Recently, a group of research from University of Pittsburgh confirmed that they had found the secret behind a rodent’s fountain of youth.

In the University, there is a colony of progeria mice; mice which have been infected with a rare disease, inducing them to die from old age after 21 days. Yet, when the researcher group took these progeria mice, which were just about to die and injected them with stem cells taken from younger and healthier cousins the dying mice recovered and stayed alive for an addition 2 to 4 weeks.

Dr. Laura Niedernhofer, lead research said that the size and lifespan of these progeria mice could be triple through this method.

It is more than a century that researchers have been using mice for medical experiments. The mice used nowadays are tweaked and engineered, sharing blood, livers as well as brain tissues of other groups of species. The Pittsburgh progeria mice are, however, quite different from human and will probably not provide an immediate answer on how to increase human longevity.

Even so, engineered or so called re-made rodents are increasingly becoming alike to human; the disparity between man and mouse are slowly vanishing. Not only are the differences fading but researchers do nowadays even have a deeper knowledge of rodents than human and any other creature found on earth. For research, rodents are indispensable.

Some History: Mice & Laboratory Research

Ostensibly, the first vaccination against cancer was done on a mouse. In addition, mice do already have treatments for baldness as well as capsules to save them from Alzheimer’s disease. Furthermore, mouse is the only animal to have been involved in hoverboard-style levitation as well, they have had their brain simulated in a computer. They were even the first non-human mammal to have had their whole genome mapped.

Everything began in 1902, when a scientist named William Castle, brought pet mice to the Harvard Genetics Laboratory, and now rodents have been the back-bone of almost all the key drug treatments as well as medical procedures used in modern medical care. According to Dr. Janet Rossant, who is the senior scientist as well as chief research at Tornoto’s SickKids Research Institute, almost all the major drugs marketed today have been the result of mouse models in developing drugs.

Statistics are surprising; in 2010, a total of 1,132,706 mice had been killed in Canadian laboratories. In any year, mice make up to 50 percent of the animals used in laboratories, and the second most commonly used animal is rats.

There are strong similarities between humans and mice. They both have immune system, circulatory systems and skeletons. In addition, mice and human can suffer from similar health predicaments such as diabetes, cancer, heart diseases, and with some minor genetic modification, mice suffer even from Alzheimer’s disease and cystic fibrosis. In laboratory terms, using mice makes sense; they are cheap, have a lifespan of 12 weeks and are easy to maintain. In other words, in the term of a single semester, several studies can be completed.

According to Dr. Michele Martin, who is a veterinary director at the University of Victoria, apparently ‘almost any disease’ you can find you will come to know that there is ‘a mouse model’ that has been used to ‘describe it’.

In 1929, the Lab Mouse Pioneer C.C. Little, Jackson Laboratory was founded, which is today’s leading supplier of so called genetically modified mice. There are more than 5,000 different strains of mice in the laboratory. The cost for a classic ‘dilute brown’ mouse, which is the oldest in the catalogue is roughly $30 a piece. It was first developed in 1909.

In the beginning mice were changed in the same way as dog breeders had changed wolves into Chihuahuas; selective inbreeding. However, in the 1980s, genetic engineering was available and since then it has been much easier to tweak and create customized mice.

In 2002, the first non-human animal, the rodent had its whole genome mapped. The mice had 99% of its gene shared with humans. This gave rise to a whole new agenda of scientific research.

In modern research, mice are no longer kept in wire-bottom cages; they are placed in large collective cages. This makes the mice happier and for research, it is better to have normal animals involved in research for more accurate results.

From 2000 to 2009, the number of mice euthanized in Canadian Laboratory experiments amounted to 10 million, which are equivalent to 3,000 mice per day.

Universities in China, Korea and Japan have an annual memorial day every year to serve homage to all animals that have been killed in research as well as experiments. The ceremony is a way for research communities to show their indebtedness to laboratory animals; as today almost every pill bottle sold in pharmacy across the globe are the result of thousands of mice.

In 1929, penicillin was first discovered, but it was only in 1940 that Oxford University could understand how penicillin worked, and it was thanks to research conducted on mice. Similarly, meningitis as well as polio vaccines are mainly a result of the lab mice.

According to Dr. Rossant, mice are ‘very, very powerful systems’ to comprehend the distinct pathways of severe diseases. Yet, lab mice are not perfect. There is a dozen of cures available for cancer which works on mice but not yet on humans. In addition, Thalidomide is a drug that caused defects to almost 10,000 children, noting that it had no negative effects on mice.

