Unlocking the Secrets of Longevity

May 22, 2008 — -- Eating right, exercise and a positive attitude have long been the best ways to ensure longevity. Now, a series of scientific breakthroughs may help extend life even longer.

Up to recently, modern medicine's prescription for creaky, aging bodies has been to target each ailment in ways that can ease -- if not halt -- what seems like an inevitable decline.

Robert Butler, a physician and founding director of the National Institute on Aging, has called for a shift in how we address these problems.

"Instead of treating diseases one at a time, we should look more at the process of aging itself because we would get so much more mileage that way," said Butler.

Part of the groundwork for this type of approach began 15 years ago when the results of an intriguing lab study led many to rethink the fundamental understanding of how aging works.

It was around that time that a researcher at the University of California in San Francisco named Cynthia Kenyon had begun to tinker with the genes of Nematodes, tiny roundworms roughly the size of a comma.

Like any other creature, roundworms are made up of cells that, as they divide, accumulate damage over time. After a couple of weeks, the worms succumb to this buildup of wear and tear known as old age.

Kenyon, however, demonstrated that altering just one gene gave rise to worms that lived twice as long.

"What we saw with these long-lived mutants is that their cells don't have to just sit there and take it," said Kenyon. "Instead, special proteins are produced that strengthen the immune system, the body makes more antioxidants and its ability to repair DNA goes up."

Her study, published in Nature, has shown that aging is not fixed, but malleable. The discovery, taken some steps further, has tantalizing possibilities: If a similar gene exists in humans, a real-life fountain of youth may lie dormant within all of us. Researchers would just need to find it and figure out a way to turn it on.

"If you can slow down aging, your chances of not getting practically anything would go up. It's a new way of thinking," Kenyon said.