Gut Bacteria May Help Slow Down Process of Ageing:Study
Can there be a way to prolong ageing with the help of the bacteria present withing your own body? May be yes. And that day may not be too far. Scientists have found a certain bacteria in our gut that may bring alive the possibility soon. Gut Bacteria is the complex community of microorganisms that live in the digestive tracts of humans and other animals. A group of researchers suggest that supplements derived from this gut bacteria can one day influence the slowing down of the ageing process.
Scientists identified a bacteria — C.elegans — whose genes and compounds extend the life as well as slow down the progression of tumours and the accumulation of amyloid-beta. Amyloid beta is also a compound associated with Alzheimer’s disease, a gradual brain imbalance disorder linked with old age.
Meng Wang , associate Professor “The scientific community is increasingly aware that our body’s interactions with the millions of microbes in our bodies, the microbiome, can influence many of our functions, such as cognitive and metabolic activities and ageing,”
Wang added, “In this work we investigated whether the genetic composition of the microbiome might also be important for longevity,”
For the study, the researchers employed a complete gene-deletion library of bacterium E.coli; a collection of E.coli, each lacking one of close to 4,000 genes.
“We fed C.elegans each individual mutant bacteria and then looked at the worms’ life span,” Wang added.
For the study published in journal cell, of the nearly 4,000 bacterial genes we tested, 29, when deleted, increased the worms’ lifespan. Twelve of these bacterial mutants also protected the worms from tumor growth and accumulation of amyloid-beta, a typical characteristic of Alzheimer’s disease in humans.
On further testing, the results showed that some of the bacterial mutants increased longevity by acting on some of the worm’s known processes associated to ageing.
The team is affirmative that, based on these results it might be possible in the future to design preparations of bacteria or their compounds that could help slow down the ageing process.
[“source-food.ndtv”]
