The wonder drug that could reverse the ageing process
The wonder drug that could reverse the ageing process
Sarah
Knapton visits the Mayo Clinic to report on how US scientists are trialling
senolytics, which target the zombie cells that cause age-related diseases
These mice are the same age
but the lower has not been given anti-ageing drugs - Sarah Knapton
With its pudgy body, tired eyes and
hair loss, the lower mouse could easily be the father of the sprightly and
alert animal nestling alongside.
But they are actually the same age, the
result of extraordinary trials of drugs which are slowing down or even
reversing the ageing process.
Scientists now believe that ageing
itself is responsible for many major conditions such as Alzheimer’s,
Parkinson’s, arthritis, cancer, heart disease, and diabetes. And they think
they have found a way to turn it off.
Anti-ageing drugs - dubbed ‘senolytics’
- are currently being trialled in humans and unlike previous tests which have
focussed on a single disease, these drugs work like a broad-spectrum
antibiotic, preventing or alleviating most age-related illnesses and frailty.
Scientists at The
Mayo Clinic, who first coined the term senolytics, already have six
trials in humans under way and plan to start six more shortly. If successful,
they estimate that drugs to slow down ageing could be ready within two years.
In mice, the drugs extend lifespan by
36 per cent, the equivalent of adding around 30 years to humans, and crucially the
animals remained in good health.
Clinical geriatrician Dr James
Kirkland, Director of the Robert and Arlene Kogod Center on
Aging at Mayo Clinic, said: “Most people don’t want to live to 130
and feel like they’re 130 but they wouldn’t mind living to 90 or 100 and feel
like they’re 60. And now that can actually be achieved in animals.
“Ageing itself is the highest risk
factor for most of the chronic diseases. And if you get one age-related
disease, you’ve got a huge chance of having several.
“You tend to find older individuals who
are completely healthy and are playing 18 rounds of golf a day, or they’ve got
three, five or 10 different conditions. There aren’t too many people in
between.
“Around 10 years ago we began to
explore the notion that ageing may be an upstream cause of all of these
conditions and not only be a risk factor but could actually be causal.s
“And therefore if you targeted
fundamental ageing processes it might be possible to delay, prevent or
alleviate these chronic conditions as a group instead of going after them one
at a time.
Comments
Post a Comment