reverse aging process Drug has been nicknamed the “forever young” drug
Scientists have found or discovered a drug and they believe that drug can reverse the effects of premature ageing and could extend human life by more than a decade.
Rapamycin, which has been nicknamed the “forever young” drug, was created from a chemical found in the soil on Easter Island 2,000 miles off the coast of Chile.
One of the remote places on the earth.
Rapamycin is used to suppress the immune system in organ transplants.
What is Progeria?
Progeria, also known as Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), is a rare, fatal genetic condition characterized by an appearance of accelerated aging in children.
All children with Progeria die of the same heart disease that affects millions of normal aging adults (arteriosclerosis), but instead of occurring at 60 or 70 years of age, these children may suffer strokes and heart attacks even before age 10.
Remarkably, the intellect of children with Progeria is unaffected, and despite startling physical changes in their young bodies, these extraordinary children are intelligent, courageous, and full of life.
Movie Name – PAA - Big B That is Amitabh Bachchan plays the 13 year old character named Auro who is suffering from Progeria. This disease rapidly accelerates his aging and towards the end of the movie by the time the character hits his teens he dies.
Rapamycin is used in experiments on children suffering from Hutchinson-Gilford Progeria Syndrome (HGPS), a rare genetic condition in which ageing is hyper-accelerated
HGPS suffering patient dies at the age of 12 because of old age.
Rapamycin cleaned the cells of progerin, which swept away the defects and left healthy cells.
What is Progerin?
HGPS starts process whereby a protein called progerin builds up in every cell of the body, causing them to age prematurely.
In 2003, government researchers discovered that the disease is caused by a mutation in the gene for a protein called Lamin A, which helps maintain the normal structure of a cell's nucleus. As a result of the mutation, the cells produce a toxic protein called progerin, which has also been found to accumulate at a much slower rate in normal cells as they age.
In the new study, Cao and her colleagues treated cells from three progeria patients and four healthy individuals with rapamycin in culture.
They observed that the progeria cells showed a reversal in the structural alterations of the nucleus that are associated with the disease and less DNA damage.
The drug also reduced the symptoms of aging in both the progeria and healthy cells. Dr. Dimitri Krainc of the Massachusetts General Hospital Institute for Neurodegenerative Disease, a co-author, demonstrated that the rapamycin activates an intracellular pathway that initiates degradation of proteins not needed by the cells.
The level of progerin in the rapamycin-treated cells declined by half, the team found.
“It is known that during ageing, our cells accumulate by-products of normal cell function,” said Dimitri Krainc, one of the co-authors of the study.
“Our body’s ability to remove this debris declines with ageing and it is thought that even a small activation of this ‘debris removal’ system would extend the health and life-span of our cells and organs.”
NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins, co-author of the study said that "It would be interesting to contemplate if what we learned here can be used to extend our own lifespan."
The experiments may also reveal clues about the normal aging process and how to potentially slow it down
The study is published June 29 in the journal Science Translational Medicine.
The is how the Patient look
Big B in PAA movie –
Reality views by sm –
Friday, July 01, 2011
Keyword – Science News Aging Forever Young Drug Progeria Treatment Health Study
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