several physiological variables, such as body mass, temperature and the ratio of heart rate to respiratory rate, which have been shown to be valid for similar to 300 species representing different classes of living organisms, from unicellular organisms to the largest mammals. This relation has an average scattered pattern restricted to factors of 2, with 95% (2-sigma) of the organisms having departures of less than a factor of pi from the relation, despite the difference of similar to 20 orders of magnitude in body mass, reducing any possible interclass variation in the relation to only a geometrical factor. This result can be interpreted as supporting evidence for the existence of an approximately constant total number N-r similar to 10(8) of respiration cycles per lifetime for all organisms studied, effectively predetermining the extension of life through the basic energetics of respiration (quantified by t(life) = N-r/f(resp)); this is an incentive to conduct future studies on the relation of such a constant number N-r of cycles per lifetime due to the production rates of free radicals and oxidants or alternative mechanisms, which may yield definite constraints on the origin of aging.

Automated summary

The study reveals a universal relationship between metabolic energy consumption and physiological variables such as lifespan, body mass, temperature, and heart/respiratory rate ratio. The findings support the existence of a constant total number of respiration cycles per lifetime, which determines the extension of life through basic energetics of respiration.