Researchers have been at work with trying to do something relatively strange but this mice experiment could lead to prolonging human lifespans. For the past several months, scientists have been attempting to run a series of experiments on mice that involve clearing dead and retired cells from the animals’ bodies.

Because the same way as computer registries gather errors and corrupted sections the more you use a PC, the same way living bodies seem to be working. The cells in our body seem to slowly accumulate damage through the process of living itself. Because of the damage in their DNA, they could also develop into cancerous cells. While some cells manage to repair themselves, others self-destruct and lastly, some retire.

The process of cellular retirement involves a state where cells do not divide nor grow anymore and remain in a state known as senescence. As human beings age, the number of retired cells also accumulates and creates a great number of the changes that we see in the bodies of the elderly.

The scientists attempted to see just what impact these retired cells really do have on living animals by running an experiment on mice. For a few months-long period of time, they cleared the retired cells from the mice’s bodies repeatedly, then stopped to compare the results.

Two mice of the same genetic information and the exact same age – out of which only one had undergone the retired cell cleaning experiment – were thus compared and the results were astonishing. While the one that had not received the treatment has graying and deteriorating fur and developing cataracts in an eye, the other one looks as normal and as healthy as it had long before reaching old age.

By zapping the retired cells from the mice’s bodies, scientists were able to not only increase their lifespan by between 18 and 35 percent, but also keep them healthier and prevent a great number of diseases. Researchers stated that 18 months into their lives – and after having received 6 months of treatment – the mice that had been subjected to the experiment were a lot more active, seemed to maintain their kidney and heart functions a lot better and overall felt lively regardless of species or sexes of the mice.

The next step of the experiment is to see if starting such a treatment later could still earn beneficial effects and ‘undo’ age-related decline. If this technique will be applicable in human being, it could lead to being one of the biggest discovery in the past decade at least. However, humans are a lot trickier than rodents and applying the same kind of purging retired cell treatment could come with numerous side effects. So it’ll be a while until scientists manage to find a way to make it work for human beings.

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