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Experimental Drug Targeting Alzheimer's Disease Shows Anti-Aging Effects (nextbigfuture.com)

Posted by timothy on from the light-in-the-darkness dept.

schwit1 writes with news that researchers at the Salk Institute have found that an experimental drug candidate aimed at combating Alzheimer's disease has a host of unexpected anti-aging effects in animals. Says the article: The Salk team expanded upon their previous development of a drug candidate, called J147, which takes a different tack by targeting Alzheimer's major risk factor–old age. In the new work, the team showed that the drug candidate worked well in a mouse model of aging not typically used in Alzheimer's research. When these mice were treated with J147, they had better memory and cognition, healthier blood vessels in the brain and other improved physiological features.

"Initially, the impetus was to test this drug in a novel animal model that was more similar to 99 percent of Alzheimer's cases," says Antonio Currais, the lead author and a member of Professor David Schubert's Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at Salk. "We did not predict we'd see this sort of anti-aging effect, but J147 made old mice look like they were young, based upon a number of physiological parameters."

10 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. RTFM for once ... by BenBoy · · Score: 4, Funny

    Worth looking at the actual article, especially the before and after pic they've included ...

  2. This is Awesome! by yerfdogyrag · · Score: 3, Funny

    I can't wait for them to try this on Humans! Any idea why they named several of the mice 'Algernon'?

  3. Easier to address aging than its symptoms. . . by Idou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    End of life care is expensive and ineffectual because it is targeting the symptoms of the problem, not the underlying problem, which is age. Eventually, the technology will be at the point that it will just make more economic sense to have people preemptively reduce aging instead of going to the doctor for an age related illness.

    Yes, people will have to work longer but you will not work yourself to death to save up for retirement (just for the occasional break). There are plenty of problems in the world, so having more able people to address those problems is probably a good thing. Also, people will put off having kids longer and everyone is going to start to care a lot more about the "longterm" of things. Seems like a positive direction for humanity. . .

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    Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
    1. Re:Easier to address aging than its symptoms. . . by Idou · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There has actually been a lot of thought put into that. Here is one example.

      A short explanation is to point out the well documented fact that people have fewer kids and tend to have kids later in life the longer they live. Consequently, a cheap pill that allows people to live hundreds of years would cause an immediate effect of a DECREASE in the number of kids born, and would POSTPONE a lot of births that would have otherwise have had happened sooner. So the birthrate would decrease GREATLY over this initial period, while other causes of deaths would continue. As a result, over the "short term" (probably centuries, to immortals) you probably would see a population DECREASE, as a result.

      Eventually, though, people will reach some equilibrium of having kids, so the initial period before this is crucial. Basically, we will have an army of well educated, experienced, and healthy people to tackle some key technologies (e.g. space elevators, etc. . .). After the initial period (again, probably centuries long), we send armies of people to settle the rest of solar system, or make a Dyson sphere, or whatever else help ensure the continuation of the species.

      Just because we have learned to live with death does not mean death is some kind crucial component to ensure the continuation of our species. In fact, it is the exact opposite. . .

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      Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
    2. Re:Easier to address aging than its symptoms. . . by Idou · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why not? If 50 million tired and aching U.S. senior citizens were turned healthy and energetic, why could they not help bring entire nations up from poverty? Ending aging would dramatically increase the manpower and working knowledge that could in turn be used to address the problems of the world.

      Besides, I am sure there was much more poverty when people were living to just be 40 years old. . . it seems that living longer gives you more time to claw your way out of poverty.

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      Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
    3. Re:Easier to address aging than its symptoms. . . by Idou · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Our current state of technology can support our entire species with unprecedented efficiency and sustainability. This technology appears to be improving at a faster pace. The hard problem appears to have been solved already. Things like how we distribute wealth is a mere social construct that can literally occur overnight with a signing of a law (like basic income). Though idiots get disproportionate attention, most humans are reasonable and can make choices that benefit the entire species.

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      Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
  4. Re:Problems by mi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What would pharmaceutical companies charge for something like this?

    If you can't afford it, just keep walking — you aren't any worse off than before.

    What are the social implications?

    Rich people begin to live (much) longer — CEOs, Senators, judges, and generals alike do not retire restricting career-growths of their underlings. Similar effects in families, with (grand)children never seeing the inheritance. Official retirement age raised (very) high.

    A movement springs up denouncing the procedure as somehow unethical — while the Bible's long-living characters suddenly seem less implausible.

    A separate movement springs up to demand "free" dosage for everyone — told, there is not enough for all, they demand none get it and proceed to destroy what little stock there is. Fortunately, a break-through — its development funded by the cash windfall from the millionaire "early adopters" — allows to produce enough of the stuff to add it to water supply (in developed countries).

    Secret e-mails with government-officials discussing these very predictions and considerations are leaked and discussed by the media as awesome forethought by some and evil conspiracy by others.

    Yet another movement begins to claim suffering from allergic and other mysterious-yet-painful reactions to the stuff and try to avoid it.

    Something like that... Oh, and, of course, PROFIT!

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    In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
  5. Curry is cheaper and tastier. by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This drug is just a synthetic curcumin (turmeric) derivative and the statistics show that the natural substance does protect Indians, who eat a lot of it. (Old news.)

  6. Life is good - if you are a mouse by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    Apparently it is the mice that are running the planet and they got us trained to solve their health problems.

  7. Re:This is Awesome by Ungrounded+Lightning · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I can't wait for them to try this on Humans!

    Note that the anti-ageing effects were seen in a strain of mutated mice that "exhibit rapid ageing". It may turn out that the drug's effects are specific for the pathway affected by the mouse line's particular genetic fault, rather than against ageing in general.

    But even if that's the case, I expect it would retard SOME aspects of age-related debilitation in normal mice and in humans. I await the results of the upcoming human trials.

    --
    Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way