One step closer to reversing aging

A new research performed on mice showed that injecting younger cells into aging bodies might help people live longer. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications and shows new ways to deal with aging bodies. That does not mean scientists have found the fountain of youth.

Researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center genetically altered mice in order to make them age faster. These mice were later injected with stem like cells taken from the bodies of younger mice. As a result they reversed the aging process and the mice lived three times longer. Dr. Laura Niedernhofer said the injection improved the mice’s health.

"The young stem cells seem to secrete something that is quite beneficial," Niedernhofer said. "Just what that is, we're not entirely sure."

Scientists are already studying how to treat humans using muscle cells.

"The beauty of them is we can take them out of muscle and expand them so we have a useful therapeutic population of cells," Niedernhofer said. "If all of us could be treated with our own cells, we could eliminate problems with rejection and immunity."

However, the success with mice is different from a success with human bodies.

"One must be very cautious in extending findings in mouse progeroid models to normal human aging," said Dr. Amy Wagers, an associate professor of stem cell and regenerative biology at Harvard University. "These models are very different from physiological aging, and so it remains an open question whether such phenomenon may be relevant to natural aging symptoms as well."

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