The degenerative disease, ALS, which Stephen Hawking, the theoretical physicist suffers from have various rodent-based therapies – yet – the 70 years-scientist will probably not live long enough to see the therapy available for humans.

In the 100 years that mice have been used for research, the aim has always been to change the rodent into a so called tiny human being. Nowadays, rodents have human blood, humne immune system, human organs, and they even have the bad human traits such as violence, alcoholism, drug addiction as well as gluttony.

In December 2011, the U.S Based national Institute of Health, reduced funding for additional research on chimpanzees as a progressive step to prevent research on chimpanzee. Chimps have been considered to human to have laboratory experiments justified. Several countries around the world have mirrored the widespread discontent of chimpanzee research through the so called ‘save Gabon’

Yet, mice are increasingly becoming like human, as the engineered mice aren’t really as the traditional mice.

Source: national Post

Anti Aging, Bioscience, Stem cells

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He has been studying on the fact that biological immortality is very much possible. The study was entitled forever flies. The focus of the study was on fruit flies, by starving them and found that even after the lack of food the flies survived. Dr. Michael Rose started his career as a PhD professor at The University of Sussex, where he did his studies in aging and evolution. Brian a biologist was highly interested in the same topic and believed that the study could likely solve the problem of aging. His interest was in the lack of force of natural selection that happens in late age.

He also wrote a book on this subject and named the book ‘long tomorrow’. In this book, he claims that at late age the natural selection is weak. They did tests this on fruit flies and found that every new generation of fruit flies lived longer than their parents. The fruit flies they bred lived longer. This is how they knew the importance of natural selection. As natural selection does not work at late age, and the accumulation of bad genes cannot be removed by natural selection. In fact, they did the deliberate creation of flies that lived for a long time.

Dr. Rose in 1977 started to breed the flies; he got eggs from adult flies, which were 35 days old and hatched these eggs. He did experiment on 12 generations for about 60 weeks. His flies lived 10 percent longer than an average fly. Thus he found that by delaying the influence of natural selection, they can postpone the aging process. After this test, the question came into their mind if a drug or some other method on our bodies could create such an environment. A medication which mimics the same thing of altered our genetics, similarly to the flies.

Dr. Rose has conducted several on this topic. He did not only talk about fruit flies, but in fact, also about how to increase the health span among human. He said if we adopt a natural life style we can live longer. And he said that anyone can live long, if we live a healthy lifestyle. Habits such as consuming lots of sugar, being sedentary and stressed, or watching TV all the time are harmful for longevity.

An inappropriate lifestyle isn’t good for any age. He said that if we take diet which our ancestors used to take, we can live as long as they did. This diet includes vegetables, fruits, fish and nuts. Fast and junk food should be avoided. He said that as you turn 35, you should start taking the diet of a hunter-gatherer diet.

The key to longevity is to live a natural and healthy life.

A conference Speech by Dr. Michael Rose

Source: Science 20

Anti Aging, Gerontology, Lifestyle

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The research is now trying to find out about the mechanisms that provide continuous energy in these ageless animals. This information will let us know the reason of the many aging problems humans start to have after being healthy for many years. The research is going to be very beneficial for our aging population and will lead us to healthy and enjoyable later years of life. It will also be helpful to control the increasing expenses of social security and medical care.

Study of long-lived animals is not very common. The latest research of Ageless-Animals is reported to be for both general and gerontological audiences. Present research is related to topics from free-radical damage to DNA micro-array gene expression. The research was based on 14 pilot experiments, conducted at 12 universities located in United States and 2 in Europe.

It has been proposed by field researches that certain fish, turtles and whales have the ability to live an exceptionally long life. These observations were confirmed by age validation methods very soon, but the research of the genetic and biochemical reasons of this exceedingly long life span took place currently.

Negligible Senescence:

Due to the remarkable progress in aging research, in the last several years, many biochemical and genetic factors of aging have been discovered. But the study of long-lived animals progressed only recently. In 1932, Bidder stated that some fish do not show the signs of aging. This applies valid even when biological tools like histology were present. Yet, there is no knowledge of efforts made to try to examine those animals.

