New study suggests insulin could be used as antiaging treatment

WASHINGTON A new study, being published in the journal Cell, has discovered that insulin could potentially serve as an antiaging treatment.

According to published reports, the study was conducted by adjusting insulin levels on worms known as Caenorhabditis elegans. As a result, the worms lived one week longer than their usual lifespan, which is two weeks.

It is too early to be applied to humans, but the findings are very significant for future breakthroughs in increasing people’s ability to fight free radicals. “We’re understanding more and more about how cellular processes can really influence how we defend ourselves against challenges from the environment,” said study co-author T. Keith Blackwell, senior investigator at Harvard Medical School’s Joslin Diabetes Center, in Boston.

Insulin is a hormone that regulates blood sugar and if the body either produces very little, or none at all, it causes diabetes. The relation of the study with diabetes has yet to be determined.

The research was conducted, according to published reports, by having the Joslin researchers lower insulin levels, which boosted levels of the gene-regulating protein SKN-1, therefore causing the worms to live longer.

According to Blackwell, the study signifies the workings of the human body, and how they can be tweaked to increase a lifespan, when explaining “Your body has its own antioxidant systems that clean up damage and protect you from damage. We were able to push the activity of that system upward and make the animals live longer.”