Soon scientists will be able to extend a person's life by 30-35 years
Last reviewed: 23.04.2024
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Specialists of the Center for Biotechnology and Gene Therapy at the University of Barcelona managed to create a unique technique that was successfully tested on a group of experimental mice. Life of a person using these technologies is real and harmless to extend for 30-35 years, geneticists are convinced.
Two groups of animals participated in the gene therapy experiment - and in both of them the researchers achieved the rejuvenation effect: in one, the average life span of mice was increased by 24%, in the other - by 13%, in comparison with the standard indices. According to experts, the results of the study convincingly prove the possibility of applying the gene therapy technique in relation to human life. In particular, it allows significantly to delay the onset of most age-related diseases such as osteoporosis and the emergence of insulin resistance.
The basis of therapy is based on the technology mastered by geneticists to introduce a virus into human DNA, which affects telomeres - the constituent parts of chromosomes that determine the course of the body's biological clock and are largely responsible for its aging. The virus inhibits telomeres, as a result of which the processes of cellular renewal occur more intensively, and the aging mechanism slows down significantly. But this process can not be carried out indefinitely - only until the telomeres finally lose their ability to perform their immediate functions. Time reserve, which allows you to keep them in check, is 30-35 years - it is for such a period, with the right approach, you can increase the average life expectancy of a person, say geneticists. What is particularly impressive is that this difference would not have been for the years of the elderly, but would have been evenly distributed throughout the life course.
The problem is that conducting tests on people is a very difficult dilemma in terms of ethical standards. In the human body, telomeres are only present before birth and in the first few months of life, and there are only two types of cells in which it is possible to identify such types of DNA-stem cells and cancer cells. Paradoxically, it is telomeres that can make dreams about the eternal youth of man a reality, give cancer cells an amazing vitality and allow growing and multiplying forever.
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