Alex Trelinski
SPANISH and British scientists have been working in London on mice to see if injections of antibodies can potentially extend the life of a human- with initial encouraging results.
Monthly jabs of a simple antibody have been administered to mice that are almost a year and a half old- equivalent to 55 human years.
These animals have lived up to 25% longer as a result of the injections and are in good health with lower incidence of cancer, less cholesterol, greater muscle strength.
READ MORE HEALTH NEWS:
- Health service warning in Spain: This summer will be ‘very difficult’ due to lack of doctors, say industry leaders
- Revealed: Tips for parents to make sure young children stay healthy during Spain’s long hot summer
- Revealed: The highest and lowest-rated regions for public health services in Spain
Biochemist Jesus Gil said: “There’s no reason to think that what we’ve seen in mice isn’t going to work in people.”
The results are visible to the naked eye, according to cardiologist Stuart Cook who is co-director of the research at the London Medical Sciences Laboratory.
“The mice that received the X203 antibody looked thinner and more active, with better coat colour—fewer grey hairs—and better vision, hearing, and ability to walk,” Cook said.
Antibodies are proteins that circulate in the blood to defend the body from foreign substances, such as viruses and bacteria.
In the case of X203, it is designed to block another natural protein with powerful effects on ageing called interleukin 11,whose concentration increases with age.
It causes cells to stop multiplying and accumulates and releases harmful substances that cause inflammation and damage to nearby cells.
Cook stresses that there are already human trials of experimental treatments to block interleukin 11, but they are not focused on studying ageing for years or decades.
He has set up a company, Enleofen, which is working with the German pharmaceutical firm Boehringer Ingelheim with early tests of a similar antibody administered to healthy volunteers.
“We have not seen adverse effects in mice and increasing longevity and prolonging healthy life is the opposite of an adverse effect,” Cook added.
He stated that the first human results show an ‘excellent safety profile’.
In mice, the jab goes direct into the abdominal cavity for 25 weeks- the equivalent of administering it to a person for almost two decades.
Jesus Gil from Logroño leads his own team at the Medical Sciences Laboratory- part of the UK’s Medical Research Council.
They study senescence- the state in which cells stop reproducing, but do not die- and when they accumulate they promote inflammation, ageing and cancer.
“Inhibiting interleukin 11 can inhibit senescence,” says Gil, who has also done experiments with human cells.
Spanish biologist, Rafael de Cabo, head of Translational Gerontology at the U.S. National Institute on Aging, has praised the research.
“The magnitude of the life extension of mice is quite impressive,” said De Cabo, who also added a note of caution.
“The data is super solid, but there are details that could question the interpretation a bit like using just one genetic line of mice which are common.”
“To carry out longevity studies you have to use several strains of mice, in several places, to avoid it being a one-off observation,” he warned.
De Cabo, however, is optimistic: “It is clear that playing with the inhibition of interleukin 11 has beneficial effects on the health of mice. “
“The accumulation of data from this and other studies indicates that it can probably be used for specific types of diseases in humans,” he added.
“The problem we have right now in the field of ageing research is that everyone wants to live much longer, but no one has the patience to do studies well.”
“We have to do long-term human studies which have not yet be done,“ he concluded.
