8 ms·

Scientists reverse aging-associated skin wrinkles and hair loss in a mouse model

139 points by anastalaz 8y ago

Nasrudith 8y ago
Another case of "fixing the problem we created in the mice in the first place". While good for reproducability and analyzing possible root causes it is frustratingly disappointing. I would really want to see is the process on actual senior lab mice - that would highlight other factors untreated and how transferrable it is to the general case for mice - let alone humans. If open-ended trial mice reach unprecedented ages that would have major implications.
- theothermkn 8y ago
  I could not disagree more. As the article states, and this meshes with my layperson's understanding, mitochondrial malfunction is a key facet of aging. While we strongly suspected the role of mitochondria, being able to turn them on and off and observe their effect really cements our understanding that, yes, they are involved in the ways we think they are. Further cause for optimism is that toggling the mitochondria toggled other age-associated behaviors in the mice. One of the pillars of SENS is allotropic expression of a subset of mitochondrial genes in the nucleus, to get those genes away from the mitochondrial furnace. We can speculate that other mitochondrial gene therapies may emerge from work like this. I can't be disappointed by this progress!
  - TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
    In this context, is SENS Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence?
    - theothermkn 8y ago
      Yup. I'm hopeful about the work associated with Aubrey de Grey and the SENS foundation. Again, this is from a layperson's perspective. My mind was kind of blown by the YouTube videos of the Undoing Aging 2018 conference, especially the speaker whose company is doing work on triggering apoptosis in senescent cells. It feels like things are starting to yield.
      - rsync 8y ago
        "triggering apoptosis in senescent cells" You can do this right now with very vigorous exercise. In fact, it appears that ones own mitochondrial population can be kept "young" by constantly weeding out cells with poor energy efficiency. Sort of a intra-body natural selection with exercise as the environmental stressor. There is a very interesting book by Nick Lane titled _Power, Sex, Suicide_ that explores these ideas. Not to worry, I suppose, since anyone with even a fleeting interest in "life extension" or "anti aging" would have a comprehensive, extremely intense exercise regimen ... Right ?
        lowdest 8y ago
        > since anyone with even a fleeting interest in "life extension" or "anti aging" would have a comprehensive, extremely intense exercise regimen ... Right ? Absolutely. And my adherence to it is at least as fleeting.
  - reasonattlm 8y ago
    No, this really is breaking the mice, not inducing something that looks like SENS-relevant damage in mitochondria. The details matter. Many means of breaking cell biology can produce things that look superficially like accelerated aging in at least some ways. That doesn't mean it is aging: given that aging is widespread tissue dysfunction, anything that causes widespread tissue dysfunction can have overlapping phenotypes, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with normal aging. DNA repair deficiency is the usual example - something that isn't all that apparent in normal aging, in comparison to the models in which DNA repair machinery is missing or broken. So, similarly, pulling the rug out from under mitochondrial function can be done in countless ways that have very little to do with what happens in aging. I think the onus is still on these researchers to demonstrate that the method they have chosen has much of anything to do with aging per se.
    - theothermkn 8y ago
      To me, this is akin to finding out what happens to airplanes when their pilots die. If we're wondering about this because they have been dying of asphyxiation at altitude, we'd still learn something if we ran the experiment of shooting them dead at altitude. The conditions aren't exactly the same, but we'll still figure out that pilots are important to airplanes. The other thing worth noting is that there could be some confusion from the title. It has "aging-associated" in it. The charitable understanding is along the lines of my analogy. The uncharitable, and seemingly popular one, is along the lines of your counterargument, and I think interprets "aging-associated" as "due to or consequent of aging," rather than "due to a cause that is similar on one level to causes that come about by aging."
jgalvez 8y ago
Ray Peat proven right once again.
- chuinard 8y ago
  He's the one doctor whose stuff I've read that I think make most sense. You get a lot of people saying he's crazy, though. Wonder if anyone on HN has ever had any success reversing hair loss? The ultimate hack, if you ask me.
  - davymac 8y ago
    Yeah, lots of stuff on Quackwatch about him. Not exactly flattering. I’ll pass after reading that stuff. Broken clocks being right twice a day and all.
    - jgalvez 8y ago
