Has another aging factor been discovered?
The blood enemy of youth
A Moscow scientist has discovered the cause of human agingAlexander Dobrovolsky, MK, 03.02.2009
"We will grow up to a hundred years without old age!" the famous poet declared, and any of us would surely agree with such a thesis. However, Professor Viktor Zuev from the N.F. Gamalei Research Institute of Epidemiology and Microbiology has actually proved with his research in recent years that this formulation contains a contradiction. The scientist found out that aging is precisely associated with an excessive increase in the number of certain cells in the body. But if it were possible to slow down this process…– We are not talking about any immortality of a person!
– Viktor Abramovich immediately clarified. – But you can try to significantly extend the active, full-fledged period of life.
The photographs taken by scientists in the laboratory from the so–called histological sections of the brain clearly show that our "gray matter" is heterogeneous: its "main actors" - nerve cells (neurons), which ensure the functioning of the brain, are surrounded by a "filler" – connective glial cells (glia). With age, irreversible changes occur in this substance: neurons die, and glial cells, on the contrary, multiply. So the brain tissues of a young and an elderly person differ significantly from each other. It is as a result of the death of neurons that such characteristic signs of old age develop – memory deterioration, impaired coordination of movements, decreased reaction speed…
Who killed the neurons?– Researchers have traditionally described the aging process in the human brain as follows: they say, under the yoke of the past years, more and more neurons are dying, and their place is filled with multiplying glial cells, – says Zuev.
– But I ask a reasonable question: why should the neuron die first? After all, each such "smart" cell is protected in our body like no other! The neuron even has a special nutrition system – all other cells in the body receive building and energy materials due to the fact that they fit tightly to the walls of the capillaries of the circulatory system, but there is a special "mediator" between neurons and brain capillaries for this purpose – a stellate cell (astrocyte). Maybe the causal relationship of the already mentioned phenomena in aging is completely opposite? First, the so–called gliosis starts in the brain - an increasingly active reproduction of glial cells. Their growing mass in the confined space of the cranium begins to put more and more pressure on the astrocytes, so that eventually some of them are destroyed, thereby dooming their "sponsored" neurons to "starvation". But what provokes gliosis? We were able to identify this factor, which we called the aging factor. The experiments were conducted on laboratory mice…
And it turned out that glial cells begin to multiply much faster when a bioextract prepared from the brain of old mice is added to their environment. A similar substance extracted from the brain of middle-aged mice gives a much less noticeable effect, but the brain extract from young mice does not provoke glia cells to reproduce at all.
– So, as a living being grows up, something appears in his brain that provokes an increasingly accelerating growth of the filling tissue - glia, – Viktor Abramovich explains enthusiastically. – Quantitatively, the results of the experiments look like this: the addition of a brain extract of an adult 10-month-old mouse to the cell structure placed in a test tube with a nutrient medium contributes to twice the growth of glial cells than the addition of an extract obtained from the brain of a 2-month-old mouse, and the composition of the brain extract of a very elderly by mouse standards, a one-and-a-half-year-old rodent provides an increase in glia in four or five times! In another experiment, we tried using the same biologics to influence the organisms of living young mice. And after 3-4 months, our experimental rodents, who were injected with brain extract of elderly mice, began to show clear signs of premature aging. The study of their brains showed that there are two most characteristic signs: the death of neurons and increased proliferation of glial cells. At the same time, it should be emphasized that the result of both of these processes in our experimental mice turned out to be much more pronounced than in naturally aged mice. The two animals even changed a lot externally: they turned gray! I saw this for the first time in my scientific practice. All the data obtained directly indicated that the factor we discovered was the cause of aging, and not its consequence.
Your years are my dangerTrying to make a more accurate portrait of the aging factor, Professor Zuev tried to check whether it is present in the blood.
– Experiments have shown that serum prepared from the blood of mice of different ages has a similar effect on the process of reproduction of glial cells, although not as powerful as brain extract. In young mice, into whose bodies we injected the blood serum of old mice, after a while, too, obvious signs of premature wilting began to show up.
