New treatment could mark longevity breakthrough – animal study

In a new animal study, researchers have demonstrated how a treatment could lengthen both life span and vigour all the way until death.

The study describes how a group of mice lived 9% longer when they received monthly treatments, or about 79 extra days of life. Equally, the study found that the mice demonstrated that they could walk faster and grip objects with greater strength than untreated mice of the same age following the monthly treatment.

The findings suggest the treatment could lengthen both life an vigour.

The study has been published in Cell Metabolism and was carried out by researchers at UConn School of Medicine gerontologist Ming Xu.

Breakthrough in longevity

In humans, slow walking speed and weakened grip are correlated with increased overall frailty.

In this new study, the treated mice retained their strength and walking speed during the whole treatment period until the very end of their lives.

Most experiments on mice, health, and longevity pick a certain end point in time such as 18 or 24 months, when the effect of the treatment is measured.

However, Xu, along with postdocs Binsheng Wang and Lichao Wang and their colleagues, measured the health, grip strength, and walking speed, along with a bevy of additional metrics, on the mice monthly from the time the mice were 20 months old (equivalent to 60 year old humans) until death, allowing the team to assess the physical function and overall health changes of each mouse throughout the entire treatment period.

Since each mouse died at a different age, this approach also allowed Xu’s team to evaluate health status in the time leading up to death, which often represents the frailest and sickest stage of life.

They found that even though the treated mice were older at the time of death, their physical function and overall frailty were better than those of the controls during their last stage of life.

“We are all very excited about this finding, because it demonstrates that we not only extend the lifespan, but indeed extend the life with good health in mice, which is a key goal for the aging field,” commented Xu, assistant professor of the UConn Center on Aging and the Department of Genetics & Genome Sciences at UConn School of Medicine.

The researchers used two groups of mice. One group received monthly treatments to remove highly inflammatory cells from their tissues; the control group did not, and highly inflammatory cells were defined as those actively expressing a specific gene called p21.

The team, including researchers from UConn Health, The University of Texas, Cedars-Sinai, The Jackson Laboratory for Genomic Medicine, and the UNMC College of Dentistry, found the monthly treatments extended both the maximum lifespan of mice as well as the average lifespan, so that the average treated mouse lived longer, and healthier, than the average untreated mouse.

The researchers are now working on a way to translate their results to humans. If the treatment works as well for humans, it would be equivalent to eight to 10 additional years of healthy old age.