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Aging News & Information
Male Mice Get Longevity Boost from Compound Found in
Creosote Bush
Male mice fed anti-inflammatory
substance may live longer
June 5, 2007 - Aspirin didnt pan out. Neither did
two other potential anti-aging agents. But a synthetic derivative of a
pungent desert shrub is now a front- runner in ongoing animal
experiments to find out if certain chemicals, known to inhibit
inflammation, cancer and other destructive processes, can boost the odds
of living longer.
Last week at the annual meeting of the American
Aging Association,
University of Michigan scientist
Richard A. Miller reports early results from a mouse study his lab
and two others are conducting for the National Institute on Aging. The
study, now in its fourth year, will test as many as two dozen possible
anti-aging agents in animals in the next five years. The other centers
are the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas,
and the Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine.
The scientists were surprised to find so quickly
that one agent showed promise: NDGA, a compound derived from creosote
bushes. These common North American desert shrubs have been
traditionally used by Native Americans as healing remedies
The preliminary results, to be published in August
in the journal Aging Cell, show that male mice fed a normal diet and
NDGA so far have survived in significantly greater numbers than mice on
a normal diet. Scientists measured the difference at a point called
median lifespan, when half the control mice had died of natural causes
associated with aging.
This is the first time to my knowledge when an
agent has been shown to extend median life span in three laboratories,
says Miller, professor of pathology at the
U-M Medical School and associate director of the
U-M Geriatrics Center. Miller is also a research scientist at the
Ann Arbor VA Medical Center.
No significant difference occurred in female mice.
The scientists cant explain why at this point. We dont know how NDGA
is having its effect on survival in this first analysis, Miller says.
It may be that the female mice because of their
hormonal status have other pathways to death and disability, or need
higher or lower levels of NDGA to see an effect.
The large, carefully controlled study at three
sites, called the NIA Interventions Testing Program, is intended to
provide some of the first reliable data on potential drugs to slow aging
and its accompanying ills.
Miller says prior studies typically have been too
small and their results hard to confirm in subsequent studies. The
National Institute on Aging decided to fund grants at three institutions
to do studies of this sort in the right way, he says.
In six to 10 months, once all the mice in the
control group have died, the scientists will get answers to the really
burning question: Will the mice fed NDGA, already well past middle age,
live past the normal outer limit of old age? The longest that mice of
this type usually live is around 1,000 to 1,100 days.
If NDGA turns out to extend maximal lifespan by 20
or 30 percent, people would accept that as an important finding, Miller
says.
No one excited by these early results in mice is
advised to bulk up on creosote bush leaves as a way to defy old age. If
NDGA pushes the aging envelope in the final results of this study, other
labs will likely try to repeat the results in animals. Much more
research is needed before any possible human anti-aging drug could
emerge, Miller says.
Even if this agent turns out to be good for mice,
it wont be possible to tell without careful studies of humans whether
NDGA is beneficial, useless, or harmful to people. Occasionally,
something that is harmless in mice turns out to be highly toxic for
people, Miller cautions, adding that the Food and Drug Administration
doesnt evaluate the safety of such herbal remedies.
Randy Strong of the University of Texas Health
Science Center, David E. Harrison of the Jackson Laboratory and Miller
are chief collaborators in the National Institute on Aging project,
which includes scientists at Oklahoma Medical Research Foundation, the
University of Florida, and Milan, Italy.
The research is funded by the National Institute on
Aging, part of the National Institutes of Health.
Visit
www.americanaging.org for more information on the American Aging
Association and its annual meeting.
Written by: Anne Rueter
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