If we give up all bad habits, we will live an average of 86 years

"It is very important to eat, rest and work"

Alexey Moskalev, "Newspaper.Ru»

Biologist Alexey Moskalev tells the newspaper.En" about why, from the point of view of science, a healthy diet, physical activity and stress avoidance prolong life, as well as whether we need a cure for old age.

– An article has just been published in the journal PLOS ONE about your joint research with the American Institute of Aging of the Tank. The article talks about the unexpected effects of a well-known drug on aging and life expectancy. What can you say about these results? And isn't it time to run to the pharmacy for a remedy for old age?

– The well–known nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID), as it turned out, can be a geroprotector - prolong the life and increase the resistance to stress of model animals. Simultaneously with this effect, a new mechanism of its action was discovered – it suppresses the penetration into the cell of the aromatic amino acid tryptophan, the metabolic products of which, in excess, have mutagenic properties and accelerate the aging of the body. The study of the effect of NSAIDs on the life expectancy of fruit flies in several concentrations at once was carried out in the laboratory of Molecular Radiobiology and Gerontology at the Institute of Biology of Komi NC UrO RAS in Syktyvkar. Studies confirming the evolutionary conservativeness of the effects of this drug on nematodes were conducted at the Buck Institute of Aging in California. In order to confirm whether this drug is a geroprotector for humans, further research is needed. Moreover, like any NSAID, this drug has side effects.

– In the book we talked about in the first part of the interview, you convincingly show that a healthy diet is one of the easiest ways to postpone aging. How is the relationship between calorie restriction and life expectancy scientifically explained?

– A healthy diet can significantly slow down aging, especially if you start sticking to it as early as possible. But is it able to radically delay the aging and death of a person? Probably not.

In my opinion, in my book, I have shown by examples that slowing down aging with proper nutrition is not due to limiting the calorie content of food as such, but to the composition of substances that come with our food. Excess methionine, galactose, fructose, phosphorus, iron, copper, polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are considered quite acceptable, are not and accelerate the aging process. Excess methionine stimulates mTOR kinase, iron and copper accelerate protein carbonylation and inhibit mitophagy, excess monosaccharides non-enzymatically glycosylate proteins, and fat peroxidation products cause mutations in DNA. But we must understand that moderate amounts of these nutrients are extremely necessary for the implementation of important physiological functions. No matter how banal, but longevity determines, first of all, the right balance, and excess, like lack, harms it.

– About physical activity. Is it possible to describe the mechanism of how, at the level of physiology and biochemistry, physical activity slows down aging?

– Physical exercises, on the one hand, reduce the volume of adipose tissue and the negative effects associated with it. On the other hand, the number of insulin receptors increases in growing muscle fibers and glucose is better utilized. The lactic acidification of muscle tissue that occurs during exhausting physical work increases the rate of utilization of glucose by the cell with the formation of the main energy "currency" of the cell – ATP.

With physical exertion, the quality of the "power stations" of the cell – mitochondria improves. Daily one–hour physical endurance training in old rats led to mitoadaptation - an increase in the relative number of mitochondria, their antioxidant capacity and the level of mitochondrial biogenesis factors. At the same time, intracellular pathways of regulation of metabolism and stress resistance are activated. Intensive physical training significantly slows down the process of loss of the function of the male sex glands with age. Endorphins released by the body during exercise interact with receptors in the brain that reduce the perception of pain, improve mood and sleep. Regular aerobic exercise, yoga or tai chi chuan exercises have a positive effect on mental abilities and slow down their decline with age.

– The same is about mental activity and the role of the brain in aging.

– Soviet gerontologist V.M. Dilman believed that age-related changes in the brain, affecting neuroendocrine processes throughout the body, are the key cause of human aging. Keeping a clear mind until old age is the key to healthy longevity. Regular mental activity improves cerebral circulation, increases the number of neural connections, contributes to the normalization of the hormonal background, delaying the occurrence of Alzheimer's disease and senile dementia.

– Finally, stress. How is the negative role of severe chronic stress combined with the positive role of moderate stress?

– Severe or prolonged stress causes damage to cells, tissues and organs, overstresses and depletes protective mechanisms. Prolonged increases in the levels of stress hormones cortisol and adrenaline lead to accelerated aging and body wear. Short-term moderate stresses, on the contrary, cause minor damage, but they manage to stimulate the protective systems of cells and tissues, which switch to an increased level of protection and cope better with random metabolic errors that cause aging. Moderate short-term stress effects, which include contrasting thermal effects, therapeutic hypoxia, physical activity, contribute to longevity.

