Geneticists Claim Ability to Extend Life to 800 Years (in yeast!) Article

note: the most important sentence in this article is the final one: ” longevity mutations tend to
come with severe growth deficits and other health problems. Finding drugs to
extend the human life span without side effects will not be easy”. Yes, we can tinker with the human mechanism. But if we don’t know how to evolve it within a framework of balance and harmony, it’s not worth it in m opinion. Better to shift things internally, where they can be integrated. – Michael

GENETICISTS DISCOVER A WAY TO EXTEND LIFESPANS TO 800 YEARS
By Annalee Newitz
io9.com
January 16, 2008

http://io9.com/345728/geneticists-discover-a-way-to-extend-lifespans-to-800-
years

yeast.jpg There is now a way to extend the lifespan of organisms so that
humans could conceivably live to be 800 years old. In an amazing
development, scientists at the University of Southern California have
announced that they’ve extended the lifespan of yeast bacteria tenfold —
and the recipe they used to do it might easily translate into humans. It
involves tinkering with two genes, and cutting down your calorie intake.
Tests have already started on people in Ecuador.

According to an announcement from PLoS Genetics:

…

Researchers have created baker’s yeast capable of living to 800 in yeast
years without apparent side effects. The basic but important discovery,
achieved through a combination of dietary and genetic changes, brings
scientists closer to controlling the survival and health of the unit of all
living systems: the cell. “We’re setting the foundation for reprogramming
healthy life,” says study leader Valter Longo of the University of Southern
California.

Longo’s group put baker’s yeast on a calorie-restricted diet and knocked out
two genes – RAS2 and SCH9 – that promote aging in yeast and cancer in
humans.

“We got a 10-fold life span extension that is, I think, the longest one that
has ever been achieved in any organism,” Longo says. Normal yeast organisms
live about a week.

“I would say 10-fold is pretty significant,” says Anna McCormick, chief of
the genetics and cell biology branch at the National Institute on Aging
(NIA) and Longo’s program officer. The NIA funds such research in the hope
of extending healthy life span in humans through the development of drugs
that mimic the life-prolonging techniques used by Longo and others,
McCormick adds.

Baker’s yeast is one of the most studied and best understood organisms at
the molecular and genetic level. Remarkably, in light of its simplicity,
yeast has led to the discovery of some of the most important genes and
pathways regulating aging and disease in mice and other mammals.

Longo’s group next plans to further investigate life span extension in mice.
The group is already studying a human population in Ecuador with mutations
analogous to those described in yeast.

“People with two copies of the mutations have very small stature and other
defects,” Longo says. “We are now identifying the relatives with only one
copy of the mutation, who are apparently normal. We hope that they will show
a reduced incidence of diseases and an extended life span.”

Longo cautions that, as in the Ecuador case, longevity mutations tend to
come with severe growth deficits and other health problems. Finding drugs to
extend the human life span without side effects will not be easy.

………….