Having received very convincing results of experiments with rodents, scientists moved on to the study of the human body.
– We took the blood of people of different ages – from 10 to 78 years old, isolated serum from it and added it to the same number of glial cells placed in test tubes. A few days later, we checked what changes had occurred in the glia. The pattern was found to be absolutely similar to mouse cases. The blood serum of 10-, 20-year-olds did not provoke any increase in the number of glial cells, the blood of middle-aged people has already given a noticeable activation of this process, but the serum obtained from older age groups provided a rapid proliferation of glial cells.
– But after all, some of us have to face similar processes not in laboratory experiments, but in real life – with blood transfusion. What happens? A preschooler, for example, was transfused blood from an elderly donor during a surgical operation in the hospital – and thus gave a start to premature aging of the baby?..
– The existence of such a causal relationship requires serious study. In particular, it is necessary to check the statistics on those people who once had a blood transfusion - now doctors do not know anything about the fate of most of them, about the course of age–related changes in their bodies. We still have to figure out how the fluctuations of the aging factor in the blood change in representatives of different age groups, separately in men and women ... (The development of this topic may in the future make it possible to scientifically predict the life expectancy of each individual. If it is known, for example, that the maximum accumulation of the aging factor in the body should be 100 units, then after examining the patient who came to the reception and revealing that this indicator is, say, 70 or 80 units, the doctor will be able to say: with the right and thrifty attitude to yourself, you are able to live another 20-30 years.)
The experiments we have already conducted give serious reason to believe that the age factor should be taken into account when transfusing blood. Once medical scientists revealed the existence of different blood groups in people, then it turned out that there are also subgroups of blood, finally, the Rh factor was discovered… Science is moving forward, and the emergence of new data affecting the compatibility of the donor and the patient is quite possible. Therefore, I assume that in the future, not only the group and Rhesus, but also the age range will be indicated on containers with donated blood.
We'll live to 120!– Can you already somehow determine the threshold from which aging begins?
– Our experiments have shown that in mice, the aging factor begins to reveal itself 8-10 months after their birth, that is, at the end of the first third of the life of such an average rodent. A similar pattern turned out to be characteristic of humans. The average life expectancy of modern homo sapiens has approached 75 years, and we begin to register the manifestation of the aging factor in humans from 25. Scientists have already proved that it is at this age that the growth program laid down by nature in the body finishes its work. It seems to me that turning it off simultaneously gives the start of another program – the aging program.
According to the results of the studies already conducted, we received a diploma for the discovery, which is formulated as follows: "The phenomenon of accumulation of the aging factor in mammalian organisms." Now the main task is to determine as precisely as possible what exactly this factor is – by chemical nature, by structure, by reaction to external influences. Then we can already try to determine the gene that is responsible for its synthesis, and look for methods either to inhibit this synthesis or to reduce the biological activity of the aging factor in the body.
Judging by the preliminary data obtained, this "Mr. X" is a kind of tiny squirrel. But – very tenacious. We have already tested the effects of radiation on the aging factor: it turned out that it disappears only with horse doses of radiation. And he doesn't mind the high temperatures... all this is quite logical. After all, such invulnerability only confirms the absolute reliability of aging itself. In this case, nature never makes mistakes, and if other genetic processes sometimes fail, which can result in various mutations, then no living being has ever been born immortal by chance.
– Let's assume the most optimistic research option: you will learn "in person" this notorious aging factor, find ways to influence it and…
– The human body has a "motor resource" for 120 years. But during the Paleolithic, the average life expectancy was only 18 years. At that time, numerous dangers surrounding a person, poor nutrition, unsanitary conditions, lack of medical care prevented from realizing the full program of the natural resources of the body… As our ancestors mastered new ways of dealing with these problems, life expectancy has steadily increased and reached the current 75 years. Why do we not have the right to hope that the new achievements of science will not ensure further prolongation of our earthly existence in the future? Work on the study of the aging factor is just one of such potential opportunities, the purpose of which is to increase the duration of an active human life.
Portal "Eternal youth" www.vechnayamolodost.ru03.02.2009