We've Found a Gene that May Let us Live Longer

Humans hate dying. Its ingrained into our very makeup that we hate death. and yet, for the entire span of our existence, we’ve been able to do little more than preventive maintenance to keep us running. That might be changing though.

A gene found in humans proves to lengthen the lives of mice by 15%. And while mice are a long way from humans, they’re much closer than worms, where another gene was found that (falsely) was thought to lengthen life span, sirtuin 2.

The new gene comes from the sirtuin family again, this time sirtuin 6. When mice were genetically engineered to have higher levels of SIRT6 in their blood than normal, they lived longer. It was that simple. Although, it should be noted that this did nothing for female mice, and the scientists have no clue as to why.

While the gain is not extreme, it is significant. And it appears that it works by causing the body to metabolize sugar faster than it would normally. The team who did the research, from the Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan, Israel, believe that the effect is from SIRT6 protecting the body from degenerative diseases like diabetes.

Every little bit of life extension knowledge is a step towards an everlasting future, though, and the dream is still alive. Nothing we’ve seen has said that our bodies must die; in fact, we’ve even found a few organisms that are essentially immortal. Once they get old, they pretty much just start over, reversing their age and becoming babies again. Then they grow back into adults, like nothing ever happened. (See this Wikipedia entry for more information).

NewScientist Photo by : Juhan Sonin