Protein Linked with a Disease Plays Role in Aging

[Dr.Adnan]

(Reuters) - The same mechanism that causes children with a rare genetic disease called progeria to age at seven times the normal rate may play a role in normal aging as well, government researchers said.

The study led by Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, suggests aging may not simply be a gradual wearing out of cells.

Instead, it may be an active biological mechanism -- one that might be tinkered with to address age-related diseases.

"I think a lot of people in the past have assumed that the aging of cells and of individuals was just a matter of everything running down," Collins told Reuters in a telephone interview.

"What we are learning at the cellular level ... is that is not right," said Collins, whose study appears in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Read more