To mitigate the harmful effects of IL-11, researchers injected 75-week-old mice with an anti-IL-11 antibody.
Scientists at Imperial College London and the Medical Research Council Laboratory of Medical Sciences have blocked IL-11, a protein that can help extend mice's healthy lives by over 25%.
It provides encouraging insights and might affect people similarly.
The scientists worked together with Singapore's Duke NUS Medical School. By genetically modifying mice with a missing interleukin 11 (IL-11) gene, the researchers were able to examine the effects of IL-11.
Throughout their investigation, the scientists also administered an injection of an anti-IL-11 antibody, a medication that counteracts the negative effects of IL-11, to 75-week-old mice.
The new findings "suggest that those potential treatments might also have an impact on longevity, but separate clinical trials are needed to be certain," according to the study that was published in the journal Nature.
Still, IL-11 stands out from many other proteins and rejuvenation therapies that have demonstrated promise in animal models but have encountered obstacles en route to human clinical trials.
"There's a real opportunity to translate this into clinical therapies," says Cathy Slack, a University of Warwick, UK, a researcher on the biology of aging.
“And that’s where the field is kind of stuck at the moment.”
Still, researchers have long recognized chronic inflammation as a risk factor for aging-related disorders.
This implies that a body retains broken proteins and other components as it ages. According to the experts, this causes the other immune system to be impacted and frequently becomes infected.
This infection may lead to other inflammatory reactions, which may result in cancer or other autoimmune diseases.
Although IL-11 has long been studied, the connection between the protein and aging was unknown until molecular biologist Anissa Widjaja made the accidental discovery.
