Who wouldn’t want to live forever?
The current lifespan of humans is between 120 to 150 years. That’s a blink of an eye if you ask me. Imagine living up to a thousand years. Enticing isn’t it?
This has been the basis of the research of a Japanese team who recently pronounced that it had developed a vaccine to kill cells that accumulate with age, damage other cells, causing a host of age-related illnesses, including atherosclerosis which is the building of fats and other substances in the artery causing obstruction of blood flow. These cells have been dubbed Zombie cells, but known medically as Senescent cells.
When cells get damaged, or during growth, the body makes more cells, to replace the damaged cells, or facilitate the aforementioned growth. This is done by one cell dividing into two and two cells dividing into four and so on. As we grow older, these cells specialise and do their jobs in the body, less division occurs in these cells. When these cells get old, they die. The body has a mechanism that removes damaged and dead cells.
Turns out that some of these older cells refuse to die. They stay and release chemicals that cause inflammation and damage to nearby healthy cells. They have been linked to cancer too. These are the so-called Senescent cells.
The research team, which includes University professor Juntendo Toru Minamino, confirmed that there was a decrease in zombie cells when this vaccine was given to mice. A decrease was also observed in areas affected by arterial stiffening which is a consequence of atherosclerosis. When this vaccine was administered in elderly mice, the advancement of their feebleness was slower than that of the unvaccinated mice.
“We can expect (the vaccine) to be applied to the treatment of arterial stiffening, diabetes and other diseases related to ageing,” Minamino said.
The team recognized a protein that is usually found in these senescent cells. They created a peptide vaccine based on an amino acid that makes up that protein. This vaccine then allows the body to create antibodies that attach to senescent cells.
Their research results were published in the online version of the journal Nature Aging on Friday.
One might ask about the side effects of this vaccine, which the team spoke about, claiming it has fewer side effects than the existing drugs that eliminate senescent cells which are used as anticancer agents. They also reported that is its effectiveness lasted longer.
As this is still in the research stages, one can’t wait to see the implications this has on the world of medicine. Would you like to live forever? Do you think pursuing longevity is the right thing? Let us know in the comments.
