Study Shows Stem Cell Shots Reverse Aging… In Mice At Least

According to a new study, injecting young stem cells into aging subjects could help you live longer and stronger – well, it works on mice at least.

The study, published today in the scientific journal Nature Communications, detailed some interesting leads in the potential treatment of what we all know and dread as “aging”, but slow down there, cowboy. This research doesn’t mean we’ve unlocked the secret to immortality just yet.

The study goes like this: University of Pittsburgh Medical Center researchers genetically altered mice to make them age faster; and when I say faster, I mean geriatric in a span of just 17 days. Scientists then injected the fogey mice with stem cell-like cells from the tissue of young, healthy mice.

The result? Aging reversal.

The old mice lived up to three times longer, lasting 66 days to the un-treated mice’s 28. The injections also appeared to make the older mice healthier, improving muscle strength and blood flow.

Scientists agree that aging begins when our own stem cells lose the ability to rejuvenate our tissue. Aging (and ultimately death) are universal constants, but research like this makes some scientists believe that at least the former concern may be reversible.

Dr. Laura Niedernhofer, one of the authors of the study, was optimistic regarding the findings, saying:

“The young stem cells seem to secrete something that is quite beneficial. Just what that is, we’re not entirely sure.”

She continued by hinting at potential application for human beings:

“The beauty of them [stem cells] is we can take them out of muscle and expand them so we have a useful therapeutic population of cells. If all of us could be treated with our own cells, we could eliminate problems with rejection and immunity.”

Some scientists don’t quite see the potential yet, arguing that many question still remain unanswered. Dr. Amy Wagers of Harvard University argued that the findings are significant, but don’t quite apply to the human condition just yet:

“One must be very cautious in extending findings in mouse progeroid models to normal human aging. These models are very different from physiological aging, and so it remains an open question whether such phenomenon may be relevant to natural aging symptoms as well.”

Dr. Curt Freed, a professor and head of clinical pharmacology at the University of Colorado at Denver, played the skeptic further and was outright unimpressed by the study, saying:

“Because the transplants have added only 30 days to these animals’ short lives, the results are interesting but are hardly a turnaround in this devastating disease model. The transplants are not curing the disease. I cannot imagine that this strategy will be useful for modifying the aging process in humans.”

Well, there you have it. Stem cell research has always been controversial, and whether it excites you or freaks you out, whether you believe in some kind of utopian immortal society or cringe at the thought of science playing God, one thing seems certain: the game is too close to call for now.

What are your thoughts on continuing stem cell research? Do you think these findings are significant?