Will your pet live longer than you?
They have to start somewhere. From mice they began testing dogs. And the consensus is that rapamycin is clearly anti-aging. For mice and dogs. And monkeys.
There is even a cautious claim for immortality. At least for mice. And as is commonly the case, there is the hope that what is learned from the animals will be effective for humans as well. Which is why they are conducting studies.
Cancer Treatment
It was an accidental discovery. The drug was originally a cancer treatment for humans, but it has side effects. So they keep testing to see if one day rapamycin might be the key to finding an anti-aging solution for humans.
This goes beyond the typical healthy eating – healthy living solutions that make money for LA Fitness and the like. This is a chemical treatment meant to slow down the aging clocks in the body. Those who have made it past 60 years know how the body slows down from head to toe. A comprehensive disruption of life experienced at 30-40.
No Longer Dog-Tired
Here’s a video of Sparky who definitely has not slowed down. Some discredit the attempt as a waste of time/money, as though the dog was the purpose of the study. However, the dog is just a safe step in the testing of the drug before brought to human use.
There are early indicators that there may be a beneficial effect on the human immune system as well.
Genetic Clock
One scientist, Steve Horvath, a geneticist from UCLA, has done his work with a focus on human genetics. Horvath enlisted 65 scientists across seven countries for study to determine the contribution of genetics to aging. The group of scientists analyzed genetic samples from 13,000 people to study age-related changes in human DNA.
From this effort, using an epigenetic clock that Horvath developed in 2013, they calculated the age of blood and tissues at critical points in the body. The results provided a comparison between the biological age from the epigenetic clock against the person’s current actual age to determine life expectancy.
Without suggesting an absolute correlation, the result seemed to indicate that a biological age that was less than the chronological age predicted a longer life-span, while a biological age higher than the chronological age predicted an early death.
If you want to read the real scientific language about the study use the link provided here.
From mice to men. The real question for mice and men is whether they want to live longer and why?
