Spiritual Forum

Have scientists reversed the aging process?

They may have found the elixir of youth in a landmark trial!

It seems the way for a 'forever young drug' has been paved by scientists with some remarkable research!

People could live healthier and longer, without fear of illnesses such as heart disease and Alzheimer's. Your hair skin and nails could also retain its natural youthful lustre.

Imagine a drug that could allow people to have natural born children up and until a very old age.

If our lifespan is increased, it would greatly lower health services and make lives of the families caring for fragile relatives a lot less stressful.

These new experiments mirror a movie in which Brad Pitt played the leading role.

"The Curious Case Of Benjamin Button", is a movie in which the lead character actually ages in reverse.

These experiments were carried out by Dr. Ronald DePhino of Harvard University. His experiments were detailed in the prestigious journal, "Nature".

Mice were the first subjects to have these experiments ran on them. These mice had the organs, tissues, and skin of what would be equivalent to an 80-year-old man.

The mice were given the drug in a testing phase. Within two months they had grown so many new cells they were almost entirely rejuvenated. In a remarkable twist, the mice that were once infertile were now fathering large litters of babies.

‘In human terms, it would be like having a 40-year-old person who looked 80-plus and reversing the effects to the levels of a 50-year-old.'

‘By 2025 we are going to have 1.2 billion people aged over 60, which is when you start to see cancer, Alzheimer’s and cardiovascular disease.'

‘We are on a collision course for a significant amount of burden to society.'

‘This is the first time that ageing has been reversed.'

‘This suggests that there is a point of return for aging organs that we had not previously appreciated’, said by Dr DePhino.

Telomeres which are little biological clocks that protect the chromosomes by attaching themselves to the end of them are what the breakthrough is centered on.

The telomeres get shorter with time. This raises the odds of age-related illness and diseases. Eventually, the cells die from getting too short.

Telomere is usually switched off in the body at this point. However, an enzyme called telomerase was found to be able to rebuild the telomere caps.

Shocking the enzyme back to life in the test mice that had prematurely aged in a way that mimicked the’ process in humans, is what Dr DePinho succeeded in.

He thought the technique would slow the reversed process. He was very stunned when it reversed the process instead.

Dr Dephino thinks that making a pill to do the same thing in people is a great possibility. This could extend life and slow down natural aging diseases.

There is a drawback to this process of course. The high levels of telomerase are known to cause the growth of cancers. Of course, one drug alone could not possibly smooth all the issues of aging.

‘There are multiple mechanisms that conspire to lead to aging.'

‘So, although we think that telomeres are important, there are other factors that come into play’, Dr DePinho told the Daily Mail.

Dr Steven Artandi, a telomere expert at Stanford University, said that the study was ‘beautiful’ but he cautions that an anti-aging drug is still possibly, more than ten years away.