BODYBUILDERS’ SUPPLEMENT STALLS AGING
Alpha-ketoglutarate (AKG), a supplement bodybuilders use to bulk up, has delayed the symptoms of aging and extended healthspans in mice, researchers at California’s Buck Institute for Research on Aging have found.
AKG occurs naturally in mammals, including humans, and is a compound needed to convert food into energy. Physicians sometimes prescribe it to treat kidney disease and osteoporosis.
The researchers began feeding black-furred mice 2 percent of their daily food allotment as AKG, starting when the mice were 18 months old, equivalent to age 55 in humans.
Soon, the treated mice looked “blacker, shinier, and younger” than their untreated litter mates.
The treated mice also scored an average of more than 40 percent better than their untreated siblings on 31 tests of “frailty,” including hearing, gait, and grip strength. Female mice receiving AKG lived 8 to 20 percent longer, probably because AKG blocks inflammation, a key cause of several diseases associated with aging, the researchers said.
The youthful mice performed no better on tests of heart function or treadmill endurance. Mental acuity was not tested.
AKG had less effect on mice’s health and lifespan than other compounds, such as rapamycin, a drug used to suppress organ rejection after transplants. But, in addition to suppressing the immune system, rapamycin can promote diabetes.
“The big thing about [AKG] is that its safety profile is so good,” said Holly Brown-Borg, a leading researcher on aging at the University of North Dakota. She was not involved in the Buck project.
Two human trials are now under way using middle-aged to older adults to determine AKG’s effects on such aging markers as inflammation, hardening of arteries, and changes to DNA.
TRENDPOST: Medical research, especially in aging, is shifting from the search for new, more powerful synthetic drugs to enhancing or amplifying the body’s own health-maintaining compounds and processes.
