The Catch-22 of Aging

In yeast cells, there is a protein called Sir2 that repairs breaks in its DNA. But when Sir2 goes to repair the DNA, it leaves its other function of inactivating a sterility gene elsewhere in the yeast. In the end, yeast cells have relatively undamaged DNA, but they are sterile, a sign of aging in the fungi. It has been questioned if the mammalian equivalent of Sir2, SIRT1, caused the same genetic effect. Experiments on mice show that SIRT1 has similar effects as Sir2, except that it may also cause many other age-related problems, such as diabetes and dementia. Though, when mice were fed SIRT1, they lived 25 days longer than the control group of mice. There is still much research and experiments going on with the protein and other simple organisms like yeast.

This is an interesting thing to keep tabs on, because who, generally speaking, doesn’t want to live longer? One thing that doesn’t make sense is that if you simply increase the amount of Sir2 or SIRT1 in cells, won’t the Catch-22 effect no longer be a problem. I guess if it were that simple they would have solved the problem already. Maybe the issue is determining how the Sir2 or SIRT1 protein changes its function within the cell. Hypothetically speaking, if this research accomplishes all that I’m sure it is trying to. Soon, a new diet trends will emerge, featuring things like: “Now with SIRT1!” or some other crazy slogans. This will increase the longevity of life, but will it cause some unknown effects down the line? Such as an emergence of a new, overpopulation, or the cause of a known disease, such as medicines that are recalled because they caused adverse effects. Maybe we'll be seeing this in nutritional values sooner than we think.

http://sciencenow.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/2008/1126/1