Biologists Discover Drug to Extend Lifespan

Most people know that eating a healthy, low-calorie diet is not only good for your general well being, but it can also extend your lifespan significantly. Unfortunately, to feel the benefits of any diet you have to stick with it, and potentially miss out on a lot of temping foods. So some diligent biologists at the University of Washington have discovered a way for us to reap the reward without the work. They’ve linked restrictive diets with producing mutated ribsomes that lead to longer lifespans, and a drug called diazaborine that can artificially trigger the same effects.

Don’t let that word mutation scare you- you’re not going to grow a third arm from eating a restrictive diet. It seems your body may perform a change in ribosomal units naturally in response to a restrictive diet. In testing performed in yeast cells, the biologists found that this kind of diet led to decreased signaling from an enzyme known as TOR. This enzyme is found in every cell in our bodies (and apparently in a yeast’s, too) and it controls many processes in our cells. When signaling is reduced, protein production rate in the cell is also reduced.

By continuing to study yeasts with lower protein production, the biologists discovered that a mutation of the large ribosomal units (where proteins are produced) was present in all the long-lived yeasts.

They also found another interesting behavior. While the mutated ribosomes are producing proteins less efficiently, there was one protein whose production was not affected at all, and in some cases was actually increased. To see if this protein, named Gcn4, was linked to longevity, researchers tested the lifespan of yeast cells with more or less Gcn4 content. In every case, the Gcn4-rich cells lived longer- up to 50% longer.

While humans don’t have the Gcn4 protein, we do have related proteins that function in the same manner, and the hope is that this ribosomal mutation can be repeated in our cells as well.

Don’t expect to see any prescriptions for diazaborine being handed out soon- it seems there are still some bad side effects (isn’t that always the case?) related to TOR manipulation, but this discovery is bringing us one step closer to living forever.

See the original article here: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-04/uow-rud041708.php


I can see it now. Cash price will rival AIDS medications, and good luck finding an insurance company that'll cover it. It'll be as "non-essential" as Viagra.