Although we cannot drink from the fabled fountain of youth, most of us are born with a good shot at living a long life. Humankind has always searched for the secret to a long life and looked to death with some precautionary tactics. New research shows the possibility of living longer thanks to an experimental treatment revealed in a documentary.
In Netflix “Explained”, medical experts reveal that scientists have created a gene called DAF-Two that regulates insulin, all thanks to a worm.
The C. elegan worm has an average lifespan of 14 days, and while experimenting on two identical worms, scientists mutated a gene in one worm with unbelievable results.
According to the narrator, the worm with the mutated gene was both “acting younger and it’s lifespan doubled”.
“We basically tricked the worm’s body into thinking it was fasting,” the narrator adds.
A medical expert explains a theory: “If you eat a meal, the tissues have little doors in them, and they’ll take the food in, but in order to do that, they need the hormone insulin.
“If you have less insulin, your cells start to take care of themselves, I think the animal can just live longer.”
The narrator reveals that “scientists mutated the same gene in fruit flies, and their lifespan nearly doubled”.
This extraordinary experiment also extended to animals with “mice having extended their lives by 50%”.
The footage goes on to explain that not only did all “these organisms live longer, but they were more resistant to multiple chronic diseases”.