rhinoceros
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Live fast, die old
« on: 2004-06-07 19:11:10 » |
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Live fast, die old
High metabolic rate gives mice a longer life
http://www.nature.com/nsu/040531/040531-2.html
Mice with sky-high metabolic rates live far longer than their sluggish cousins, UK researchers have found, raising the prospect that human lifespan might be lengthened with metabolism-boosting drugs.
Metabolic rate is the pace at which the body burns food to produce energy. John Speakman of the University of Aberdeen, UK, and his colleagues measured the metabolism of 42 mice, based on the amount of oxygen they consumed, and then waited until they died.
The group of animals with the highest metabolic rates lived over a third longer than the group with the lowest rates, they found, and had metabolisms that ran about 30% faster. If the same is true in humans, this means that people with a speedy metabolism might add an extra 27 years onto a typical 70-year lifespan.
The finding challenges a century-old theory that animals with higher metabolic rates die younger. This is based on observations that big animals with low metabolic rates, such as elephants, tend to outlive small, high metabolism ones, such as mice: hence the old adage, "live fast, die young."
While this overall trend may be true when comparing different species, the new study suggests it may be reversed for animals within one species. "It was a complete surprise," says Speakman.
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