Scientists now report that the inhibition of an inflammation-causing protein, IL-11, extended health span and lifespan in mice. This type of inhibition has been shown to improve metabolism, reduce frailty, and increase lifespan by about 25%, according to a research study result published on 17 July in Nature.
This is the IL-11 protein of the human immune system and has been a target in clinical trials for cancer and fibrosis, diseases generally associated with the process of aging. These findings suggest that treatments developed to block IL-11 should have the added benefit of increasing lifespan, but that is a point that would require testing through clinical trials.
The discovery was incidental. The researchers, which included molecular biologist Anissa Widjaja and medical researcher Stuart Cook, from the Duke–National University of Singapore Medical School, had set out to initially measure IL-11. In their findings, they noticed that the concentration of IL-11 was extremely higher in old rats as opposed to young rats. The finding then turned their research interest toward the role played by IL-11 in aging.
The subsequent experiments to this effect showed that in skeletal muscles, fat, and liver, a high degree of IL-11 was maintained in older mice. Genetic deletion or antibody blockage to this protein, that is, the gene IL-11 improved health span and significantly extended lifespan in mice.
Results offer fresh hope for anti-aging therapies Researchers provided evidence that points to one possible cause of aging: a protein, IL-11, is involved in the normal process of producing blood cells from stem cells. The findings offer fresh hope for the development of anti-aging therapies. Because clinical trials of antibodies to IL-11 are already underway for other diseases, their potential use in longevity experiments could be fast-tracked, say researchers. Stuart Cook said the response in the treated mice was as good as that seen with perhaps the best-known anti-aging drug, rapamycin.
Results like those are hard to turn into treatments for people. Clinical trials dealing with life span are fiendishly complicated and expensive. Thus concentrating on specific conditions of aging, like muscle loss, could make setting near-term measurable targets more feasible, says a researcher.
Such findings would need to be replicated in different laboratories and different genetic backgrounds. This kind of experiment should be done in different environments repeatedly before human trials are done, argues Dan Winer of the Buck Institute for Research on Aging.
This will bring up new leads for research into quests for the understanding and mitigation of aging, although it is full of obstacles. The research concerning the role of IL-11 in longevity reiterates the complexity of the relationship between the immune system and aging and tends to accentuate such findings for innovative therapeutic approaches.