One strange cross-cutting point that biologists have noticed across different species of the world is that animals tend to live longer with fewer breaths per minute. Turtles can live up to 150 years and breathe only three or four times a minute. In contrast, humans breathe between 12 and 16 times per minute and have an average lifespan of just 71 years.
So in our quest to hack our bodies to make them live longer, many began touting the effects of oxygen restriction—also known as hypoxia—as a potential solution. Although this has mostly been carried over to the new age circle, clinical researchers are finally starting to bring these investigations into the lab. With the effects of Calorie restriction to increase longevity is well documented With today’s new study, scientists are eager to see if other limitations actually help increase life expectancy.
Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have published what appears to be the first to demonstrate how hypoxia can lead to long lifespans in mammals. The new findings were published on Tuesday in PLOS Biology.
Robert Rogers, a researcher at Massachusetts General Hospital and co-author of the new study, told The Daily Beast: “We have long been excited about the possibility that hypoxia could be beneficial and wanted to control closely examine this hypothesis. “But we have no assumption that it will actually work.”
The study builds on previous research led by co-author Vamsi Mootha, a molecular biologist at Harvard Medical School who has studied the effects of oxygen restriction in mice for more than a decade. The ambient oxygen level for most life on Earth is about 21 percent. Mootha’s lab first found that restricting oxygen to about 11% prolongs life and slows brain cell degeneration in mice with Leigh syndrome (a neurological severe epilepsy) in 2016 and in mice with Friedreich’s ataxia (a genetic disorder affecting nerves) in 2019.
Building on those observations, as well as those observed in more primitive organisms like yeast and roundworms, the team wanted to see what chronic hypoxia might do to mammals. healthy.
As part of the study, Rogers, Mootha and their colleagues bred mice in an environment with normal oxygen levels (21%) and compared their lifespans to those of 4-week-old mice that were transferred to environments with reduced oxygen (about 11%—similar to a little over 3 miles altitude).
The mice in the reduced oxygen environment lived up to 50% longer, with a media life expectancy of 23.6 weeks compared with 15.7 weeks for the other group. In addition, hypoxia also seems to delay the onset of age-related neurologic deficits.
“We do not currently know the mechanism by which hypoxia prolongs lifespan in these mice,” admits Rogers. Although calorie restriction has more research behind it, oxygen restriction is still a new space and more research will be needed to really pinpoint the exact mechanisms that enable hypoxia. increase longevity in animals. In fact, what can be learned from these investigations will be a better sense of how to simulate what happens in the body to promote healthy aging — rather than a simple one. drugs immediately to lure people into low-oxygen tanks.
Furthermore, Rogers cautions against trying to speculate on what the results might mean for human aging. He highlighted an interesting piece of research from the 1960s and 1970s, when Indian Army soldiers assigned to serve three years at more than three miles in altitude saw a reduction in the incidence of related diseases. to age such as diabetes and heart disease. So the new findings seem to be in line with what we’ve observed in humans so far. “We view this initial report as laying the groundwork for this important direction of future research,” says Rogers.
That doesn’t mean you should start looking for ways to absorb more oxygen in a foolish attempt to live longer. oxygen is necessary to survive, and deprivation can do amazing damage to the body and its organs—often permanently. So now leave the longevity tips to the researchers.
