11.03.2006
Cool Down you Body to Live Longer
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New research shows that cooling the body leads to longer life.
Researchers have found that lowering the body temperature of mice by just 0.5°C extends their lifespan by around 15%. In the future, people might be able to take a drug to achieve a similar effect on body temperature and enjoy a longer life, they say.
The only previously proven method of significantly increasing the lifespan of an animal (and speculated as effective in humans)has been through a restricted calorie diet.
Bruno Conti at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, US, and colleagues designed genetically engineered mice with a specific brain-cell defect in a region called the lateral hypothalamus. The defect forces brain cells into "overdrive", causing the region to heat up and become warmer than in a normal mouse...
Researchers have found that lowering the body temperature of mice by just 0.5°C extends their lifespan by around 15%. In the future, people might be able to take a drug to achieve a similar effect on body temperature and enjoy a longer life, they say.
The only previously proven method of significantly increasing the lifespan of an animal (and speculated as effective in humans)has been through a restricted calorie diet.
Bruno Conti at Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, US, and colleagues designed genetically engineered mice with a specific brain-cell defect in a region called the lateral hypothalamus. The defect forces brain cells into "overdrive", causing the region to heat up and become warmer than in a normal mouse...
