Scientists are excited by treatment that switches off a vital protein. It has increased lifespan in mice, dubbed ‘supermodel grannies’, and is already undergoing human trials
Gerry Gajadharsingh writes:
“No doubt one of the Tech Bros will be looking at this research and contemplating buying the company after reading the article in The Times!
While they are at it why not try and manufacture medi-chlorians. If you are a Star Wars fan, you might remember
“Without the midi-chlorians, life could not exist, and we would have no knowledge of the Force. They continually speak to us, telling us the will of the Force. When you learn to quiet your mind, you’ll hear them speaking to you.”
―Qui-Gon Jinn, to Anakin Skywalker
Whilst we wait to see if this particular drug given to mice to extend their lives can actually be applied to humans without mucking around with the rest of human physiology, on a more serious note, the fact that the particular drug targets inflammatory pathways, in particular interleukin-11 (IL-11), builds on a lot of existing research showing that chronic ongoing and often low level inflammation is destructive to the body in many areas, including possibly/probably accelerating aging.
The problems with drugs, is that we all have individual physiologies, and it is rare that any particular drug works in 100% of patients, sometimes the effect can be dose dependent but of course the higher dosage the more risk of causing harm.
Common examples are:
Ibuprofen (Nurofen)
Efficacy: Approximately 50-70% of patients experience pain relief.
Acetaminophen (Paracetamol)
Efficacy: Effective in about 50-60% of patients for mild to moderate pain.
Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors (SSRIs) like Sertraline (Zoloft)
Efficacy: About 50-60% of patients experience significant improvement in symptoms.
Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors (SNRIs) like Venlafaxine (Effexor)
Efficacy: Similar to SSRIs, around 50-60%.
There are of course more natural ways of controlling inflammation and one of my favourites is through the principles of Metabolic Balance. Balancing blood sugar minimises the insulin response, and elevated levels of insulin tends to also regulate other inflammatory cytokines. So, for me following the principles of Metabolic Balance and sometimes an individualised Metabolic Balance program, for many patients tends to be the best anti-inflammatory approach to diet that I know about.
From a supplement perspective, I tend to favour curcumin (which is the active ingredient of turmeric), as my go to natural anti-inflammatory.
Notable paragraphs from the article in The Times below are
A drug that can increase the lifespan of mice by over a fifth may also be beneficial in staving off human ageing, scientists have said.
The drug switches off a protein called interleukin-11 (IL-11). The protein is important in early life, helping bones and joints develop. Levels of it increase in the human body, however, as we get older, and it contributes to higher levels of inflammation, and the researchers say it flips several biological switches that control the pace of ageing.
We should always be careful when suppressing a single protein seems to slow down the ageing process in lab mice—perhaps its role is more critical in the wild
The finding is the latest to show that controlling inflammation, overactivation of the immune system, may be a way of preventing age-related conditions.
This interesting finding is entirely in keeping with inflammation being a hallmark of ageing and agents that reduce it improve symptoms of ageing.”
Tom Whipple
The Times
A drug that can increase the lifespan of mice by over a fifth may also be beneficial in staving off human ageing, scientists have said.
A study found that mice given the treatment were leaner, fitter, less prone to cancer and lived for months longer — in what the scientists called a “tantalising” finding for human treatments.
The drug switches off a protein called interleukin-11 (IL-11). The protein is important in early life, helping bones and joints develop. Levels of it increase in the human body, however, as we get older, and it contributes to higher levels of inflammation, and the researchers say it flips several biological switches that control the pace of ageing.
The finding is the latest to show that controlling inflammation — overactivation of the immune system — may be a way of preventing age-related conditions. The drug is already being trialled in humans, for treating lung conditions, but the study, published in the journal Nature, suggests that holding back ageing could be another benefit.
When given to the mice at 75 weeks — the mouse equivalent of about 55 human years — they lived to 156 weeks, compared with 121 weeks in those who did not receive it. The treated mice became known as “supermodel grannies” in the lab because of their youthful appearance.
The finding is the latest to show that controlling inflammation, overactivation of the immune system, may be a way of preventing age-related conditions.
“These findings are very exciting,” said Professor Stuart Cook, from Imperial College London and Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.
“The treated mice had fewer cancers and were free from the usual signs of ageing and frailty, but we also saw reduced muscle-wasting and improvement in muscle strength. In other words, the old mice receiving anti-IL-11 were healthier.”
It was promising that side effects seemed low, and it was already being tested in people, he said. “Previously proposed life-extending drugs and treatments have either had poor side-effect profiles, or don’t work in both sexes, or could extend life, but not healthy life, however, this does not appear to be the case for IL-11.”
The drug is not the first to produce dramatic longevity benefits in mice. Another, rapamycin has in some experiments shown even more spectacular results, but those have not yet been translated into humans.
Dr Andrew Steele, a longevity scientist and author of Ageless: The New Science of Getting Older Without Getting Old, said: “This is the latest in dozens of ways that scientists have found to slow down the ageing process in mice — and, while it is just in mice so far, every additional success increases the odds that one of these approaches will be keeping human beings healthier for longer one day.”
He said we should still be wary of unexpected effects. It may be, for instance, that the protein has other uses, perhaps in fighting off infection. This may not be apparent in mice that live in a clean laboratory.
“We should always be careful when suppressing a single protein seems to slow down the ageing process in lab mice—perhaps its role is more critical in the wild … However, you could argue that humans are more like lab mice than their wild cousins, cossetted in our modern, temperature-regulated environment with abundant food, so as a cossetted modern human I eagerly await further results.”
Venki Ramakrishnan, from the MRC Molecular Biology Laboratory in Cambridge and author of Why We Die, said that whether it results in a drug or not, the work gives us an insight into the key processes and trade-offs behind ageing.
“This interesting finding is entirely in keeping with inflammation being a hallmark of ageing and agents that reduce it improve symptoms of ageing,” he said. “It is also an example of how factors that help early in life, in this case by promoting growth of certain tissues, can lead to ageing later in life if poorly regulated. This is again in keeping with the idea that evolution will often select for things that benefit us early on even if it causes us to age later.”