In a new study, scientists said they have found that aging is a process set in motion by the rise of malign forces called senescent cells, which basically hijack the body. As you get older, senescent cells take control, and the human body careens into disease states ranging from cancer to diabetes and arthritis, vision loss and dementia, writes the Los Angeles Times. Scientists are studying a range of new ways to slow this sickness and frailty, and push back when humans start to experience it. The science is called senolytics, the dissolution or gradual decline of old age, according to the Times. In a new study published in Nature Medicine, a group led by Mayo Clinic anti-aging researcher James Kirkland introduced a pharmaceutical cocktail that can slow or reverse the aging process, at least in mice.
Even in mice that were already well down aging’s path, the senolytic cocktail, which contains a dose of the leukemia drug dasatinib and the dietary supplement quercetin, drove down senescent cells’ numbers, as well as tamped down the inflammation they cause. It also reduced the level of disability that comes with age-related diseases. In younger mice, the cocktail forestalled the onset of age-related diseases.
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