The study of biomedical gerontology can uncover the genetic and biochemical methods, used by long-lived animals, to freeze aging. The center of attraction of our studies is rockfish (genus Sebastus), one of the studies is on turtles, and future studies may be on whales. The founder of the “Hayflick limit” of cellular senescence, Leonard Hayflick, who is also a consultant to this project, stated that it is not only a unique project, but the area of its study is of indifference in bio-gerontology. Still there is a possibility that the information provided by this research will be more beneficial than any other research.

Background on Negligible Senescence:

In 1990, Finch invented the term “Negligible Senescence” to describe a slow or almost no aging. He recorded many animals to have this typical feature, such as rockfish, sturgeon, turtles, bivalves and possibly lobsters. Later, in 2001, in a paper issued from first Symposium on organisms with slow aging, Austad and Finch explained this rule further to test the presence of negligible aging. There should be no noticeable increase in death rate due to age or decrease in rate of reproduction after maturity and there should be no noticeable lessening, in the ability to resist diseases, with age.

In studying long-lived animals, it is of great importance to find out the precise age. Tag and recapture methods can be used to find out the minimum age in turtles. Examining the annual growth rings in otolith as well as ear bone is the most common method used to determine the age in fish (Bagenal 1974, McFarlane and Beamish 1995). In the recent two International Symposia, the main focus had been on the importance of otolith measurement in the study of fish life history (Secor et al. 1995, Fossum et al. 2000). Radiometric approach is another method used by fishery management to figure out an independent estimation of age. It uses a known radioactive decay series in the midst of bones. (Bennett et al. 1982, Campana et al. 1990). Aspartic acid racemization was used in a recent research, which showed that whales have an estimated lifespan up to 200 years (George 1999).

A lot of information has also been assembled from Zoos related to longevity. Alligators are known to live over 80 years, though it is not known if death was due to old age or environmental factors (Snider, A.T., Bowler, J.K. Longevity of Reptiles and Amphibians in North American Collections 1992, and also personal communication with the Cincinnati Zoo 2001). Green sea turtles may reach maturity at the age of 50 years in wild because of their Alaska Fish and Gamelow protein diet (Bjorndal 1985). It is very important because one of the factors of negligible senescence is delayed reproduction. In 1994, an issue on Gerontology was entirely focused on aging in cold-blooded vertebrates. The research showed that although some fish live longer, but many are short-lived and their aging is similar to mammals (Patnaik, B.K. (Ed.), 1994).

Most of the species enumerated above were the basic of the study of negligible senescence. But in 1997, the project received data, from the Alaska Fish and Game, which was based on randomly sampled Yelloweye rockfish, which were caught for commercial use at Sitka, Alaska. The provided chart indicated that 16% of the fish consumed by people is up to 50 years of age, and many over 100 years old. Due to the commercial availability of these long-lived animals, rockfish became the base of study for the prestigious institute; AgelessAnimals.org.

In 2001, the project’s Fish Ecologist, Gregor M. Cailliet, stated in a very interesting analysis that rockfish has members of different longevity in the same genus. He discovered that the maximum range of longevity in rockfish is from 12 years of age for the calico rockfish to 205 years for the rougheye rockfish. In future, the studies on the project will be based on the comparison of genetic and biochemical measurements between short-lived and long-lived rockfish.

Source: Ageless Animals Org.

Anti Aging, Gerontology, Health And Aging, Longevity

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Biologist Claudia Bieber, stated that hibernation was believed to be a challenge for mammals, but now it has been discovered that they not only have better chances of survival in winter. Their rate of survival in other seasons of the year, when they are active and awake, is also increased.

It was also discovered that survival rate of hibernators is 15% higher than non-hibernators. This applies particularly for mammals of small size like the dormouse.

These discoveries were made on the basis of studies and researches preceding it, and were published in the journal, ‘Proceedings of the Royal Society B’. The authors also discovered that the life cycle of mammals is much slower, they mature later, and their process of reproduction is also slow, as they carry their unborn for a longer period of time in comparison to non-hibernators.

Source: Monster and Critics

Anti Aging, Lifestyle, Longevity

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As terns age, they don’t exhibit signs of deteriorating physical abilities. There are other animals, aside from terns, also enjoying longevity with very few signs of aging such as crocodiles, alligators and even a number of tortoises may also be privileged to have found the secret to eternal youth. Despite the efforts made in the medical field in extending human life, advances have not yet found a way to put off the adverse onset of aging. Researchers hope that the discovery of the mysteries behind the slow aging of these animals, humans will be able to get the chance to taste that elusive fountain of youth one day.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the lifespan of an average American born in 2007 is 77.9 years. Humans weren’t always known to have a long life; in fact, 49.2 years was the average lifespan of human beings 100 years ago. Evidently, technology has influenced the aging process of the world’s human population.