– If a simple lifestyle correction can achieve noticeable success in health and longevity, is it worth inventing and using medications?

– As studies have shown, even if you and I give up all bad habits, start eating right, moving, managing our emotional stresses, we will live on average... 86 years. There is no question of any 120 years. As you know, there are a small number of people who, thanks to the peculiarities of their genes, live 90, 100 and even 122 years. At the same time, they are much less likely to get sick and remain able to work on average up to 96 years. If we want to achieve such values without initially having their genetic predisposition, we cannot do without biomedicine. And if you dream about more, looking at such a mammal species as the bowhead whale, living up to 211 years…

– Is the "Old age pill" a dream or already a reality? Is it possible to use the already known means listed by you? And what about the doctor's recommendations? After all, today no doctor will prescribe a drug to slow down aging?

– Without indications and recommendations of a doctor, of course, it is unsafe to self-medicate. Any medicine has side effects, which can often be individual. As far as I know, no clinical trials of geroprotectors have been conducted. At the same time, some drugs are known to be used for various pathologies in humans, which significantly prolonged the life of model animals. Will they give the same effect in humans? We need double-blind clinical trials. But here I see two more problems – aging is not recognized as a disease, which means that such clinical trials are unlikely to be conducted, besides, we cannot study the life expectancy of such a long-lived species as a human, we need a whole complex of biomarkers of aging that will allow us to judge the effectiveness of an anti-aging drug for several years of trials, not a few decades.

– Your brief recommendations – how to postpone aging and live longer? Is it possible to achieve this without depriving yourself of pleasures, including gastronomic and alcoholic? Is it possible to maintain a balance between pleasure and benefit?

– You can get pleasure from any food and drinks, especially if you cook it yourself. If we talk about food… Legumes, tofu, nuts as an everyday source of protein. Fatty fish 2-3 times a week. Periodically – seafood, mushrooms. Cheese, meat, eggs – on holidays. Sweet potatoes, potatoes, stewed vegetables for garnish. Lots of green vegetables. Olive oil as a dressing. One or two unsweetened fruits a day. As seasonings and instead of salt – Provencal herbs and turmeric. Green tea without sugar. A glass of dry southern red wine 3-4 times a week. It is very important to eat, rest, and work, strictly adhering to the constancy of the regime. Let you go to bed late, the main thing is always at the same time.

– Your book is called "120 years of life is just the beginning." That is, the current limit is being pushed back. And is it possible to determine where the real limit of human life is?

 – So far, it is worth noting that modern medicine is little concerned about slowing down our aging. In this case, the limit is known – 86 years on average and 122 years at the maximum. But I hold an optimistic point of view, according to which the progress of biomedicine will radically prolong the active period of human life. In this case, the limit can be pushed further and further, as technology develops.

– How long would you like to live yourself? Are you able to follow your recommendations, and is there a result?

– If you ask the average middle-aged person if he wants a radical prolongation of life, he will answer – no. But if you ask the same person if he wants to die right now, he, too, is likely to answer – no. If a person wants to live here and now, why will he change his point of view in the future, if, thanks to the successes of biomedicine, it will be possible to transfer a person to a regime of negligible aging?

Life is all we have, and we would not like to lose it very much. Due to my busy lifestyle, frequent business trips and emergencies, I rarely manage to follow a lifestyle that, judging by laboratory and clinical studies, contributes to slowing down aging.

– Please tell us what kind of research are you and your employees, including in the MIPT laboratory, conducting now?

– At the moment I have two laboratories – at the Institute of Biology of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Syktyvkar and at MIPT in Moscow. In the first laboratory, we investigate the molecular genetic mechanisms of aging, longevity and stress resistance on the drosophila model. In the second, we are looking for new geroprotectors and their combinations on nematodes and on human cell cultures. In the near future, I hope, we will be able to conduct experiments with new geroprotectors and gene therapy for longevity on models of old mice. But to be honest, most of the time has to be spent in search of scientific funding.

Nadezhda Markina was talking

Portal "Eternal youth" http://vechnayamolodost.ru19.12.2014