SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
The anti-cancer drug dasatnib in combination with quercetin being trialed for safety against lung fibrosis has shown impressive anti-aging results.
Participants in the trial were ~70 years old and suffering from pulmonary fibrosis a debilitating and eventually fatal disease. After the trial, 100% of the study showed improvement
participants were able to walk faster, get up from a chair more quickly and scored better in ability tests.
The benefit is a result of removing 'zombie cells' from the body.
Senescent cells - also known as zombie cells - are not completely dead so are not cleared out by the body, but are too damaged to repair tissue or carry out normal functions. Unable to repair itself or clear out the waste, the body gradually deteriorates.
Previously animal studies have shown that removing these cells reverses the ageing process, extends lifespan, and restores lost youth.
Better yet, it does not sound like a pill every day for the rest of your life sort of thing
“It has a hit-and-run effect,” added Dr Kirkland. “The drug starts working quickly and we would ideally like to be able to give it just once a month.”
Of course increasing the cost 30x should nicely take care of that drawback.
(Score: 3, Informative) by ElizabethGreene on Friday January 11 2019, @04:45PM (1 child)
You're talking about something different.
The key points on senescent cells are:
They are old cells that have become non-functional. They don't perform the function they are designed to do.
They are functionally immortal, and continue taking up space and resources within the host. Their autolysis mechanism is busted.
They encourage senescence in their cellular neighborhood.
Most critically, they cause Inflammation [wikipedia.org]. This is the big problem.
Normally Inflammation is a good thing. It triggers your self repair mechanisms to come in, clean up an injury, and fix it. This "good" inflammation is called Acute inflammation. The problem with senescent cells is they request repair with nothing to clean up; there is no work to do. That creates systemic or chronic inflammation. Chronic inflammation is a DOT debuff. (DOT=Damage over Time [webopedia.com]) The more senescent cells you have the more DOTs you carry.
The working hypothesis is that killing off and cleaning out the senescent cells will reduce the overall level of systemic/chronic inflammation and let the body's own self-repair mechanisms step back in to fix real problems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 12 2019, @05:41AM
Thats not the definition: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_senescence [wikipedia.org]