      It's just absurd to call him a quack. The man is 80 years old, a renowned biologist, several books published. He has ZERO interest in monetizing his ideas -- he charges a ridiculously small amount for his bimonthly newsletter, which is hardly making him richer. Ray Peat is a true scholar and a gentlemen, he just wants to untangle the mysteries of our metabolism and sees through what the media and government try to shove down our throats. His pieces on the vegetable oil industry are just the start of his many revelations. I've never looked at the food and drug industry the same way after knowing his work.
  - jgalvez 8y ago
    Some people get it, some people don't. When confronted with claims that drive the no-carb/keto people crazy, they resort to bashing him. I'd recommend following Danny Roddy, Chris Masterjohn and CowsEatGrass, and also look for the On The Back of a Tiger documentary which is due to be released soon.
  - jgalvez 8y ago
    And yes, plenty of people have had success regrowing hair following Peat's principles - aspirin, high CO2, high carbs, little to zero polyunsaturated, moderate saturated, (thyroid, pregnenolone, progesterone, vitamin A+B supplementation) etc. The Peaty things I've discovered that made the most dramatic difference in my life were colagen and methylene blue. My stamina, focus and overall health improved immensely after I started using 10gtt methylene blue and 2tbsp colagen in my morning shakes. Oh, and of course, RED LIGHT! For anyone interested, look for the "Ray Peat Forum" (community organized) and the "Ray Peat Inspired" videos on YouTube.
2_listerine_pls 8y ago
What a time to be a mouse
- sschueller 8y ago
  I think we have pretty much cured every disease a mouse could possibly have including aging...
Joboman555 8y ago
Look at the picture of the mouse - it’s not aging, it’s dying. Yes, they “reverse” the condition, but only by the cessation of giving these little guys poison (doxycycline, a harsh antibiotic). This could have been called “high doses of doxycycline almost kills mice.”
- 1996 8y ago
  > Yes, they “reverse” the condition, but only by the cessation of giving these little guys poison (doxycycline, a harsh antibiotic). This could have been called “high doses of doxycycline almost kills mice.” You clearly do not understand how triggering genes with antibiotics work (like Ampicillin in the old days).
- danieltillett 8y ago
  The doxycycline is being given at low dose and has no direct effect on the mouse. It is being used to switch on and off the gene of interest - introduce a gene under expression control with doxycycline. This is a common way of doing gene regulation experiments in mice.
- pandasun 8y ago
  >doxycycline, a harsh antibiotic Do you have any sources for it being harsh? I'm curious because I've been on antibiotics for 2 years (yes really) and this is the one I tolerate the best.
  - GordonS 8y ago
    I was also on doxycycline for over 2 years, and barring a slightly dodgy tummy for the first 48 hours (fairly typical for antibiotics), I didn't notice any adverse affects. It did transpire that my doctor had 'forgotten' I was still on it though (I was only meant to be on it for 6 months!), so I did wonder if there were any adverse affects of taking it for that long!
thermodynthrway 8y ago
Hair loss cure has been around for a while, at least for MPB. Been taking finasteride for almost a decade and haven't lost any hair. Most guys are scared away by rare but serious side effects. But most of the problem seems to be getting guys to take pills regularly at all
- WilliamEdward 8y ago
  Finasterade supposedly doesn't reverse hair loss, it prevents it.
  - ravenstine 8y ago
    That's what seems to be the case with any existing hair loss products; if you have nearly invisible wisps of hair left, minoxidil and finasteride will rejuvenate those and prevent further hair loss. Not really a cure. If too much hair loss has occurred, you're kinda screwed unless you go the transplant route, which has its own problems. I do hope for an actual hair loss cure, and I'd pay thousands for it. People treat bald people really different and don't even realize it. Not in necessarily a "bad" way, not like a second-class citizen, but I think bald guys are slightly scarier to the average person, especially if the guy shaves it or keeps it short. Obviously they are also less attractive on average unless they've got the muscle proportion and the jawline to go with it. It's not all bad since it also means that I'm no longer treated like a "young man" by anyone. But when I wear a hat or a beanie and people don't know that I'm bald, they're a much nicer and women come up to me a lot more. It's like night and day. At least that means there's nothing wrong with my face! :)
    - smnplk 8y ago
      There is a experimental drug called setipiprant. Theoretically, setipiprant's DP2 receptor antagonism may counteract the activity of PGD2 in hair follicles, thereby stimulating hair growth.
      - ravenstine 8y ago
phyller 8y ago
The article title should read, "Scientists able to temporarily induce some symptoms of aging in young mice". If they could have reversed symptoms of aging in actual old mice they would have done it.
amriksohata 8y ago
We hear of these kind of studies time and time again yet never see anything materialise for humans.