Detailed mathematical models were used by Anne Baudisch, a biologist at Rostock, Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, to illustrate how the medical and technological innovations have paradoxically promoted the rapid effects of aging on people.

According to Baudisch, the process of getting older is known as aging, even animals and plants grow age with time. The only distinction between animals, like common terns, and humans is how getting older influences the possibility of dying.

Before medical and technological breakthroughs like vaccination, purified water and better living conditions significantly affected the human lifespan; humans had higher odds of dying during infancy, childhood and even young adulthood. This trend shows that not a lot of humans get to the more advanced age and die, and that the total percentage of people dying of old age was much lesser than in the industrialized nation’s modern population.

Baudisch discovered that different animal species have their own distinctive shape when she charted the risk of death overtime. Even among the groups of humans, they have their own unique shape. The hunter-gatherers’ shape formed like an asymmetrical U: moderately high during infancy, dipping a little bit during adolescence and young adulthood, and then rising again as they age, which is an entirely different shape for modern humans.

On February 14, Baudisch published these models in Trends in Ecology and Evolution which demonstrates that for Modern Swedes, their risk of death stayed very low and flat until their population gets to the age range of 50s-60s where it radically surged upward.

Baudisch views the radical rise in risk of death as a privilege that humans can enjoy. Other mammals aren’t exposed t aging since they aren’t spared from being gobbled up by a meat-eating animal, rather than seeing it as a curse.

Freshwater hydras are one example of animals that deal constantly with the risk of death during their lifespan. The terns’ risk of death, on the other hand, decreases as they age. It seemed ironic since the older tern has lower risks of dying than the younger one.

The healthiest offspring was produced by the most mature terns, and more likely to make it through the year compared to the younger ones. In fact, Nisbet’s 29-year-old tern was still breeding.

Biologists Pedro de Magalhães of the University of Liverpool and George Church of Harvard University in their 2005 article published in Physiology stated that reproduction is not optimized by aging, but by natural selection. When an offspring has been raised by an animal, the new member of the population adds to the burden of the limited supply of resources. Because of this, it is beneficial for the offspring if it had an aging and dying parent. However, as Magalhães realized, these animals that don’t show any signs of aging breed healthier offspring as they get older, which gives them the advantage of propagating more of their kind.

However, aging is not found all in the gonads. Years of research have discovered exciting evidence on cell aging. There are protective caps found in all chromosomes called telomeres, which tend to be really large when cells are young. When chromosomes are replicated, the process gradually cuts off the ends of these telomeres which are similar to using a photocopying machine – when making a copy, the edge of a page may get cut off. In a photocopy page, when there are too many words that are cut off, it would then be difficult to read. Just like the telomeres, cell dies when it becomes too short.

Based from Nisbet’s comprehensive study, his common terns have telomeres that shortened much more gradually compared to animals of the same size. The animal’s cells age more slowly when telomeres are cut off more gradually. Likewise, the terns have telomerase, an enzyme that add back small amount of telomeres that were sliced off. The majority of animals usually have their telomerase stop functioning soon after they were born.

However, Nisbet discovered that common terns’ telomerase function actively as they live, which gives tern the opportunity to replace their lost telomeres. There are different rates of losing telomeres for each species, and researchers are still working on finding out what influences the length of telomere in the different species of animals and plants.

The buildup of cell damage from metabolism is another main theory that explains the process of aging. When the body utilizes the food for energy, the process is the same as that of a continuous fire. Even the smallest fires lit in your home fireplace produce little amount of pollutants. In the body, these pollutants are called free radicals, they are small molecules that create a devastating impact on the body. These free radicals can bring about substantial harm to the cell. Denham Harman, the proponent of the idea in the 1950s, is one of the scientists who support the belief that aging is caused by the buildup of the free radical damage in the cell.

Even if there is still no existing proven scientific theory on the causes of aging, scientists have already started to make steps in preventing the damaging effects of aging. Caloric Restriction for Longevity is one of the most common and open-to-question approaches, in which a person must have 75% dietary intake of the standard recommended amount of calories, together with additional nutritional supplements. With this, people aim to hamper aging. The restriction of calories is not considered to be a fad diet, in fact, a number of animals and human research support this. The most important thing to be considered here is that this approach reduces the concentration of a hormone called insulin-like growth factor 1.

