Can science stop YOU from aging? New drug starts human trials THIS YEAR

'If you target an ageing process and you slow down ageing then you slow down all the diseases and pathology of ageing as well.'

Professor David Sinclair and his team from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) recently unveiled an anti-aging drug that may help get NASA's astronauts to Mars, can prolong the average lifespan and can severely impair the progression of serious diseases.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Professor Sinclair and his group published a paper in Science, which identifies a crucial step in which cells are able to repair damaged DNA.

So what does this mean?

It implies scientists can now study that step in the molecular process, find a way to isolate it and create an anti-aging drug.

It could potentially take things a few steps further. Should the anti-aging drug prove effective in the future, it holds the potential to stop diseases in their tracks and even stop aging entirely.

In a world of emerging technologies, one could argue it's possible for such repair technology to potentially evolve to the point where people can regenerate torn skin, broken bones and may even be able to heal at an accelerated rate.

We're not talking Wolverine-healing speeds, but imagine the possibilities.

Sinclair and his team are certainly pushing the boundaries and are already working with DNA repair technology.

"For most of the 20th century we knew that our [cell's ability to repair DNA gets worse over time] and we get old and it's the main reason we get cancer," he explained. "So what we've discovered is the reason why."

Cells replicate at certain speeds to replace those that die off. When someone has cancer, the replication goes unchecked and begins to build up to create deadly tumors. By experimenting with the replication process, Sinclair's team hopes to reverse the accelerated cells' life cycles.

Sinclair and his team identified how the metabolite, or the products and intermediates of metabolism, NAD+ was regulating interactions controlling the DNA repair process.

Experiments conducted with an NAD+ booster called NMN revealed cells were able to repair DNA damage caused by both radiation exposure and aging.

"We took old mice that were 20 months old which is [the equivalent of] a 60-70-year-old human and we gave them NMN and we found that...many aspects of ageing were reversed," Sinclair described.

"Their DNA repair activities went up to youthful levels and they were more resistant to radiation and should therefore be more protected against cancer and ageing itself.

"The cells of the old mice were indistinguishable from the young mice, after just one week of treatment. This is the closest we are to a safe and effective anti-ageing drug that's perhaps only three to five years away from being on the market if the trials go well," Sinclair stated.

UNSW Dr. Lindsay Wu and Professor Sinclair brought their findings to NASA's iTech competition in December with a solution for a biological problem.

Dr. Wu explained, "it won the competition out of 300 entries."

The exciting implications definitely caught NASA's attention, which has been concerned with keeping its astronauts healthy during future four-year-missions to Mars.

Even short missions reveal accelerated aging from cosmic radiation, resulting in weaker muscles, memory loss and a series of other symptoms astronauts report upon return to Earth.

According to NASA's calculations, a trip to Mars would result with five percent of each astronaut's cells dying and raising their risk of cancer to nearly 100 percent.

Dr. Wu and Professor Sinclair have been working on NMN for four years, hoping they can create a drug to help all of mankind.

For the general public, Dr. Wu explained 96 percent of childhood cancer survivors suffer chronic illness by the time they turn 45-years-old. The chronic illnesses include cardiovascular disease, Type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer's and cancers unrelated to the ones they survived as children.

"All of this adds up to the fact they have accelerated ageing, which is devastating," he stated. "it would be great to do something about that, and we believe we can with this molecule.

"...Up until very recently we haven't really known what the health of childhood cancer survivors was like because quite frankly we didn't have enough of them surviving it.

"So the health, the long-term health of these cancer survivors is of great concern...so what this finding is useful for is improving the DNA repair following for example radiation therapy."

The need for medications strong enough to stop the progression of cancer and other serious illnesses is not lost on Professor Sinclair's team.

In fact, they have been working for years to create an experimental drug, which will begin human trials within the next six months at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston and will be produced through their companies MetroBiotech NSW and MetroBiotech International.

The team hopes NAD+ can treat several aging-related diseases such as female infertility, mental diseases and even side-effects of chemo therapy.

Once the Boston trials are underway, Professor Sinclair stated: "Then we should be able to go into the next studies which we're hoping to do in the US and in Australia and then we really get serious.

"We start looking at how fast people can walk, how strong they are and then eventually we want to get this molecule on the market as a drug to treat a disease like cancer, Alzheimer's or diabetes."

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