KARE 11
by Rena Sarigianopoulos

Forget expensive potions and empty promises, turns out the Mayo Clinic in Rochester may be onto the proverbial fountain of youth. Working closely with the University of Minnesota, researchers have found a way to eliminate senescent cells. Those are cells that have stopped dividing and are producing things that can cause damage to our bodies as we age.

Reach: KARE 11 is the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul and reaches more than 600,000 people each week in its coverage area.  Its website has more than 1.5 million unique visitors each month.

Context: The presence of senescent or dysfunctional cells can make young mice age faster. And using senolytic drugs in elderly mice to remove these rogue cells can improve health and extend life. These findings from Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators provide a foundation on which to move forward in this area of aging research. The results appear in Nature Medicine. “We can say with certainty that senescent cells can cause health problems in young mice, including causing physical dysfunction and lowering survival rates, and that the use of senolytics can significantly improve both health span and life span in much older naturally aged animals,” says James Kirkland, M.D., Ph.D., a Mayo Clinic geriatrics researcher who heads Mayo Clinic’s Kogod Center on Aging. Dr. Kirkland is senior author of the study. You can read more about the research on Mayo Clinic News Network.

Contact:  Bob Nellis

Tags: aging, Dr. James Kirkland, KARE 11, senescent cells, senolytic drugs, Uncategorized