thisweekinscience:

New studies further prove that new drugs may be able to extend human and animal lifespan significantly

Scientists in the US have found a biological command center responsible for the ageing process in a lump of brain the size of a brazil nut. The team identified the mechanism hidden deep inside the hypothalamus, and showed that they could manipulate it to increase or decrease the lifespan of animals.

In an official experiment, the researches found that they could extend the lives of mice by 1/5th without suffering from muscle weakness, bone loss, or memory problems. Not only does this raise the fantastical idea of a hobbit sized lifetime, but raises the prospect of realistically being able to produce drugs on a mass scale to prevent age-related diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

Dongsheng Cai at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine New York says -
”We’re very excited about this! It supports the idea that ageing is more than a passive deterioration of different tissues. It is under control, and can be manipulated”

The scientists discovered that a chemical known as NF-kB became more active in the study mice as they grew older. The researchers use drugs to block the substance, which increased their lifespan from an average of 800 days to 1,100. When they boosted the NF-kB in mice, they all died within 100 days. They also found that mice without NF-kB had a major effect on muscle mass, bone strength, capability to learn and skin health. Those with less or no NF-kB were far superior in these respects than the control mice. The researchers are now looking into the possibility that another chemical known as GnRH may play a central role in fertility and the development of sperm and eggs. When the scientists gave old mice daily jabs of GnRH, their lives were extended and even caused fresh neural pathways to grow in their brains.