To live longer, reduce your body temperature

Food will be more damaged if stored in a low temperature environment, such as in a refrigerator. The same principle can also be applied to increase the lifespan of animals, US scientists claim.

Scientists at the Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla County, California, USA, found that mice 'lifespan lasted about 15% when their body temperature dropped by 0.5 degrees C.

Previous studies have confirmed that the only way to prolong the life of animals is by implementing a strict diet.

Mice live longer when body temperature drops.(Photo: middlebury)

Bruno Conti and colleagues at Scripps Research Institute have created mice with a defect in the lateral hypothalamus - the center in the brain that controls the behavior of animal feeding - by genetic modification. This defect " forces " nerve cells to operate at high intensity, causing the temperature in the lower hypothalamus to rise above normal levels.

In the rat brain, the lower hypothalamus is 0.8 mm away from the body temperature control (called the preoptic region). As the temperature of the hypothalamus increases, the preoptic region mistakenly assumes that the body temperature is too high and lowers the temperature.

In the experiment, the temperature of the transgenic mice was about 0.5 degrees C lower than normal mice.

Researchers claim that just lowering the body's temperature to several tens of degrees Celsius also increases their lifespan by 12% to 20% . Interestingly, female mouse lifespan was increased more than male mice at the same level of hypothermia. The cause of this phenomenon has not been found.

According to Conti, measures to prolong the life of animals in previous studies all have a hypothermia effect. In his study, both normal and experimental mice were fed the same; but the group of transgenic mice was 10% heavier than the normal group of mice.

The results show that hypothermia - rather than reducing the amount of calories taken in the body - is the most important measure in the effort to prolong life.

Explaining this, Conti thinks that the body burns fewer calories when the body temperature drops, making the process of producing harmful compounds for cells and stimulating the aging process slow. Many previous studies have shown that deep fish live longer when their body temperature decreases.

Conti confirmed that in the future, scientists can create a drug that works to "fool" the body temperature control area in the human brain so that it lowers body temperature. Finding such a drug is not simple, but he hopes that it will help people live longer without dieting.

Viet Linh