According to a new study led by Dr. João Passos, the key to staying young is to remove mitochondria from human cells, according to an article published yesterday in Medical News Today. It seems the mitochondria element is the powerhouse of the aging process and the UK brainiacs discovered that removing the substance from our cells reduces the levels of markers for cellular aging, which triggers that fountain of youth, or in their words, the potential “rejuvenation process” that’s in our cells.
Before you book a flight for England and grab your coat you should know study leader Passos and his team say their findings only “pave the way for new strategies to reverse the aging process.” While young people all over the world may have reason to rejoice, life’s clock is ticking away in seniors and the study is no guarantee that we’ll get back that taut 25-year-old steamy physique that never tired and never stopped craving life.
Having said that, when scientists found a vaccine for polio, cured the plague and developed a flu shot serum, suffice to say there were plenty of 60-, 70- and 80-something-year-olds who benefited. The university’s study began with the certain knowledge that the aging process is believed to be triggered by various forms of damage that our cells are subject to as we get older. Of course any of us nursing an old injury that we thought healed only to have it return in later years kind of figured that.
The long and short is that cellular senescence has been associated with such damage, where certain cells have lost the ability to replicate. As a result, they build up over time, causing damage to surrounding healthy tissues by producing increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) — a process known as oxidative stress. But let’s take the scientific jabberwocky down a notch. The study shows this Mitochondria substance generates chemical energy in our cells which enables them to do their jobs. According to the researchers, “previous studies have also linked mitochondria to production of ROS, though the team notes that other studies have linked ROS production to non-mitochondrial sources, producing conflicting results.”
In short, the UK team found that after reducing the levels of mitochondria in aging cells, a rejuvenation process began during which inflammatory molecules and certain gene expressions plummeted to levels that were comparable to those normally seen in younger cells.
The researchers also discovered that as cells age, mitochondrial biogenesis — the process by which new mitochondria are formed within a cell — drives the cellular aging process. Dr. Passos described the results as “very surprising and exciting.” Passos added that while scientists already knew that mitochondria played a role in the aging process, they had heretofore been unable to estimate to what extent.
Seniors who read about this methodology that will lead to the reversal of the aging process are probably not unappreciative of the body of work that this research team has achieved. Having said that, let’s hope waiting for the fix doesn’t give too many seniors anxiety attacks because that would surely power up that mitochondria and cause a spate of premature aging.