On Wednesday, one scientist described how he’d been testing potential longevity medication on the tiny nematode worm C. elegans. These worms stay for under about 15 to 40 days, and his crew can carry out tens of hundreds of experiments with them. About 40% of the medication that stretch lifespan in C. elegans additionally assist mice stay longer, he advised us.
To me, that’s not a tremendous hit fee. And we don’t know what number of of these medication will work in individuals. In all probability lower than 40% of that 40%.
Different scientists offered work on chemical reactions occurring on the mobile stage. It was deep, fundamental science, and my takeaway was that there’s lots getting older researchers nonetheless don’t totally perceive.
It should take years—if not a long time—to get the complete image of getting older on the molecular stage. And if we depend on a sequence of experiments in worms, after which mice, after which people, we’re unlikely to make progress for a actually very long time. In that context, the concept of substitute remedy appears like a shortcut.
“Substitute is a extremely thrilling avenue since you don’t have to grasp the biology of getting older as a lot,” says Sierra Lore, who research getting older on the College of Copenhagen in Denmark and the Buck Institute for Analysis on Growing old in Novato, California.
Lore says she began her analysis profession learning getting older on the molecular stage, however she quickly modified course. She now plans to focus her consideration on substitute therapies. “I in a short time realized we’re a long time away [from understanding the molecular processes that underlie aging],” she says. “Why don’t we simply take what we already know—substitute—and attempt to perceive and apply it higher?”
So maybe Putin’s easy method to delaying getting older holds some benefit. Whether or not it would grant him immortality is one other matter.
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