Originally published December 8 2005
Protein study reveals new discoveries about human life expectancy
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
Current Biology has published a new study that focuses on the body's production of the p53 protein as it effects life span and expectancy.
Fruit flies can live significantly longer, and remain healthy, when activity of the fly version of the tumor-suppressing protein p53 is reduced in nerve cells.
Published in Current Biology, the results shed important new light on the role this "protector of the genome" plays in aging and point to p53 as a viable target for anti-aging drugs.
The p53 gene plays a critical role in the body.
It protects human cells by producing a protein that triggers apoptosis, or cell suicide, when DNA is badly damaged.
This prevents the spread of genetic mutations and the formation of cancer.
When the p53 gene is damaged or missing, cancer may result.
When p53 is hyperactive - pumping out higher-than-normal levels of tumor-suppressing protein - it accelerates aging and shortens life span in mice.
"What this new work shows is that there is a 'golden mean' with p53," said Stephen Helfand, a Brown University biologist who served as senior scientist for the study.
"By targeting a decrease in p53 protein, specifically in neurons, we can extend healthy life span in fruit flies.
Helfand, now a professor in Brown's Department of Molecular Biology, Cell Biology and Bio-chemistry, oversaw the project while at the University of Connecticut Health Center.
When flies had the altered gene switched on, they produced a mutant form of the p53 protein that deactivated normal p53 protein.
Because adult nerve cells don't divide - making them much less prone to cancer.
Results showed that adult mutant flies lived up to 58 percent longer - an average of 60 days, up from the average of 38 days.
"We believe that p53 is part of the caloric restriction life span extension pathway," Helfand said.
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