A Small Lifespan Study of Combined Interventions

My attention was drawn recently to a small mouse life span study run by one of the groups that has been in the longevity community for a while now. It is interesting for testing combinations of interventions that have in the past been demonstrated to modestly slow aging in mice (such as rapamycin), or modestly improve aspects of cell function in old tissues (such as nicotinamide mononucleotide). Combinatorial studies are rare in academia and industry, for reasons that have a lot to do with (a) the perverse incentives produced by the existence of intellectual property, in that the rights to use specific interventions can be owned, granted, refused and (b) the way in which the huge cost of regulatory approval determines which projects that can be successfully funded, typically only those in which patents grant a monopoly on use. The results are much as one might expect, given the interventions chosen, in that most of the combinations did little to nothing to mouse survival and life span. The only one that appears to have an effect is the use of C60 - an intervention that, you might recall, has a checkered history in animal studies. The most recent data, from Ichor Therapeutics and others, who spent some years working with C60, is that it is not a useful intervention in the matter of modestly slowing aging. Unfortunately, this study did not control for inadvertent calorie restriction. When an intervention makes mice feel ill, they will eat less. Mouse weight is a s...
Source: Fight Aging! - Category: Research Authors: Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs