Washington, Sep.21, 2007: Researchers said they had found more ways to activate the body's own anti-ageing defences - perhaps with a pill that could fight multiple diseases at once.
Their study, published in the journal, Cell, helps explain why animals fed very low calorie diets live longer, but it also offers new ways to try to replicate the effects of these diets using a pill instead of hunger, the researchers said.
"What we are talking about is potentially having one pill that prevents and even cures many diseases at once," said David Sinclair, a pathologist at Harvard Medical School, who helped lead the research.
The key is a family of enzymes called sirtuins. They are controlled by genes called SIRT1, SIRT2 and so on. They found the enzymes controlled by these genes help preserve the mitochondria - little organs inside of cells that provide their energy.
"These two genes, SIRT3 and SIRT4, they make proteins that go into mitochondria... These are little energy packs inside our cells that are very important for staying healthy and youthful and, as we age, we lose them and they get less efficient," Sinclair said in a videotaped statement.
"They are also very important for keeping the cells healthy and alive when they undergo stress and DNA damage, as we undergo every day during the aging process."
Sinclair and colleagues have found in other studies that even if the rest of a cell is destroyed - the nucleus and other parts - it can still function if the mitochondria are alive. His team found that fasting raises levels of another protein called NAD. This, in turn, activates SIRT3 and SIRT4 directly, in the mitochondria. Such a molecule could be used for many age-related diseases ," he added. "Diseases like heart disease, cancer, osteoporosis - even things like cataracts," he said.
Courtesy: Reuters/The New Indian Express, Chennai, Sep.22, 2007
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