Worms May Teach Us How to Live Longer
Will Stape
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The worm turns and now apparently it teaches.
Worms are for fishing hooks, reading books and always perfect for dissecting in biology class. Now, the little slimy critters may help unlock the secret to us living longer lives. 
Ker Than, of LiveScience.com reports that Mikhail Schepinov took worms and provided them with a diet of steak and chicken. The catch was that the beef and poultry was altered by fortifying it with isotopes of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. The worms treated to this unusual diet lived ten percent longer than anticipated. What this means to us is that if the average person is to live someday to 100 or more, by following this diet, it could add at least 10 more years to their life.
Nutritionists and scientists studying diet's influence on longevity have only suggested low fat or vegetable and fruit rich diets to provide anti-oxidants. Some other more severe methods of life lengthening deals with caloric restriction. This meant the average person would have to curtail their intake of food by so much; it would be a very unpleasant and difficult lifestyle change. But why did the worms that were fed the isotope fortified food live much longer? The key may be in the reduction of free radicals.
Shchepinov feels that eating isotope loaded food would reduce the molecular damage caused by these free radicals. Many scientists feel that free radicals are the primary cause of aging. Antioxidant rich foods like green vegetables or tea are thought to destroy these free radicals, thereby helping our bodies to ward off the effects of free radicals and also stave off aging. Replacing atoms in chemical bonds prone to attack with natural isotopes fortifies the bonds and makes them harder to break.
"Because these bonds are so much more stable, it should be possible to slow the process of oxidation and aging," Shchepinov told the science magazine Chemistry & Industry, where the research was first reported.
Worms are for fishing hooks, reading books and always perfect for dissecting in biology class. Now, the little slimy critters may help unlock the secret to us living longer lives.
Ker Than, of LiveScience.com reports that Mikhail Schepinov took worms and provided them with a diet of steak and chicken. The catch was that the beef and poultry was altered by fortifying it with isotopes of hydrogen, carbon, nitrogen and oxygen. The worms treated to this unusual diet lived ten percent longer than anticipated. What this means to us is that if the average person is to live someday to 100 or more, by following this diet, it could add at least 10 more years to their life.
Nutritionists and scientists studying diet's influence on longevity have only suggested low fat or vegetable and fruit rich diets to provide anti-oxidants. Some other more severe methods of life lengthening deals with caloric restriction. This meant the average person would have to curtail their intake of food by so much; it would be a very unpleasant and difficult lifestyle change. But why did the worms that were fed the isotope fortified food live much longer? The key may be in the reduction of free radicals.
Shchepinov feels that eating isotope loaded food would reduce the molecular damage caused by these free radicals. Many scientists feel that free radicals are the primary cause of aging. Antioxidant rich foods like green vegetables or tea are thought to destroy these free radicals, thereby helping our bodies to ward off the effects of free radicals and also stave off aging. Replacing atoms in chemical bonds prone to attack with natural isotopes fortifies the bonds and makes them harder to break.
"Because these bonds are so much more stable, it should be possible to slow the process of oxidation and aging," Shchepinov told the science magazine Chemistry & Industry, where the research was first reported.