Looks like dreams of longevity are starting to come true. According to scientists, in a few years humanity will have a chance to stop age-related changes and prolong an active life.
Recently, the field of life extension science has been actively developing. Imagination readily draws the image of wrinkled billionaires going to cryogenic freezing. But is it possible to imagine a pill for eternal life? Well, or at least a medicine that will slow down the aging process, prevent fragility and fragility of bones, memory loss, cancer and other diseases that poison life in old age.
Perhaps the science of senolytics, a new and long-awaited field of anti-aging medicine, will provide answers to these questions. Many of the world’s leading gerontologists have already conducted experiments with animals and are starting clinical trials in humans. To date, the results are promising. If research continues successfully, the current middle-aged generation will stand a chance of living longer and staying active for many more years.
healthy aging
Most scientists studying the problem of longevity see themselves as a task not only to increase life expectancy. They seek to prolong the “health period”. To help people reduce illness and painful manifestations of age. This is also of great importance for the economy, since with an increase in life expectancy, spending on pension payments will exceed income from taxes of the working population.
“The Healthy Aging Project can be of great benefit to both elderly patients and the state,” said Ming Xu, associate professor at the Center on Aging at the University of Connecticut. Since aging is the biggest risk factor for most chronic diseases, his lab’s goal is to find new ways to slow down the process and prevent disease at the same time.
“Cure for old age”
Ming Xu and his group are working on senolytics. These are drugs that target aging and “broken” cells. So-called “zombie cells” linger in the body, secrete inflammation-causing substances, and turn healthy cells into senescent ones, leading to tissue damage.
Ming Xu worked on a team at the Mayo Clinic, an academic medical center in Minnesota, where a “genetic trick” was demonstrated in 2011 to get rid of senescent cells and improve the health of prematurely aged mice. In 2016, the same group conducted an experiment with mice that aged naturally. The illustration with the results of the experiment shows two elderly rodents from the same litter. The one who received the senolytic and was “cleared” of aging cells looks much more vigorous and healthier than his fellow.
Experiments on humans
The results of the research have attracted large investors who are ready to invest millions in the development of senolytics for humans. Politicians and businessmen made statements about the significance of the discoveries for humanity and urged scientists to continue their work. However, the “genetic trick” that worked in mice turned out to be unsafe for humans.
To work in this direction, a new company was created, which began to raise funds to develop a drug to safely cleanse the human body of “zombie cells”.
Aging is a natural process that triggers complex systemic degradation. Scientists faced the need to determine what exactly from the whole complex of processes the work of new drugs should be directed to. Trials of senolytics initially target specific conditions, such as macular degeneration, glaucoma, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.
Most of the developments are still in their early stages, with rodents or human tissue being experimented on in a petri dish. However, in February 2019, a human study was conducted.
This is a completely new area of research. “Therefore, it is extremely fascinating,” says Sebastian Gronke from the Max Planck Institute for Biology in Cologne. — Senolytics are especially interesting because they act on older people. This makes it possible to see results faster.” Scientists do not need to collect data for several decades.
Ming Xu remarks, “With senolytics, you don’t have to treat patients every day. It is enough to take the medicine once a week or even a month. This is a huge advantage.” In other areas of medicine, senolytic drugs offer interesting prospects. For example, in the treatment of obesity or insulin resistance. Sebastian Gronke also argues that senescent cells play an important role after cancer treatment, developing during radiation and chemotherapy: “Senolytics will help mitigate the side effects of cancer treatment.”
Another issue hotly debated by scientists is the age at which it is time to start taking drugs. “Senolytics are not needed in youth, the effect will be zero,” says Ming Xu. “But they will also not be of any use if taken too late. When to use senolytics is a huge question that we must answer over the next decades.”
The scientist himself injects drugs into mice, whose age corresponds to 70-80 years of human life. “Some people age very quickly, and some people age slowly,” Ming Xu recalls. It is likely that with people the issue will be resolved individually, and a blood or urine test will show when to start an anti-aging program.
Affordable ways to delay aging
To date, the results of research on life extension look promising. However, many issues have not yet been studied, clinical trials are under development, and the magic “anti-aging pill” available to everyone will not appear soon. According to some estimates, this may take from five to twelve years.
While humanity, with bated breath, follows the developments in the scientific world, everyone somehow has to put up with the inevitability of aging. What can we do now, while the research is not completed?
We can lead a healthy lifestyle. For example, eat right. Gronke recommends limiting the calorie content of foods in adulthood. Tests on mice showed that animals whose diet was limited and balanced lived 30-50% longer than those rodents who ate as much as they wanted. “It is also known that the first group of animals had fewer senescent cells than their peers,” adds the scientist.
He recommends reducing the amount of animal protein consumed – for example, eating meat once a week, and making vegetables the source of protein in the diet.
Obviously, the risk of age-related diseases also increases with a sedentary lifestyle and alcoholism. Exercising and breaking bad habits will also help prolong your time of activity in adulthood.