Found in Science Translational Medicine published on February 16, a study revealed that humans with genetic mutation causing them to produce a significantly lower amount of IGF1 had experienced practically no prevalence of age-related illnesses like cancer and diabetes and encountered minimal signs of aging. Pioneered by Valter Longo, a gerontologist at University of Southern California and Jaime Guevara-Aguirre, a biologist at the Ecuador’s Institute of Endocrinology, Metabolism and Reproduction, this research revealed the relationship between aging and growth.

According to Longo, when a living organism does not receive the signal to grow, its energy can be invested on the preservation and conservation of resources it already has. They devote their energy in its protective process. However, this does not necessarily mean that it would provide them exceptional lifespan.

“In this world, nothing is certain but death and taxes” is the quote made famous by Benjamin Franklin, and so far no studies made have ever refuted this statement. There is no way that we can beat death, but by researching on how animals with advanced age stay robust and healthy, scientists, at some point, may be able to make aging an alternative.

Source: Phys Org

Anti Aging, Longevity

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Stress is a mental devil; it leads to various outcomes, high blood pressure, heightens the risk of infertility and increases the pace of aging. Nevertheless, if stress would be eliminated its horrific calamities would still prevail.

Scientific research has proven that stress can be passed-down to offspring and through generations. Besides, stress is apparently not an exclusively human psychological effect; it is equally widespread in nature.

Rachel Yehuda, who is a neuroscientist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York City, says that textbooks on stress have to be rewritten. Stress is no longer considered as a transient effect it is rather a long-term consequence. In 1993, Yehuda established the first confirmation that stress is passed on through family generations. For instance, in 1993 when she had started a clinic to help Holocaust survivors suffering from psychological problems, she slowly found that the Holocaust survivors’ children also need psychological treatment. The matter was further investigated. It was found that children of Holocaust survivors were highly likely to suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The parents as well as the children had a lower than average volume of the hormone cortisol present in their urine. It was even more unexpected that the degree of PTST symptoms for the Holocaust survivor influenced the level of cortisol in their child’s urine. For instance, intense PTSD symptoms meant less cortisol present in their child’s urine.

In the body’s management of stress, cortisol has an important role to play. In case we are faced with a threat, the brain sends a message to the adrenal gland that is located just above the kidney, ordaining it to release hormones like adrenaline. The release of hormone results in higher heartbeat and breathing rates. In other words, it prepares our body for the threat (fight, etc.…). Once the threat is gone, the brain instructs the adrenal glands to emit cortisol. This hormone relaxes the stress response muscles, including some found in the brain’s hippocampus.

Neuroscientist Michael Meaney from McGill University in Montreal Canada had in an earlier research shown that rats that have been reared by a negligent mother would react differently to stress as adults. Young rats of a negligent mother are more prone to grow up with a fearful attitude. Besides, these rats had fewer hippocampal receptors tocorticosterone (cortisol for humans)

Meaney’s team did a comparative research for humans. Patrick McGowan who was a former student of Meaney had successfully collected brain tissue samples of 24 adults who had committed suicide. Twelve of the adults had been abused in their childhood. These abused victims had fewer cortisol receptors in comparison the remaining half.

In other words, rats and humans that have had experienced an early stressful life will have everlasting traces in their brain. There will be fewer cortisol receptors to stop stress. This reduction in sensitivity is related to what is known as ‘epigenetic changes’; It is an alteration in the chemical of our DNA (chemical that changes the activity of the genes while leaving the genes themselves intact). Besides, genetic changes (evolution) require million of years while epigenetic changes can be developed during a lifetime, so that organisms can, adapt faster than their genomes, to the environment.

Biochemist Susan Gasser who is from the Friedrich Miescher Institute for Biomedical Research in Basel, Switzerland, says that: “Epigenetics frees us from being a prisoner of our genes.”

Yehuda, proposed that the epigenetic mechanisms might be responsible for the relation prevailing between the PTSD symptoms of the children of the Holocaust survivors. It is an unparalleled suggestion as it claims that epigenetic changes can be transmitted from mother to a child and henceforth. Normally, most epigenetic marks fade out when sperm and eggs are formed. This allows new generation to start afresh. Nonetheless, stress related marks seem to travel from one generation to the next.