139 points by anastalaz 8y ago

Another case of "fixing the problem we created in the mice in the first place". While good for reproducability and analyzing possible root causes it is frustratingly disappointing. I would really want to see is the process on actual senior lab mice - that would highlight other factors untreated and how transferrable it is to the general case for mice - let alone humans. If open-ended trial mice reach unprecedented ages that would have major implications.

theothermkn 8y ago
I could not disagree more. As the article states, and this meshes with my layperson's understanding, mitochondrial malfunction is a key facet of aging. While we strongly suspected the role of mitochondria, being able to turn them on and off and observe their effect really cements our understanding that, yes, they are involved in the ways we think they are. Further cause for optimism is that toggling the mitochondria toggled other age-associated behaviors in the mice. One of the pillars of SENS is allotropic expression of a subset of mitochondrial genes in the nucleus, to get those genes away from the mitochondrial furnace. We can speculate that other mitochondrial gene therapies may emerge from work like this. I can't be disappointed by this progress!
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  In this context, is SENS Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence?
  - theothermkn 8y ago
    Yup. I'm hopeful about the work associated with Aubrey de Grey and the SENS foundation. Again, this is from a layperson's perspective. My mind was kind of blown by the YouTube videos of the Undoing Aging 2018 conference, especially the speaker whose company is doing work on triggering apoptosis in senescent cells. It feels like things are starting to yield.
    - rsync 8y ago
      "triggering apoptosis in senescent cells" You can do this right now with very vigorous exercise. In fact, it appears that ones own mitochondrial population can be kept "young" by constantly weeding out cells with poor energy efficiency. Sort of a intra-body natural selection with exercise as the environmental stressor. There is a very interesting book by Nick Lane titled _Power, Sex, Suicide_ that explores these ideas. Not to worry, I suppose, since anyone with even a fleeting interest in "life extension" or "anti aging" would have a comprehensive, extremely intense exercise regimen ... Right ?
      - lowdest 8y ago
        > since anyone with even a fleeting interest in "life extension" or "anti aging" would have a comprehensive, extremely intense exercise regimen ... Right ? Absolutely. And my adherence to it is at least as fleeting.
- reasonattlm 8y ago
  No, this really is breaking the mice, not inducing something that looks like SENS-relevant damage in mitochondria. The details matter. Many means of breaking cell biology can produce things that look superficially like accelerated aging in at least some ways. That doesn't mean it is aging: given that aging is widespread tissue dysfunction, anything that causes widespread tissue dysfunction can have overlapping phenotypes, but that doesn't mean it has anything to do with normal aging. DNA repair deficiency is the usual example - something that isn't all that apparent in normal aging, in comparison to the models in which DNA repair machinery is missing or broken. So, similarly, pulling the rug out from under mitochondrial function can be done in countless ways that have very little to do with what happens in aging. I think the onus is still on these researchers to demonstrate that the method they have chosen has much of anything to do with aging per se.
  - theothermkn 8y ago
    To me, this is akin to finding out what happens to airplanes when their pilots die. If we're wondering about this because they have been dying of asphyxiation at altitude, we'd still learn something if we ran the experiment of shooting them dead at altitude. The conditions aren't exactly the same, but we'll still figure out that pilots are important to airplanes. The other thing worth noting is that there could be some confusion from the title. It has "aging-associated" in it. The charitable understanding is along the lines of my analogy. The uncharitable, and seemingly popular one, is along the lines of your counterargument, and I think interprets "aging-associated" as "due to or consequent of aging," rather than "due to a cause that is similar on one level to causes that come about by aging."

jgalvez 8y ago

Ray Peat proven right once again.

