Hormone boost lets mice live longer without fasting

Talk about having your cake and eating it. Fasting might not be the only route to a longer life ? a hormone seems to work just as well, for mice at least.

We know that some animals can extend their lifespan by consuming fewer calories. Engineered mice can get the same effect by simply pumping out high levels of a hormone normally produced during a fast, according to Steven Kliewer and David Mangelsdorf at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Their team found that mice engineered to make higher levels of the hormone, FGF21, increased their lifespan on average by over a third.

"What we are seeing is the benefit of caloric restriction without having to diet," he says.

Humans have the hormone too, and Kliewer believes FGF21 has the potential to extend the human "health-span" ? the time we live healthy lives.

The researchers believe FGF21 may act to prolong life by affecting pathways such as the insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1) pathway implicated in ageing.

"It blocks growth hormones promoting pathways which are associated with diseases, including cancers and metabolic diseases, and as a consequence these animals live longer," says Kliewer.

The results are intriguing as FGF21 is already being tried in clinical trials for treating metabolic disease, he says. "So it's potentially a pharmaceutical that will be out there and people will have access to it."

Journal reference: eLife, doi.org/jj5

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