After posting my rant in the previous post against the quest for immortality, guess what I read next?
Biologists delay the aging process by ‘remote control’
Biologists at the UCLA Molecular Biology Institute found that when they activated a gene in the intestines or nervous systems of fruit flies the lifespan of the flies was extended by thirty percent.
Not bad, if only we were fruit flies. They could zap our intestines and off we go. Seriously, this could be important as anything that slows aging might improve the quality of our aging.
The gene, AMPk, is involved in autophagy. This process is when a cell breaks down old and damaged parts of cells.
In theory it makes sense and it definitely looks like a promising avenue of research.
The research was funded by the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Aging