chuinard 8y ago
He's the one doctor whose stuff I've read that I think make most sense. You get a lot of people saying he's crazy, though. Wonder if anyone on HN has ever had any success reversing hair loss? The ultimate hack, if you ask me.
- davymac 8y ago
  Yeah, lots of stuff on Quackwatch about him. Not exactly flattering. I’ll pass after reading that stuff. Broken clocks being right twice a day and all.
  - jgalvez 8y ago
    It's just absurd to call him a quack. The man is 80 years old, a renowned biologist, several books published. He has ZERO interest in monetizing his ideas -- he charges a ridiculously small amount for his bimonthly newsletter, which is hardly making him richer. Ray Peat is a true scholar and a gentlemen, he just wants to untangle the mysteries of our metabolism and sees through what the media and government try to shove down our throats. His pieces on the vegetable oil industry are just the start of his many revelations. I've never looked at the food and drug industry the same way after knowing his work.
- jgalvez 8y ago
  Some people get it, some people don't. When confronted with claims that drive the no-carb/keto people crazy, they resort to bashing him. I'd recommend following Danny Roddy, Chris Masterjohn and CowsEatGrass, and also look for the On The Back of a Tiger documentary which is due to be released soon.
- jgalvez 8y ago
  And yes, plenty of people have had success regrowing hair following Peat's principles - aspirin, high CO2, high carbs, little to zero polyunsaturated, moderate saturated, (thyroid, pregnenolone, progesterone, vitamin A+B supplementation) etc. The Peaty things I've discovered that made the most dramatic difference in my life were colagen and methylene blue. My stamina, focus and overall health improved immensely after I started using 10gtt methylene blue and 2tbsp colagen in my morning shakes. Oh, and of course, RED LIGHT! For anyone interested, look for the "Ray Peat Forum" (community organized) and the "Ray Peat Inspired" videos on YouTube.

2_listerine_pls 8y ago

What a time to be a mouse

sschueller 8y ago
I think we have pretty much cured every disease a mouse could possibly have including aging...

Joboman555 8y ago

Look at the picture of the mouse - it’s not aging, it’s dying. Yes, they “reverse” the condition, but only by the cessation of giving these little guys poison (doxycycline, a harsh antibiotic). This could have been called “high doses of doxycycline almost kills mice.”

1996 8y ago
> Yes, they “reverse” the condition, but only by the cessation of giving these little guys poison (doxycycline, a harsh antibiotic). This could have been called “high doses of doxycycline almost kills mice.” You clearly do not understand how triggering genes with antibiotics work (like Ampicillin in the old days).
danieltillett 8y ago
The doxycycline is being given at low dose and has no direct effect on the mouse. It is being used to switch on and off the gene of interest - introduce a gene under expression control with doxycycline. This is a common way of doing gene regulation experiments in mice.
pandasun 8y ago
>doxycycline, a harsh antibiotic Do you have any sources for it being harsh? I'm curious because I've been on antibiotics for 2 years (yes really) and this is the one I tolerate the best.
- GordonS 8y ago
  I was also on doxycycline for over 2 years, and barring a slightly dodgy tummy for the first 48 hours (fairly typical for antibiotics), I didn't notice any adverse affects. It did transpire that my doctor had 'forgotten' I was still on it though (I was only meant to be on it for 6 months!), so I did wonder if there were any adverse affects of taking it for that long!

thermodynthrway 8y ago

Hair loss cure has been around for a while, at least for MPB. Been taking finasteride for almost a decade and haven't lost any hair. Most guys are scared away by rare but serious side effects. But most of the problem seems to be getting guys to take pills regularly at all

WilliamEdward 8y ago
Finasterade supposedly doesn't reverse hair loss, it prevents it.
- ravenstine 8y ago
  That's what seems to be the case with any existing hair loss products; if you have nearly invisible wisps of hair left, minoxidil and finasteride will rejuvenate those and prevent further hair loss. Not really a cure. If too much hair loss has occurred, you're kinda screwed unless you go the transplant route, which has its own problems. I do hope for an actual hair loss cure, and I'd pay thousands for it. People treat bald people really different and don't even realize it. Not in necessarily a "bad" way, not like a second-class citizen, but I think bald guys are slightly scarier to the average person, especially if the guy shaves it or keeps it short. Obviously they are also less attractive on average unless they've got the muscle proportion and the jawline to go with it. It's not all bad since it also means that I'm no longer treated like a "young man" by anyone. But when I wear a hat or a beanie and people don't know that I'm bald, they're a much nicer and women come up to me a lot more. It's like night and day. At least that means there's nothing wrong with my face! :)
  - smnplk 8y ago
    There is a experimental drug called setipiprant. Theoretically, setipiprant's DP2 receptor antagonism may counteract the activity of PGD2 in hair follicles, thereby stimulating hair growth.
    - ravenstine 8y ago

phyller 8y ago

The article title should read, "Scientists able to temporarily induce some symptoms of aging in young mice". If they could have reversed symptoms of aging in actual old mice they would have done it.

amriksohata 8y ago

We hear of these kind of studies time and time again yet never see anything materialise for humans.