Is stress that robust? Is the epigenetic procreation of stress a failure in the system or does nature purposely support stress to offspring? Organisms with a more jittery and fearful attitude or so-called hyper-vigilant might have a greater chance of survival in comparison to their counterparts. This might the underlying biological reason why stress can be passed from one generation to another.

It is an orthodox concept but other studies have confirmed the same. Rudy Boonstra from the University of Toronto’s Centre for the Neurobiology of Stress says that these inherited stress response mechanisms are likely to hold answers to the dynamic food chains. For instance, in the boreal forest covering almost 50 percent of Canada, the model suit as a convenient explanation for predators like coyotes, lynx horned owls and preys such as hares. Fur traders (if lynx) had noticed a strange relation between predators and preys some three hundred years ago. For the hare, its population cycle went low to high and from high to low. The highest population density of hares was reached one time each decade. This equally applied to lynx. The only difference was that their population cycle lagged one or two years behind that of the hare.

Boonstra concluded after 30 years of evaluation on this mysterious population cycle. He says that when the numbers of preys (hares) are low and its predators are outnumbering them, the hares suffer from survival stress. The hare’s mothers are stressed. This is a very reasonable reaction, as their mortality risk is 95 percent in that stage of the population cycle.

Boonstra believes that, stress signature is passed on to offspring. The result is that these offspring grows up into hyper-vigilant adults. The result of having highly vigilant hares is that it becomes increasingly hard for the lynx to find food and as an outcome lynx start to starve to death. The lynx population does thereby fall. It is only then that the number of hares starts to experience an upswing. This process continues and as there is an increasing number of hares their level of stress start to fall off again, making them less vigilant (less stress).

Currently, Boonstra and McGowan are working together to examine the epigenetic mechanisms of the predators and preys. The psychological effects might have some natural reasons. If it was not for stress than the hare population could become extinct.

Yehuda says that there is still a wide-difference between humans and animals. A major difference is our longevity. Human does on average livelonger than most animals. This implies that a person might not be living in the same environment as their parent. There can thus be a mismatch in the programmed environment for the offspring. This can generate some social mismatch problems. For example, being a hyper-vigilance person might be an important characteristic for a prisoner in a concentration camp, but it would be a handicap in a peaceful modern city. – The children of the Holocaust survivor experienced that effect -.

Humans have a higher longevity due to the extent that we have nurtured and fostered a peaceful environment. However, when it comes to stress, changes in our environment are making use victims of our own triumph.

Source: Independent

Anti Aging, Lifestyle

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The lead author of the study Ronald DePinho and with his team of Harvard researchers has been able to rejuvenate the body of older mice. The elderly regenerated mice demonstrated improved sign of health as the aging process was reversed.

Currently, scientists do hardly comprehend the aging process. However, biologists and researchers believe that aging is a direct result of accumulating damage that occurs naturally to the body through free radicals. There are also environmental factors like smoking, eating habits and ultraviolet light that affect the speed of aging.

At Harvard Medical School DePinho and his team was able to demonstrate that age-related complications such as heart disease and dementia can be avoided if damaged organs are rejuvenated through an anti-aging therapy known as telomere shortening.

A body does normally have cells with a combination of 23 pairs of chromosomes. There is a protective cap on the end of chromosome. The protective end is known as telomere. However, as cells undergo cell division the telomeres get shorter and shorter. The process continues until the telomere becomes too short for the cell to function properly. In other words, the cell turns into a stagnant stage known as ‘senescence’ or the cell will die. The process of telomere shortening has since long been considered as a biological marker of the aging process.

DePhinho and his team did genetically alter the structure of mice to remove an enzyme known as telomerase. The enzyme called telomerase tries to put off the telomere shortening process. The laboratory tests demonstrated an early aging for the genetically manipulated mice. The mice did prematurely age and experienced infertility, internal damage to organs, loss of smell and a squeeze in the size of their brain. Nevertheless, these mice were given an injection to onset the telomerase enzyme. It was found that the tissues that were previously damaged got repaired and the aging process seemed to slowly reverse.

DePinho claims that the anti-aging therapy (telomere shortening) wasn’t an intervention that slowed down the aging process. The process did rather reverse the aging process itself. According to him, the findings can help to generate regenerative medicine that repairs human organs and therefore enhances the quality of life. It could even facilitate to augment human longevity but this remains unproven.

