Aside from love and health, one of the greatest pursuits of man is to age gracefully. And while there are plenty of products on the market that swear to do just that, for the most part, there is no currently available method to reverse aging. However, scientists seem to be working to fix that.
According to scientists from the Salk Institute, they may have a safe and effective method for reversing aging. They say they can reset skin cells, eyesight, muscles, and even the brain. If their methods prove to be as safe and effective as they claim, this could be groundbreaking on many levels.
To carry out their research on this method, they took three groups of mice, all aged equivalently to humans of the ages 35, 50, and 80-years-old. Among the chosen mice, none of them had cancer or neurological changes.
After 7 or ten months, the mice appeared to be noticeably younger. Upon being injured or hurt, they were able to heal quickly and avoid permanent scars.
“We are elated that we can use this approach across the life span to slow down aging in normal animals,” explained senior author and Salk Institute Development biologist, Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte. “The technique is both safe and effective in mice.”
In their study, they found that the kidney tissues and the skin in the mice had been rejuvenated, with lowered inflammation, cell death, and stress responses.
Additionally, their epigenetic clocks also seemed to be wound back.
“In addition to tackling age-related diseases, this approach may provide the biomedical community with a new tool to restore tissue and organismal health by improving cell function and resilience in different disease situations, such as neurodegenerative diseases.” Izpisua Belmonte explained.
Currently, this research has only been tested on mice, so the question remains as to whether or not this will work in human trials or not. However, the researchers are hopeful that this could prove groundbreaking for disease and many other health-related issues.
“It is especially notable that partial reprogramming successfully elicits systemic transcriptomic, metabolomic, and lipidomic changes, and alters the epigenetic clock. Moreover, observing these results in a normally aging mouse model provides further evidence that this approach may be beneficial beyond disease states.”