A study shows for the first time that our epigenetic clock, the one that measures our biological age, which is often different from our real age, could be reversed.
“Rejuvenating” by 2.5 years: an unattainable dream? Not sure ! A clinical study carried out in California on men aged 51 to 65 suggests that a cocktail of drugs (growth hormone and anti-diabetic) could make it possible to reverse the course of our epigenetic clock and to give new youth to our immune system.
The epigenetic clock makes it possible to evaluate our biological age which often differs from our chronological age, ie our real age calculated from our date of birth. Measuring the biological age calculated from the alterations of the components of our DNA makes it possible to measure aging in a much more precise way. The study of biological age discrepancies between individuals of the same chronological age also helps to understand the influence of environmental factors on ageing.
The impact of growth hormone on the thymus
The study, the results of which were published on September 5 in Aging Cell consisted in testing the impact of growth hormone on the thymus, a gland essential for the functioning of our immune system and which begins to shrink after puberty. Animal trials showing that this hormone could promote diabetes, two anti-diabetic drugs were therefore administered, in addition to growth hormone, to the 9 participants who followed this “treatment” for a year.
The researchers who used four different epigenetic clocks to assess the biological age of each patient in the study recorded a significant reversal for each in all tests. This allows them to say that on average, this cocktail of drugs had saved these men 2.5 years compared to their chronological age.
Useful in people with an underactive immune system
In 7 of the participants, blood counts and the use of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) notably showed that the fat accumulated around the thymus had been replaced by regenerated thymus, a regeneration which the scientists believe could be useful in people with an underactive immune system.
“I was expecting the epigenetic clock to slow down, not reverse, that seemed a bit futuristic to me!” said geneticist Steve Horvath of the University of California, Los Angeles who participated in this work. But he nevertheless tempers his enthusiasm for the surprising results obtained, “preliminary results because the trial was small and did not include a control arm”.
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