Detects compounds in vegetables and chemotherapy drugs that slow down aging

We have found the reason for the cells to age. Things like DNA damage, chromosome shortening and lack of proliferation can cause cells to close - they don't die, but stop dividing and stay in one place.

However, the truth is that we do not have a convincing idea that explains an organism's aging. It may be the cumulative effect of many aging cells , or something else involved in the age countdown process.

Now, new research has revealed part of the answer, that it may be a combination of both theories. Testing in mice found a small number of aging cells that stimulated their aging. The idea is that if we find a drug that targets these cells, we can prevent the aging process.

Testing these two drugs on mice, scientists have seen them reduce mortality and some age-related symptoms. The average life expectancy of mice increased by 36%.

We don't have a convincing idea that explains the aging of people and organisms in general.

What happens when injecting old cells into young mice?

Cells are constantly damaged, either by exposure to the environment or by the by-products themselves after the metabolism they create. If the damage is extremely severe, the cell will respond by suicide with a mechanism called apoptosis. This ensures it will not become a vandal in the body, causing continuous damage because of loss of control of fault operations.

If the damage is lower, they will not commit suicide but will age. At that time, the cell is still alive, still active and involved in its normal functions. But once the old cell and fault, it will not divide again.

As the age of animals increases over time, more and more cells are damaged and must go into aging. It is this process that contributes in part to the aging of the organism.

But not only do we isolate ourselves as we thought before, aging cells also secrete a set of signaling molecules that can affect other cells, including some inflammatory cells. New research focusing on these signaling molecules can help us better understand the aging process in the body, thereby finding ways to prevent it.

In their experiments, scientists used drugs and radiation to destroy DNA, causing the aging of a rat's cells. Then they extracted these aging cells and implanted them into other healthy mice. Fat cells are selected, because they usually do not activate the immune response, so they can exist in new mice.

Keeping track of mice at different times after transplantation, the team measured a variety of physical characteristics that vary with age, for example: average movement speed, muscle strength, endurance on running wheels, motor time, amount of food and body weight.

They found that some of these parameters did not change after aging cells were implanted. But a month later, the young mice apparently lost their strength, their walking speed, their strength and stamina greatly reduced.

This change occurs even though the ratio of old cells in mice is only 1 / 10,000. Clearly, this demonstrates that cells have somehow managed to interact with healthy cells around them, creating a continuous decline.

White blood cells when healthy (left) and when it goes into apoptosis suicide.

In fact, the researchers found that by transplanting old cells from other mice into the body, they made some young animal cells become older, amplifying their effects. Other experiments show that transplanted cells are more potent in older mice or eat a high-fat diet.

For older mice that also receive transplanted aging cells, they are at increased risk of death. The risk of death increased by 5.2 times that could not be explained by any reason or disease. Transplanting aging cells causes the health of mice to decrease.

 

The idea to slow down the aging process that researchers observed is also very simple. They use two types of chemicals to kill aging cells. This means that instead of letting them exist and affecting other healthy cells, put them into suicide as apoptosis.

The first chemical scientists use is called quercetin , found in many plants (anyone who eats fruits and vegetables gets a quercetin amount every day). The second chemical, dasatinib , is the opposite; it is very difficult to catch it in everyday foods. Dasatinib is often found in cancer chemotherapy drugs.

Tests showed that if these two chemicals were injected into mice immediately after they received aging cells from other mice, the strength and durability of the mice were all improved.

For naturally aging mice, which means that they do not inject DNA-damaged cells from other mice, these two chemicals also help to limit the decline in strength and endurance, while increasing the level of daily activity. of them compared to the unvaccinated group.

In addition, these chemicals helped mice increase their life expectancy by 36%.

Older mice increased their average life expectancy by 36% after quercetin and dasatinib injection.

The question now is whether drugs work on people. There is a basis to believe that result. Researchers collect fat from obese people that often contain aging cells. Then they put two chemicals into the cells and observed the number of aging cells began to subside.

But everything just stopped there. At this point, there won't be a human test yet to authenticate further. No one is healthy and wants to inject chemotherapy into people to prolong life, especially, dasatinib is a drug that causes many side effects.

Even so, the authors open up the possibility of approaching human trials by reasoning, they can inject drugs into short periods, spaced weekly to reduce side effects. The mice in the experiment lived up to the age of 75 in humans, but the drug seems to still have a positive effect.

The important thing to emphasize is that, even if this test is successful on people, treatment cannot slow 100% of the signs of aging that researchers have tested. While these cells have opened up a perspective on aging, we are still far from the secret to returning to our youth.