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Subscribe to RSSScientists may one day slow down aging with a simple injection of youthful stem cells. They’ve just proven this can be done in mice, according to a study published Tuesday in Nature Communications.
The mice, which had been engineered to mimic a human disease called progeria, would normally have grown old when they were quite young. But that changed when researchers injected muscle stem cells from healthy young mice into the bellies of the quickly aging mice. Within days, the doddering and frail mice began to act like they were living the storyline of “The Strange Case of Benjamin Button” as they started looking and acting younger.
“It was mind boggling,” said study co-author Johnny Huard, a professor of orthopedic surgery at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. “When I saw them I thought, ‘Oh my God, I must have made a mistake and put the normal mice in the wrong cage.’ But they were indeed the mice we’d injected with the stem cells.”
Normal mice live about two years, Hoard explained. But mice with progeria age very quickly and die by the time they are 21 days old. Somehow the muscle stem-cells from the younger mice managed to reverse that premature aging process – at least temporarily.
The stem-cell injected mice didn’t live as long as normal mice, but they did survive about three times as long as would have without the treatment. Huard suspects if he re-injected the mice they would live even longer.
Huard and his colleagues aren’t exactly sure what’s happening, but they’ve got some theories. Scientists have discovered that we grow frail when our stem cells age and lose the ability to self-repair. These “tired stem cells” divide slowly, Huard explained.
He and his colleagues suspect the same thing happens, just more quickly, in mice and people with progeria.
“People with progeria look like they are in their 80s when they are 20 years old,” Huard said. “Their skin looks very wrinkled and old when they are very young.”
One of the biggest surprises for Huard and his colleagues was the impact on the brain from muscle stem cells injected into the belly. Even though the cells didn’t get to the brain, they still improved its health.
“The number of blood vessels in the brains of progeria mice are significantly reduced,” Huard said. “But when you inject stem cells from a normal mouse into the belly of the progeria mouse, the number of blood vessels increases.”
That means that the normal stem cells must be releasing some kind of protein that spurs the growth of healthy cells, Huard said.
Huard can the big implications of his research.
“There’s a lot of money being spent in the world trying to delay aging,” he said. “It would be fantastic if we can apply this to human beings. It’s a very simple approach.”
Huard can’t say how far in the future this might be, but his group has been using muscle stem cells to repair damaged hearts, bones, and cartilage.
One day it might be standard for people to stash away stem cells when they are young so they can use this fountain of youth elixir when they start aging, he said.
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sounds like a cure for progeria not anti aging.
...and another "procedure" of which only the rich will be able to partake.
Interesting comments re Edison vs Tesla (both originally at Edison Electric - predecessor to General Electric. Bottom line is that Edison couldn't handle the mathematics of AC current, being a "test bench inventor". Tesla left and went to Westinghouse. AC or course won out, and GE had to catch up. They ran head to head through the 50's and into the 60's. I grew up in a GE family, but with roots in Pittsburgh where Westinghouse was king - lively discussion there.Eventually, GE overran Westinghouse. Then Westinghouse nearly bankrupted itself in the nuclear fuel industry, sometime in the 60's if I recall.
Nothing to do with stem cells in mice, but the chatter over real versus doctored/spun science is contemporary. Edison ran a nasty (self serving) negative PR campaign against AC current. The better science won in the end.....
Unfortunately, this discovery came to late for Joan Rivers and Bruce Jenner !
Reversing the aging process, great, I think. So, they really want to live longer, on THIS planet, with THESE people, (big sigh.)
Scientists are pieces of @!$%#.
Where do I sign up to be injected. I want to live forever.
`kevin i bet your local social security office will be happy to do that for you.
"Huard suspects if he re-injected the mice they would live even longer."
Geez, go ahead and inject the mice again!
And, why not do some experiments with healthy mice?
Oh yes, please fasttrack this research.
