New drug could extend lifespan by 25%, fight aging, prevent cancer

Researchers from the UK Medical Research Council Institute of Medical Sciences and Imperial College London have blocked a protein called IL-11, which has been shown to extend the healthy lifespan of mice by around 25%, providing promising insights that could have similar effects in humans.

The scientists, working with the Duke National University School of Medicine in Singapore, created genetically modified mice lacking a gene involved in the production of IL-11 (interleukin-11) to test the effects of IL-11.

This genetic modification extended the mice’s lifespan by an average of more than 20%.

Blocking IL-11 shows potential to extend lifespan

Throughout the study, the researchers treated 75-week-old mice by injecting them with an anti-IL-11 antibody, a drug that removes the harmful effects of IL-11.

According to the study published in the journal Nature, the new results “suggest that these potential treatments may also have an impact on lifespan, but further clinical trials are needed to be sure.”

Still, the fact that IL-11 has a clear path to being tested in humans sets it apart from a host of other proteins and anti-aging interventions that have shown promise in animal models but have stalled midway through clinical trials. “There’s a real opportunity here to translate this into clinical treatment,” says Cathy Slack, who studies aging biology at the University of Warwick in the UK. “And that’s where the field is currently stuck.”

But researchers have known for some time that chronic inflammation can lead to diseases associated with aging. That is, as the body ages, damaged proteins and other molecules build up. Researchers think that this affects the rest of the immune system, often making us more susceptible to infections.

This infection can trigger further inflammatory responses that can lead to cancer and other autoimmune diseases.

Researchers have been studying the role of IL-11 for quite some time, but it wasn’t clear how the protein was linked to aging until molecular biologist Anissa Wijaya accidentally discovered it.

This has pushed researchers in a new direction to find ways to help animals live longer and healthier lives.

Future research on IL-11

Remarkably, the team achieved similar results when they used an antibody against IL-11 for 25 weeks. The team wanted to restrict the protein in 75-week-old mice.

Some of the researchers were using the anti-aging drug rapamycin and found that this drug was good for lifespan but not for healthspan. The researchers thought their results were surprising and hope to continue research in this area.

One area they would like to expand into next is testing potential IL-11 drugs in mice with diverse genetic backgrounds, and also across multiple labs to ensure results are reproducible.

The researchers say clinical trials looking at effects on lifespan can be long, expensive and difficult to interpret, due to a variety of factors.

They will likely focus on specific symptoms associated with aging, such as loss of muscle mass. Researchers believe that aging is a complex process, with many treatment perspectives and a lot of biology still unknown.