There’s never going to be some kind of a magical potion that makes you live longer. However, scientists are looking at all the ways that could increase the lifespan and maybe solve aging. Every little piece of that puzzle matters. For example, there are genes that have been previously found to make fruit flies live 10 % longer. Do these genes do the same for people?
There are genes that could be targeted in order to slow down aging and promote longevity in people. Image credit: Illymarry via Wikimedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
Those genes can be found in people – in our bodies they are involved in the protein synthetic machinery of our cells. In other words, they are essential for life, because they are thoroughly involved in building components of our cells. However, their expression is not always the same – they are an example of antagonistic pleiotropy, where genes that shorten our lives are selected for in evolution if they help us early in life and through our child-bearing years. Previous studies, however, showed that these genes extend lifespan in small organisms and now researchers at UCL showed that they could do the same in people.
Karoline Kuchenbaecker, one of the authors of the study, said: “Ageing research in model organisms, such as flies, and in humans are often separate efforts. Here we are trying to change this. In flies we can experimentally manipulate ageing genes and investigate mechanisms. But ultimately, we want to understand how ageing works in humans.”
A team of scientists reviewed genetic data from previous studies involving 11,262 people. All of these people lived an exceptionally long life. Scientists discovered that people with reduced activity of certain genes were more likely to live very long lives. As you might imagine, those were the same cell-building genes that allow fruit flies to live 10 % longer. In other words, researchers have discovered that inhibiting these genes may also increase longevity in people.
The activity of those genes were linked to their expression in specific organs, including abdominal fat, liver, and skeletal muscle. However, the effect described in the new study was not linked to a single age-related disease. In other words, inhibiting these genes has a wide-spread effect on the human body and improves longevity. Although in fruit flies this effect accounts for around 10 % increase in lifespan, scientists are still to figure out what can be achieved in humans. But there are medicine available that can correct the expression of these genes, so these questions will be answered with time.
10 % increase in longevity in humans would be a huge achievement. That is 6-8 years of extra time. However, achieving this safely is not going to be easy even knowing these genes that could be targeted in a novel anti-aging therapy.
Source: UCL