For years scientists have known that calorie restricted diets in mammals can extend the life span but untill recently no one has known why. Now
Leonard Guarente believes he has the answer, a single intriguing gene labelled SIR2.
www.technologyreview.com
On his laptop computer, biology professor Leonard Guarente plays a video clip of 29-month-old mice hobbling around a cedar-chip-filled cage. They’re
scruffy, fat, slow moving, and over the hill by rodent standards. Then he plays a clip of another group of 29-month-old mice. They’re svelte, frisky,
and scrambling around like adolescents. What’s their secret? These mice have eaten about two-thirds as many calories as their portly peers. Not only
does the meager diet seem to keep them light in the limbs, but they tend to live 30 percent longer than their well-fed friends and are less likely to
contract age-related diseases, such as diabetes and cancer.
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By reducing the amount of fat the body stores this could lead to 50% longer life, reduced incidents of obesity (which s one of the top three causes
of premature death according to the WHO) and possibly even lowered incidents of diabetes. All of this from a single gene. Will our decendeats be
slender immortals?
[edit on 23-9-2004 by Nerdling]
