Study suggests golden years eventually may be more robust

UF Health Podcasts

Imagine yourself old. If you’re already old, just think of yourself as you are now.

But instead of how you feel or expect you would feel, envision older adulthood as a time your joints aren’t complaining. You need no walker because you’re not frail, so you haven’t broken any bones. Your eyesight and hearing? Imperfect, but not terrible.

How would that kind of old age grab you? Not so bad, eh?

A team of London researchers has made a finding they say signals that medicine in the future might keep us healthier as we age.

They recently published a study in which they “switched off” a protein called IL-11 [I-L 11] in mice, extending their healthy lifespan by nearly 25%.

They then treated 75-week-old mice — that’s roughly 55 in human years — by injecting an antibody to thwart IL-11’s effects.

The treatment largely freed the mice from dying of cancer and reduced the many diseases caused by fibrosis, chronic inflammation, and poor metabolism, all sure signs of aging. There were scant side effects.

After about age 55, humans produce more of the IL-11 protein. It’s been linked to muscle wasting, cardiac fibrosis, and frailty, among other things.

In the new study, the mice were given the anti-IL-11 drug from 75 weeks until their death. Males’ lives were extended by 22.4% and female lives by 25%. The mice lived an average 155 weeks, instead of 120.

Research is needed to gauge safety and effectiveness of the anti-IL-11 drugs for humans, of course.

But perhaps as our lifespans grow, more of us will live the adage that it’s not how old you are, it’s how you are, old.