On paper at least, our bodies carry the capacity to refurbish our organs. Unfortunately, as you blow out the candles on another birthday cake, it is clear that our stem cells are not always fulfilling their potential.

The question is why stem cells fail us in our old age ?

Progeria allows us to peak into aging

Waiting for animals to age naturally takes too long, so researchers interested in studying aging often study the aging disease known as progeria.

Progeria is the very rare inherited condition where individuals age extremely rapidly – so a 10 year old has a body reminiscent of someone living in an old age home.

Scientists have been able to insert the gene which is defective in progeria into mice, creating mice that become old before their time. Progeria mice die of old age around 21 to 28 days i.e. they die of old age when they are 1 month old.

Defunct stem cells in progeria

When researchers look at the state of stem cells in a mice suffering from progeria, these cells are underperforming.

As expected, the stem cells behave like stem cells isolated from very old mice i.e. there are few cells circulating, their replication is very slow and they fail regenerate damaged tissue.

But, the stem cells are still capable….

Old stem cells have just lost their spark

When researchers from the University of Pittsburgh injected mice suffering from progeria with a shot of healthy stem cells from normal animals, the animals perked up.

They lived a lot longer – some of the animals lived beyond 66 days.

They lived a lot “happier” because they didn’t lose as much muscle mass so there was less trembling and slow, awkward movements.

The pick up was not because the healthy young stem cells stepped up to the plate and performed stem cell tasks.

The improvement was mediated by the tired barely functioning stem cells of the progeria mice.

Young stem cells provide the spark

The research team think the healthy stem cells were able to produce a chemical cocktail that put the spark back into the “old” stem cells.

The exact identity of these chemicals is still a mystery, but experiments performed in the lab confirm that hanging around young stem cells can invigorate old stem cells.

Put the essence of youth in a bottle

For years experts have advocated hanging around younger people as a strategy to maintain youth.

The idea being youthful patterns of behaviour some how rub off . The principle may apply at a cellular level as well.

Let’s hope they figure out how to bottle the essence of youth someday soon.

Muscle-derived stem/progenitor cell dysfunction limits healthspan and lifespan in a murine progeria model. Nature Communications (2012) 3: 608.  Mitra Lavasani, Andria R. Robinson, Aiping Lu, Minjung Song, Joseph M. Feduska, Bahar Ahani, Jeremy S. Tilstra, Chelsea H. Feldman, Paul D. Robbins, Laura J. Niedernhofer, Johnny Huard.

 

Interested in learning more about the chemistry behind aging ?

Subcribe to E-spoons, to get e-mail updates once a month to learn how to keep your body chemistry balanced so you sip from the fountain of youth.

NOTE : Privacy & spam policy. Spoonful of Science will not rent, trade or sell the e-mail list to anyone. You can unsubscribe at any time by following the unsubscribe link.

Know someone who will find this post useful ? Share it on facebook, linkedin, twitter

Further reading

Your body’s beauty therapists  are only active at night	Did you know skin wrinkles are a sign of bone wrinkles ?	Are your stem cells choosing to be fat cells rather than bone cells ?

The 7 Big Spoons™…. are master switches that turn health on.

Balance Eicosanoids	Rein in insulin	Dial down stress	Sleep !	Increase Vit D	Culivate microflora	Think champion

Hire Dr Sandy from a Spoonful of Science to be the keynote speaker at your next event.

Did you learn something new or do you have a different perspective ? I’d love to hear from you so post me a comment below