Scientists find gene for longer life!!

[orthodox]

EAT little to live long is an established biological fact. It's also an impossible feat for all but the dedicated few. But help for the weak-willed may be on the way thanks to a gene from the humble nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans.
According to Andrew Dillin and his team at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies in la Jolla, California, the so-called PHA-4 gene is the key to the reason mice and other animals kept on a near starvation diet outlive well-fed fellows by up to 40 per cent.
That discovery promises drugs able to mimic the effects of dietary restriction for people unable to cut their calories by the 60-70 per cent needed to enhance longevity.
''We're doing experiments in mice now,'' said Associate Professor Dillin, a molecular biologist and the team leader.
He said his team hopes to find ways to manipulate the protein the gene encodes because high levels of the PHA-4 protein drive the restriction-lifespan process.
''It's very exciting science,'' said University of Melbourne biochemist Bruce Kemp of the work reported overnight in the journal Nature.
As well, dietary restriction has been shown in animals to reduce the risk of cancer, diabetes and heart disease, added Professor Kemp, also with CSIRO Molecular and Health Technologies and St Vincent's Institute.
According to Professor Dillin, the worm results will likely hold true for people because, like other mammals, they have three genes similar to PHA-4, suggesting it's function is ''conserved'' through evolutionary time.
''This may be the primordial gene ... that helps an animal overcome stressful conditions and live a long time through dietary restriction,'' he said.
Although calorie restriction has not been proven to lengthen human life because it's so hard to maintain, Professor Dillin said a primate study now in its 30th year suggests it will be effective.
Until now, most scientists believed that the effect of calorie restriction on ageing was controlled by two other biochemical pathways, one involving insulin and the other, mitochondria, energy-producing bodies inside cells.