There were several aged mice that demonstrated a massive repair of organs within merely a month of the treatment. Even the brain experienced the growth of new neurons.

The therapy has been proven to work effectively for mice. The greatest challenge will be to make the treatment applicable to humans. Establishing a process that can slow aging can significantly reduce the risk of diseases such as cancer. For mice, telomerase can be produced during the whole lifespan of the mammal. However, for humans the production of telomerase is discontinued so that cells do not overpopulate and to prevent cancerous cells to be developed. The balanced generation of telomerase for the Harvard mice prevented cancer to be developed in these mice, even after the therapy had been completed.

According to DePinho, if the volume of telomerase was increased in human there could likely be two outcomes:

1. It could slow down the aging process – similarly as it does for mice –
2. It could increase the risk of cancer

In other words, applying telomere shortening therapy on human is still very risky. However, the treatment could likely be healthy if it was introduced to young people who have no cancer cells in their body.

David Kipling, who is a researcher at Cardiff University, says that human tissue ‘rejuvenation’ is a way to eliminate senescent cells or to prevent the deleterious effects that such cells have on organs and tissues. The study is very interesting but unfortunately mice aren’t perfect simulations of humans. It isn’t certain that telomerase reactivation used in mice will have the same effect on human; the elimination of senescent cells.

However, DePinho and his team expect to proceed with their research to make the therapy applicable to human. It will be a challenge to assure that similar treatment won’t lead to cancer in humans. The best-case scenario would be that telomerase reactivation therapy would improve health, quality of life and even longevity by delaying or even eliminating the onset of dementia, stroke and other old-aged diseases.

Tom Kirkwood who is the director of the ‘Institute for Aging and Health at Newcastle University’ stay concerns to the real implication of the findings. First of all, telomere shortening has been proven to be a factor of aging but not the only cause of aging and its associated diseases. The Harvard research used mice that had been genetically manipulated. It isn’t sure that rejuvenation effect would be the same in typical mice. Besides, telomerase reactivation is known to be highly linked with human cancer.

Source: Daily Tech, Nature and Article in Nature

Anti Aging, Longevity, Stem cells

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Organisms evolve through a chain of life, whereby organisms are connected to ancestors like parents and grandparents linking species back to a billion years. We are all interlinked to the first animals having lived in the ‘pre-Cambrian era’. In this sense, we can consider that animal’s reproductive cells are immortal. These immortal cells are known as germ-line cells and are responsible for the creation of offspring’s such as somatic cells; somatic cells are other cells in our body responsible for muscle growth, behaviour and metabolism. They are even responsible for the proliferation of new germ-line cells, which are present in reproductive species.

Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) Department of Molecular Biology recently made some revolutionary findings. They found that specific types of genetic mutation could radically increase the lifespan of C.elegans roundworm by inducing ‘mortal’ somatic cells to genes permitting the immortality feature of reproductive germ-line cells. The report will be published in the Journal Nature.

Sean Curran, a researcher in genetic at MGH Molecular Biology as well as the lead author of the study says that the success of achieving extreme longevity with mutated C.elegans represents a big step ahead. The germ-line features were successfully passed-on to somatic cells. Germ-line is known to have a better equilibrium than somatic cells. They are stronger in the sense that they resist stress as well as several types of damages. If we would be able to comprehend the molecular pathway supporting this state of equilibrium, it would significantly help to device therapies to safeguard one against age-related pathologies.

Curran is working together with Gary Ruykun at a laboratory of MGH emphasising their research on development, longevity, as well as metabolism of C.elegans, which is a small worm usually used to study the biological system. Ruykun and his team showed that it was possible to double as well as to triple the lifespan of C.elegans by inducing this particular mutation pathway.

Apparently, longevity-related mutations showed signs of enforcing the immune response as well as boosting-up the presence of gene expression via RNA interference (RNAi) in somatic cells. It is confirmed that germ-line reinforces our resistance to health hazards and stresses. The study examined whether germ-line mutation would prolong lifespan of C.elegans mutants.

The various experiments conducted showed that the longevity of the worms was increased via an insulin-like signalling pathway. The somatic cell had the expression of certain genes, which are usually only present in germ-line cells. The mutated C.elegans was strongly enforced against DNA damage and stresses in comparison to non-mutant c.elegans.

