Scientists have found the “Methuselah” genes whose lucky carriers have an increased chance of living up to 100 years even if they do not have a healthy lifestyle.
The genes seem to defend people against the harmful effects of smoking and an unbalanced diet and can even postpone the commencement of age-related disease like heart disease and cancer by up to 30 years.
No one gene is an assured source of youth. On the contrary, the mystery of longevity lies in adopting the correct “suite” of genes, according to recent studies conducted on centenarians and their family members. Similar combinations are exceptionally rare – only a single person in 10,000 is able to live till 100 years old.
The genes that have been discovered till now seem to provide a little additional protection to fight against the illnesses of old age. Centenarians seem to be endowed with a high chance of having various such genes that are embedded in their DNA.
According to Eline Slagboom, who is actually leading a research into 3,500 Dutch nonagenarians, people who have a long life do not have less ageing genes or disease genes. They rather have other genes that prevent those disease genes from activating. She is of the point of view that longevity is inherited and strongly genetic.
Slagboom and her team have recently published reports demonstrating how the physiology of people belonging to long-lived families is different from normal persons. Other studies that show the genetic reasons of those physical variations will soon be published.
Slagboom stated that the persons who tend to have an extended lifespan metabolise glucose and fats in a different way, their skin ages at a slower rate and they have a lesser occurrence of diabetes, heart disease and hypertension.
She further said that these factors are all genetically controlled. As a result one can see similar features in the children of elderly persons.
These Methuselah genes, which have been named after the biblical patriarch who had lived up to 969 years, are believed to consist of ADIPOQ, which is present in about 10 percent of young people but in about 30 percent of people who have lived more than 100 years. While the ApoC3 gene and the CETP gene are found in 10 percent of young people, they are present in nearly 20 percent of centenarians.
Several of those genes were found out by a research group of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine, New York, which was led by the Professor Nir Barzilai, succeeding an analysis of the genes of more than 500 centenarians and their children.
The researches illustrate that small changes in the make-up of specific genes can drastically increase the lifespan of a person. Nevertheless, environmental factors like the decrease in transmittable disease are a vital factor in the constant increase in the number of centenarians. The human genomes include around 28,000 genes that are regulated by a small number of so-called regulator genes.
At a conference, Dr Barzilai admitted to a Royal Society that the discovering such genes has allowed scientists to develop clear targets regarding the development of medicines that could stop or postpone the onset of age-related diseases, possibly increasing the lifespan of people and keeping them in good health for a longer period.
Doctor David Gems, who researches on longevity issues at the University College London, considers that treatments that will slow down the ageing process will become prevalent. He further advances that if scientists are able to know which genes control longevity they can find out what proteins these genes make and then target them with medicines. This will allow slowing down the ageing process. According to him, researchers need to reclassify it as an illness rather than natural, benign process.
“Ageing can be held responsible, to a high degree, for the majority of the agony and pain on earth. If we could find a solution to decrease that, then we are morally indebted to take it.”
A medicine that can fight against ageing might be consumed by millions of people, maybe as from middle age and onwards, could become the final blockbuster for the pharmaceutical industry.
Michelle Mitchell of Age UK stated that ageing is a normal part of life. The means is to make sure that we do not only extend life but instead extend the number of years of a healthy life so as to ensure that people can take pleasure in, not bear, their later years.
Source: Times Online
Fri, May 28, 2010
Anti Aging, Gerontology, Longevity