There’s a new study underway to test whether it’s possible to ward off age-related diseases with an innovative combination of high-intensity interval training and anti-inflammatory medications and supplements.
The small study includes healthy older adults aged 65 to 80 who agreed to try HIIT training, which includes short bursts of cardiovascular exercises mixed with resistance training. In addition, all participants will take daily capsules of spermidine, a supplement often marketed for healthy aging, as well as a generic drug that has potent anti-inflammatory effects.
“As we age, the immune system shifts away from good inflammation,” which is the body’s short and acute response to repel injuries or infections and promote healing, explains Dr. Thomas Marron, one of the researchers leading the new study. Marron directs early-phase clinical trials at The Tisch Cancer Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.
In contrast, pathogenic inflammation can arise from overactive immune cells releasing inflammatory signals after a prolonged response to bacteria or viruses. People also develop chronic inflammation simply due to aging, a phenomenon that has been called inflammaging. “It’s not necessarily that we’re having more infections as we age; it’s that we’re becoming more inflamed in general as the immune system weakens. It’s this kind of bad inflammation that’s at the root of the development of many different diseases,” says Marron, from cancer to heart disease and dementia.
“We hope that by reducing this inflammation, we can decrease the incidence of these diseases that become more common with age and promote healthier aging,” says Marron.
“I’ve reached the age where I’m concerned about aging well,” says study participant Robert Profusek, a lawyer in his 70s, who says he wants to remain as healthy and physically active as possible. “I don’t want to get to the point where it takes ten minutes to cross Park Avenue,” he says.
After a few months of high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, mixed with resistance band exercises, Profusek says he can feel the benefits. The workouts take about 15 minutes a day and include sets of jumping jacks, aiming to do as many as possible in short bursts. “It’s good for me,” he says, noting that he’s challenging himself. In contrast, pathogenic inflammation can arise from overactive immune cells releasing inflammatory signals after a prolonged response to bacteria or viruses. People also develop chronic inflammation simply due to aging, a phenomenon that has been called inflammaging. “It’s not necessarily that we’re having more infections as we age; it’s that we’re becoming more inflamed in general as the immune system weakens. “It’s this kind of bad inflammation that’s at the root of the development of many different diseases,” says Marron, from cancer to heart disease and dementia.
“We hope that by reducing this inflammation, we can decrease the incidence of these diseases that become more common with age and promote healthier aging,” says Marron.
“I’ve reached the age where I’m concerned about aging well,” says study participant Robert Profusek, a lawyer in his 70s, who says he wants to remain as healthy and physically active as possible. “I don’t want to get to the point where it takes ten minutes to cross Park Avenue,” he says.
After a few months of high-intensity interval training, or HIIT, mixed with resistance band exercises, Profusek says he can feel the benefits. The workouts take about 15 minutes a day and include sets of jumping jacks, aiming to do as many as possible in short bursts. “It’s good for me,” he says, noting that he’s challenging himself.
People who exercise regularly can reduce the risk of developing metabolic diseases, in part due to the anti-inflammatory effects of exercise. And large observational studies have found that women who exercise and do strength training reduce their risk of death from cardiovascular disease by 30% compared to their less active peers.
The researchers chose to add the spermidine supplement to the combination, given that research shows spermidine can stimulate autophagy, which is the body’s way of clearing damaged cells and reducing inflammation. Our body naturally produces spermidine, but as we age, production decreases significantly, leading to lower levels. Spermidine supplements have shown to extend lifespan in preliminary animal studies.
The study includes two types of generic medications. Half of the participants will take lamivudine, which is an antiviral drug, and the other half will take rapamycin, which has long been prescribed to transplant patients to prevent organ rejection.
Both of these drugs were approved by the FDA decades ago to treat specific diseases. Now, the question is whether they will be effective in warding off age-related diseases in healthy older adults by reducing inflammation.
Rapamycin has been a hot topic among longevity enthusiasts. “People have been taking it off-label in very low doses,” says Marron. Taken this way, the idea is that it can act as a powerful anti-inflammatory.
As with any medication or supplement, it’s important to weigh risks and benefits. “There are a reasonable number of side effects that patients may experience, and you really don’t know which patients will have them,” says researcher Philip Iffland from the University of Maryland, who wrote a review of the pros and cons of rapamycin for longevity.
Marron’s team will collect blood samples from all participants at several points throughout the one-year study, and they will analyze changes in inflammation markers using high-tech, high-resolution proteomic analysis. “We’re doing a test that examines 5,300 different proteins, all cytokines and chemokines,” explains Marron. These are signaling proteins that act as “traffic cops” for immune cells, coordinating the body’s response to infections, injuries, and inflammation.
The analysis will help researchers map all the proteins in the blood sample to find biomarkers and also provide a more complete picture of the immune response, showing how cells and proteins interact during acute or chronic inflammation.
The researchers hope to see a significant reduction in the ‘bad inflammation’ that’s at the root of all these diseases that come with aging, says Marron.
He and his team are now semifinalists in the XPRIZE Healthspan competition. And if the preliminary results are promising, more research will follow. This summer, XPRIZE will announce 10 finalists to share a $10 million milestone prize and advance to the finals.
“We’re excited about the powerful, innovative thinking and approaches we’re seeing proposed by these teams,” says Jamie Justice, executive vice president of the XPRIZE Foundation and adjunct professor at Wake Forest University School of Medicine. The goal of the competition is for researchers to develop interventions that can restore muscle, cognitive, and immune function by at least 10 years—with a target of 20 years—and extend healthy lifespan.
“It’s a moonshot,” says researcher Miriam Merad, director of the Precision Immunology Institute at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, who is also leading the new study. “We hope to move the needle,” she says, pointing to the importance of “laying the groundwork” to extend vitality, not just lifespan.
For Robert Profusek—who is participating in the study—that’s the point. “If you can do something like a regimen like this to extend your vitality,” why wouldn’t you, he says.
Fonte: npr.org por llison Aubrey