Acutally, stem cells are quite useful for acute leukemia patients aren't they? In fact, cord blood and embryonic stem cells (PHSC's obtained right before before 19 weeks post fertilization- when hematopoiesis begins) are showing promise than conventional bone marrow cells from donors for these patients. Particularly for those with RELAPSED AML (that is, IF physicians can get the patient into a second remission) and the AMLs tougher to treat (i.e. M5- t11,19, or M4), and also for the myelosisplasic syndromes. I see the results of stem cell grafting all the time on my bench at work. Beautiful peripheral blood cell differential counts on these treated patients; with wonderfully low bone marrow promyeloblast, myeloblast and metamyelocyte counts. So it shouldn't be a complete suprise that the next step would be to use these cells to combat aging.
Now as far as the quest for age reversal and perpetual youth, look - NO ONE wants to look their age anymore. Not even Giselle or Tom Brady. Christ knows my wife doesn't. Botox and collagen filler appointments are religiously marked down on our kitchen calender, trust me. Her taking on Father Time to keep her line-less face I find humorous, but also admirable.
Question is, what's the planet going to be like when we have 200 plus year old people walking around? You see, it's a short drive from wanting to treat leukemia and progeria with these stem cells to creating a teeming population of people who have lived for twenty five decades, isn't it?
Typo correction, line 5: it's the myelodysplastic syndromes. Sorry.
Huard can the big implications of his research.
See?
So all the religious saying we shouldn't interfere with the "natural" death process in God's hands will be the first to line up to live an "unnatural" life. This is just all so bizarre, I'm completely glad I'm not young anymore, don't want to be either.
KC actualy christianity doesnt believe that death was Gods plan for humans.
death is a result of sin.if the shot works it would only prolong earthly life.
sin would still take its toll in the end.
Further stem cell research should be banned with regards to the reversal of aging. We have TOO many EVIL people living on this planet that MUST NOT be allowed to live longer than they would naturally.
if all the evil people died off this planet tommorow no one would be left .
because none of us are good all the time. in thought word or deed.
@ backtalk
Agreed, but drawing the line on good vs. evil has a VERY WIDE temperature gradient.
A person stealing music online is stealing, and stealing is "evil", but that thief is not as "evil" as Hitler or Pol Pot.
@ JB-1123320
Ummm...so I take it you're the same way with regard to vaccinations and pregnant mothers taking prenatal vitamins? Basically any life extending practice?
What ever you do, DO NOT TAKE MEDICATION if you even so much as have the flu
Remember, the flu can kill you, it must be God's plan...let Him take you into His kingdom
LOL
Seriously? No...Really?!
There's a difference between flu vaccines, prenatal vitamins and medicines to make someone live to the age of 200. Do you agree? Should an evil person be allowed to live to the age of 200? No. Should stem cell research be used to cure diseases? Absolutely.
Only relatively speaking.
People are living twice as long as the average person used to back in the Middle Ages and even into the Renaissance!
New medicines replace old remedies...that is the order of things so long as we continue to research and innovate.
Evil people get a lot of stuff accomplished by the time they are middle aged! It really doesn't matter if they live to 200, they are most dangerous in their first 30-40 years anyway. Look at Hitler, Stalin and Mao. They got a lot of stuff accomplished by that time.
I think that instead of taking a regressive and fearful approach towards medical innovations, you should instead focus on how the world must be ever-vigilant against tyrranical and evil people.
Not ALL scientists believe in manmade global climate change. There are some very intelligent scientists that don't. How do you know which side is right...the side with the most votes? Myself, I choose to believe the side that isnt getting millions in government grant money to support the position that global warming is human caused.
So you're taking the side that has billions in fixed capital that would cost them both a huge amount to retrofit to meet stricter pollution standards, and those that could lose their competitive edge if government subsidies were to shift to an alternative they lack market-influence over.
I take it you were in the "cigarettes aren't addictive" camp as well back in the 1990's
Tobacco companies had their own "studies" and "scientists" too.
I choose to go with the camp that has actual data supporting them and not windbag politicians spouting off nonsense they know little about.
What
the social security watch dogs are not going to like this news at all.
Stem cell therapies are only ok when the cells are taken from ADULT donors. It is NOT ok to use stem cells from aborted babies or embryos in labs.
Seriously anyone ever heard of "The Tribe"? I better go catch up on my Survival training
Life is too short. You work a crappy job until you are old and then you die. Bring on the stem cells, and leave fiction like the Bible out of it.