London, Thanasis Gavos

Scientists from Britain and Singapore found that a drug that fights an aging protein increased the lifespan of mice by 25% in the laboratory.

The medicine it has begun to be given in human trials to see if it could have the same effect.

Mice given the drug became known as “supermodel grandmothers” because of their youthful appearance compared to mice of the same age who did not receive the drug.

It turned out that they were healthier, stronger and with fewer manifestations of cancer than the rest of the mice.

The researchers from the MRC Medical Sciences Laboratory, Imperial College London and Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore for years they have been studying the protein interleukin-11, the presence of which increases in the human body as we age.

This protein contributes to the manifestation of more and more inflammation and causes biological changes associated with aging.

So they proceeded with two experiments: modifying the genetic code of mice so that they could not produce interleukin-11 and administering a drug that removed the protein from the mice’s body. The drug was administered when the mice were 75 weeks old, or 55 years old in human years.

According to findings published in Nature reviewthe lifespan of the mice increased from 20 to 25 years, depending on the experiment each was subjected to, as well as their gender.

They also had fewer cases of cancer than the rest, better muscle function, were less fat, stronger and with healthier hair.

The hope of the researchers is that the drug, essentially a man-made antibody that attacks interleukin-11, could work in humans, although there is still no tangible evidence of this.

For starters, the drug is given to patients with pulmonary fibrosis.