There are three areas of scientific research in which the tiniest discovery can be inflated into a huge press release: cures for obesity, cancer and old age.
Here’s an example of the third: scientists in Boston have published a paper which shows that – within a specific mouse model of aging – switching on our old friend telomerase gave anti-aging (even aging-reversal) benefits.
Sadly, everybody reporting this has gone with a Benjamin Button reference.
Pfft. As if we would be so obvious.
Here’s the real deal: mice which have been genetically engineered to produce no telomerase protein age prematurely. That was known.
Ronald DePinho and colleagues at the Dana Farber Cancer Institute bred somewhat different mice, which had “conditional” copies of the telomerase gene. This meant that no telomerase protein was produced in these mice until the scientists fed it a chemical which allowed protein production. The upshot: these mice age prematurely, because they don’t produce telomerase.You can think of them as a bunch of mice which become Larry King at the age of twenty
The scientists’ question was: what would happen when they gave the chemical and the mice began producing telomerase?
And the answer: the mice’s intestines regained their youthful vigor. Their patchy hair began to fill in, and their shriveled testicles swelled and became fertile once again. It’s the anti-aging elixir! Benjamin Button can be cured!
Remarkable, eh? Well, maybe. Other scientists are claiming that the fact these experiments were performed in a “faked” system (mice lacking telomerase from birth) negates – or at least reduces – their applicability to humans. See, we’re born with our cells expressing the telomerase gene; it just gets less effective as we age. So it remains to be seen whether this research has any relevance to real life.
Sorry, Benjamin Button, but you ain’t been saved yet.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Nothing discovered through torturing animals will ever be beneficial to humans!
Next thing we know, we’ll have old face and young body (not all parts of human body age at the same pace, which varies from person to person).
Anyway, plastic surgeons won’t allow anything that would ruin their business.
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