The heart can become 10 years younger with anti-aging gene therapy

Longevity gene/protein has been shown to reverse the biological age of the heart by 10 years. The ground breaking research was a product of several years of research by scientists at the University of Bristol and the Multimedica group in Italy. Carriers of healthy mutant genes most times live up to 100 or more years in good health. The carriers are less prone to cardiovascular diseases as the gene helps to protect the heart against diseases associated with aging.

One of the mutant genes have been scientifically proven to stop the decay of the heart function in both middle age and aged mice. According to the Bristol team

“Even more remarkably, when given to elderly mice, whose hearts exhibit the same alterations observed in elderly patients, the gene rewound the heart’s biological clock age by the human equivalent of more than ten years”.

This breakthrough was published in Cardiovascular Research with a beaming hope that centenarians may now be able to pass their healthy genes to even unrelated people. Normally, centenarians with the longevity gene pass their healthy genes to their offspring. But with the novel finding, longevity gene could be transferred even to unrelated people.

The study was funded by the British Heart Foundation and the Italian Ministry of Health. If the impressive outcome of the longevity gene therapy in mice could be replicated in humans, it will now be possible for people to live even longer in the near future.

In 2020, it was estimated by United Nations that more than 63 million people lived above 90 years of age globally. People who lived very long are often linked to familial clusters. Whereas, living up to 90 years is believed to be 30% genetically controlled, and 70% healthy behavior influenced, while living above 100 years is thought to be 70% controlled by longevity genes.

As of 2022, a report by Calogero Caruso et al. (2022) revealed that only two genes, the APOE (Apolipoprotein E) and FOXO3A (Forkhead box O3) were involved in the protection of cardiovascular diseases, and have been linked with longevity in almost all studies. A recent report in Nature Communications highlights TOMM40 (Translocase of Mitochondrial Outer Membrane (TOM) complex) as a significant gene in the aging pathway. But it is unclears if the TOMM40 variants influences aging directly or indirectly. However, the Bristol team explained that the longevity-associated variants (LAV) of the BPI fold containing family B, member 4 (BPIFB4) genes enhanced prolonged living with les cardiovascular complications.

With great optimism we await the heralding of potent anti-aging therapies that will reverse cardiovascular lesions and allow people to leave longer.

Reference: The longevity-associated BPIFB4 gene supports cardiac function and vascularization in ageing cardiomyopathy. In Cardiovascular Research, 13 January 2023, https://doi.org/10.1093/cvr/cvad008