Anti-Aging Pill—Have we discovered the fountain of youth?
A research group at the Institute of Aging recently published a paper in the scientific journal Nature showing that a compound named rapamycin could prevent aging in mice. Interestingly, this compound was found buried in the dirt of Easter Island (remember that one?) and it was initially studied for its immunosuppressive properties. The scientists at the Institute of Aging claim that in the set of mice, life expectancy for both male and female mice, who were the “human equivalent” of 60 years old, was increased by 28%-38%. So does this mean that we have found the fountain of youth?
The first question to ask yourself is, what exactly is aging? What does it mean to “prevent aging?” I believe that this question is the major caveat of not only this study but of numerous anti-aging projects. It is difficult to define just what exactly aging is. Can you die of age alone? Or does age cause cellular malfunctions, and lead to cancer, immunosuppressant, neurological problems, etc.? We know that death can occur by those alone, but it is difficult to understand what it is that these research laboratories are targeting specifically. One of the main focuses of the laboratories at the Institute of Aging is to test compound after compound to determine if any of them have an effect on aging.
The authors of the study address the ambiguity of the word ‘aging’ by claiming that they do not know yet whether the mice lived longer because aging was prolonged, or because the mice simply did not develop cancer. Do you think, then, that their first inclination would have been to claim that this drug might be an anti-cancer agent? Do you think it is a little premature to jump to anti-aging right away? The compound is already known to have anti-cancer properties, so perhaps this drug is not battling that all-too-abstract idea of aging, but rather cancer itself. I might be harsh on the anti-aging studies, but it seems to me like the process might be more efficient by attempting to study how the compound works first, then testing how that might be a positive factor in the aging process, rather than wasting hundreds of experimental mice to determine that a compound prevents aging for an unknown reason.
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