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- Back in the swarm: bees have suggested to scientists a new concept of anti-aging
Back in the swarm: bees have suggested to scientists a new concept of anti-aging
Scientists have explained why rejuvenation in nature is extremely rare and, as a rule, occurs only in extreme conditions. A new study has shown that bees and some invertebrates can roll back their biological age, but it only starts when there are unfavorable factors, such as a threat to the entire colony. The authors proposed a different model: according to it, aging is not just an accumulation of damage, but a genetically programmed mechanism that regulates life expectancy and helps protect populations from epidemics. In this case, rejuvenation can be considered as a factor that violates collective immunity. These findings challenge the classical theory of aging as a result of the accumulation of errors and open up new perspectives for research in the field of life extension.
Rejuvenating bees and evolution programs
Scientists at the City University of Hong Kong, led by Russian virologist and evolutionary biologist Peter Lidsky, conducted a study that answers the questions of whether natural rejuvenation of living organisms is possible in nature and in what cases it occurs. According to the researchers, the classical model interprets aging as an accumulation of errors and an evolutionarily harmful phenomenon. In this case, rejuvenation would have to be a beneficial and therefore widespread mechanism that evolution actively uses. In practice, this is extremely rare in nature. Within the framework of traditional concepts, this leads to the conclusion that it is probably impossible mechanically.
However, bees and some other invertebrates, such as jellyfish and ctenophores, are experiencing rejuvenation, that is, a rollback of biological age. Moreover, animals do not resort to it all the time, but only in unfavorable conditions: when there is a threat to the hive, a decrease in water temperature, and so on.
— There is a paradox: the body chooses rejuvenation only when something goes wrong, and in favorable conditions - aging and death. We show that this directly contradicts the classical model, which formally predicts a much wider use of rejuvenation — in fact, in every case when an animal capable of it reaches old age," Peter Lidsky told Izvestia.
Scientists have proposed a different view: there is an ecological optimum of longevity, and aging is a program that ensures that life expectancy corresponds to this optimum. According to researchers, epidemics of chronic diseases play a key role in its formation.
To substantiate their theory, the experts built three models of the life of honey bee colonies. The first one used the classical approach, according to which bees are not able to change the rate of aging or rejuvenate during their lifetime. This option ignores the plasticity of life expectancy in social insects and suggests that aging can be evolutionarily beneficial: if most individuals die from external factors, maintaining the body for longer than a certain period of time becomes impractical. In this case, it is more profitable for the colony to direct resources to the production of new individuals, rather than to preserve the old ones, which corresponds to classical theories of aging.
However, if we assume the possibility of dynamically regulating the wilting of adult bees, the situation changes, and the second model predicts that aging should not be observed at all: those who have lived to old age should rejuvenate or slow down aging. In practice, this process is still observed in social insects, despite their ability to radically increase life expectancy.
To resolve this contradiction, the authors propose a third model of pathogen control: bees do not die because of savings on "repairs", but because their death is beneficial for the colony. Older individuals are more likely to be infected with pathogens, and their early death reduces the risk of infection spreading in the hive, contributing to collective immunity.
In such a system, rejuvenation becomes unprofitable, as it prolongs the life of individuals potentially dangerous to the community. Thus, scientists explain why the high plasticity of life expectancy in insects does not lead to their massive rejuvenation and why aging persists as a stable evolutionary mechanism.
The authors conclude that the facts observed in nature do not agree well with the classical model of aging as an accumulation of errors, but they are well explained by the model of programmed aging as a mechanism for controlling pathogens.
— In this model, rejuvenation is an obstacle to the implementation of a useful pathogen control program. Animals resort to it only in those rare cases when the harm from continuing the aging program is even greater. Thus, the bee ages as an element of the hive's collective immunity (reducing the risk of infection by older individuals), but it rejuvenates if otherwise the entire hive faces the threat of collapse," said Peter Lidsky.
How to use pathogen control theory
Unlike the classical model, this approach retains hope for the fundamental achievability of rejuvenation, the authors of the work emphasized, but we cannot talk about the classical approach. The authors believe that the necessary programs should most likely be sought in the immune system. And it is her rejuvenation, according to the predictions of the theory, that is the most effective way to slow down or even stop aging.
Science knows of organisms with negligible aging that live longer than similar species — mole rats, immortal jellyfish, long-lived sharks, and so on, Mikhail Bolkov, PhD, researcher at the Institute for the Study of Aging at the Russian Gerontological Research and Clinical Center at Pirogov University, told Izvestia. In the present study, the researchers looked at honey bees. The colony's calculation shows that theoretically they could be immortal, but then infections would spread from community to community. Death, the authors claim, is an evolutionary way to stop epidemics.
— Speaking of humans, we know that cell aging is a planned process in which a cell that has accumulated damage stops dividing in order not to spread mutations. This is accompanied by various consequences, of course, but the lesser of the two evils is chosen. Now another stone is added to the scales of the theory of programmed aging," the expert noted.
Rejuvenation is an extremely complex biological process. Conventionally, it can be compared to the situation when a butterfly turns back into a caterpillar. In this case, the cells need to disassemble the damaged proteins and restart the biological clock, the head of the Smart Supply Chain segment of the FoodNet working group gave an example NTI Sergey Kosogor. Such processes require enormous energy costs and, in fact, are more like the death of the former form of existence followed by the formation of a new one.
"For complex animals, such rejuvenation will most likely be catastrophic, in mammals it will lead to the breakdown of neural connections, which means that only part of the process that will ensure the regeneration of the body and preserve reproductive function, but will preserve memory and skills, should be used in medicine," he said.
The hypothesis that aging may be partially programmed to protect the population is, of course, interesting, but it does not negate classical theories, but rather complements them, summed up the expert of NTI "Helsnet", a biologist, oncobioinformatician, founder of biomedical startups BioAlg Corp. and OncoUnite Dmitry Chebanov. The idea of the role of infections and epidemics as a factor limiting life expectancy has been discussed for a long time, but remains at the level of theory and models. In real life, a combination of factors always works: accumulation of damage, energy constraints, and environmental pressure.
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