The beauty industry generates billions each year. Our quest to maintain a youthful appearance sees us spending a small fortune on lotions and potions to slow the ageing progress.
We suspect that if someone found a way of genetically reversing the sands of time, they would become extremely wealthy. Well, biologists at UCLA have done just that with fruit flies, which could have massive implications for sufferers of diseases such as Alzheimer’s, cancer and heart disease.
The scientists’ work focused on mitochondria, microscopic power generators in the cells that control growth and lifespan. As we age the mitochondria degenerate and accumulate until you eventually die.
David Walker, professor of integrative biology and physiology at UCLA and the study’s senior author, said, “We think the fact that the mitochondria become larger and elongated impairs the cell’s ability to clear the damaged mitochondria,” Walker said. “And our research suggests dysfunctional mitochondria accumulate with age, rather than being discarded.”
The researchers published their findings in the science journal Nature Communications. On average female fruit flies lived 20 per cent longer than normal and male fruit flies’ lives were extended by 12 per cent on average. Scientists hope that the breakthrough could eventually delay or prevent the onset of degenerative conditions, such as Parkinson’s disease.