The study did also demonstrate that if the germ-line expression was dis-activated the increased lifespan of the worm would be eliminated.

According to Ruykun the senior author of the paper, the study demonstrated that the protective aspect of germ-line cells can significantly help in developing regenerative and repair mechanism.

Source: Harvard Science

Anti Aging, Immortality, Stem cells

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Tortoises are reptiles that can live to an advanced age. Their main secret for longevity is a low metabolism and not their slow speed. However, both low speed and metabolism are connected. It is a general rule. Most animals with a high metabolic rate tend to die early in comparison to those who burn energy slowly. In other words, the more responsive an animal is the higher will its metabolic rate be. This is so to supply sufficient energy to sustain its’ body activity.

An example could be the shrew or hummingbirds, which are highly active and live only to around 2 years. On the other hand, Giant Tortoises consume energy at a much lower pace and can therefore, live up to their eighteenth or twentieth decade. Jared Diamond who is an UCLA-based physiologist says that metabolic rates vary across species. The metabolic rate can within only the category of vertebrates differ by 10 million times.

Researchers commonly measure animals’ metabolic rate by analysing the level of oxygen they gulp while they walk on treadmills. According to Armand Leroi who is an evolutionary developmental biologist at Imperial College, London says that measuring metabolic rate is “trickier with some animals than others”

Scientists do know that low metabolic rate is associates with longer lifespan. However, it is still unknown why a drop in metabolic rate is really connected with longevity.

There is a general opinion that aging is caused by free radicals, which are reactive molecules emitted in the body when fuel (food, etc….) is burned. According to Leroi, there are a number of proofs showing that free radicals do cause oxidative and DNA damage.

The controversy is that slowing down the metabolism would not assure longevity. According to Leroi, you would still “die from any number of things”.

Source: Guardian

Bioscience

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Studies conducted on ants to apes or insects to animals, has projected that every single species have their own respective personality. There are those who are aggressive while others might be timid. Natural biologists have suggested that character is something that is built up during a life history. The underlying thought is that aggressive and bold animals tend to use more energy and hence their lives are shorter. On the other hand, animals which are calm tend to reproduce later in life and therefore, live longer.

Evolutionary experiments are tremendously hard to conduct on a living organism that survives longer than a fruit fly. However, Vincent Careau, an evolutionary biologist from Université de Sherbrooke in Canada proposed to use dogs in evolutionary experiments. According to Careau, this new evolutionary prototype for experiments is bringing new ideas to evolutionary studies. There are several categories of dogs, with diverse traits. This has given scientists a new agenda to discover; Dogs sitting near the sofa; dogs managing a herd of sheep; and notorious dog chasing foxes to the peril.

Assimilating data from earlier studies, Careau could analyse the differed breeds’ energy expenditure as well as longevity factors. The body size was a major factor accounted in the study, but apart from that Careau examined the relation of obedience, aggressiveness and activity.

In the June issue of The American Naturalist, Careau revealed that dogs that were more obedient had a greater survival chance. For example, the German Shepherds & bichon firsés, lived longer than expected when relying on their body size. However, dogs such as Pomeranians and beagles, that are less easy to tame and to teach, tend to die earlier than other dogs of the same size..

There was an alike association identified for energy expenditure. Dogs being calmer, using less energy per kilogram, like Labradors and Newfoundlands had a better longevity prospect than aggressive dogs such as Great Danes and Fox terriers. According to Careau, individuals who created these breeds were choosing dogs in respect to personality. They did not consider whether the dogs lived long or ate much. This is why Careau, believes that metabolic demands and personality are somehow associated genetically.

Franjo Weissing, a theortical biologist from University of Groningen in the Netherlands says that “It’s an intriguing finding”. He associated the finding to the philosophy to “live fast and to die Young”. Weissing, was a co-author of a significant paper in 2007 analysing relations of “how tradeoffs in life history between living speed and longevity can lead to the evolution of animal personality”. It is interesting to note that, this research is in-line with what is proclaimed by the natural selection models.

Nevertheless, everyone does not agree to the idea that longevity for dogs is related to the evolution in nature. Joseph Williams, physiologist, of Ohio State University in Columbus, consider that dogs are different in nature regarding longevity. For example, an Elephant survives for decades, whereas a mouse lives roughly only 7 to 9 months. However, a Saint Bernard is outlived by a small Chihuahua.

Source: Science Magazine

Anti Aging, Bioscience, Longevity

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