Novel Drug Class Increases “Healthy Lifespan” by Preventing Age-Related Illness

By Claire Wiggins

The Aging Cell recently published a study from several research institutions such as the Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) and Mayo Clinic about a new class of drugs, named  “senolytics” by the research team, that significantly slow the symptoms of aging in mice. These effects include limiting fragility, improving cardiac performance, and overall increasing the healthy lifespan.

“‘We view this study as a big, first step toward developing treatments that can be given safely to patients to extend healthspan or to treat age-related diseases and disorders,’ said TSRI Professor Paul Robbins, PhD, who with Associate Professor Laura Niedernhofer, MD, PhD, led the research efforts for the paper at Scripps Florida. ‘When senolytic agents, like the combination we identified, are used clinically, the results could be transformative.’”

“‘The prototypes of these senolytic agents have more than proven their ability to alleviate multiple characteristics associated with aging,’ said Mayo Clinic Professor James Kirkland, MD, PhD, senior author of the new study. ‘It may eventually become feasible to delay, prevent, alleviate or even reverse multiple chronic diseases and disabilities as a group, instead of just one at a time.’”

Senolytic drugs target Senescent cells, or mature cells that have stopped dividing. The team isolated these cells from younger cells via identifying a “pro survival pathway” that makes the old cells resistant to apoptosis, or cellular death.

Interestingly, after a combination of senolytic drugs were administered to old mice, they showed greater exercise performance after being subjected to radiation compared to the controls. “Periodic drug administration of mice with accelerated aging extended the healthspan in the animals, delaying age-related symptoms, spine degeneration and osteoporosis.” Although there are still many tests that need to be done before human subjects can be considered, researchers remain optimistic that these results show a promising start to alleviating age-related bodily degradation.



Article Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/03/150309144823.htm

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