Sirtuins are proteins that can increase the lifespan of yeast, worms and flies, playing a role in human age-related diseases such as Alzheimer’s disease. Researchers from Harvard Medical School, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the US National Institutes of Health, the pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline, and other institutions in Portugal and Australia, examined whether they might be able to stimulate the activity of sirtuins to the point where it could theoretically improve human life expectancy.
The research, which was published in the peer-reviewed journal Science, showed that these compounds directly activated the sirtuin proteins, but it is far too early and optimistic to claim that a pill could be created that would allow people to live to the age of 150. The focus of the study was on biological processes in a laboratory, rather than the development of an anti-ageing pill, and the ‘150-year’ claim seems to have been manufactured by the headline writers.
The effect of the pill on humans was not tested, but rather in overweight mice, and so it is unknown whether a pill such as this could have any effect on human disease or lifespan, or whether it would be safe to use. According to the study’s researchers, the conclusion that they came to was simply that a range of STAC compounds can activate SIRT1, and that this process ‘remains a viable therapeutic intervention strategy for many diseases associated with ageing’.
The lead researcher said that, when the pill was compared to red wine, ‘at least 100 glasses would be needed each day to get the levels shown to improve health in mice’. Therefore, it is clear that this type of study is a necessary and useful early step in the development of drugs. On its own, however, it is certainly not sufficient evidence for anyone to be able to say that STAC compounds can reverse or delay human ageing, and so much further is research is needed before those claims are justified.