Is this the key to a longer life? Scientists discover new clues on how the cancer-resistant naked mole rat appears to defy aging

• Naked mole rats are known to be both cancer resistant and have long lives
• A process in humans and animals that fights tumors is known to speed up aging
• But, in naked mole rats, researchers have found that it does not act the same way
• They say this may be because the cellular process is more 'well behaved' 
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The incredible survival abilities of the naked mole rat have reached near-legendary status.

The hairless creatures have long lifespans, are resistant to cancer, and can even survive extended periods of time deprived of oxygen, making them a key target in the ongoing search for the ‘fountain of youth.’

And now, scientists may have unlocked one of their secrets.

A new study has identified a unique characteristic behind a cellular process that may allow the rodents to fight both cancer and the effects of aging, despite the two acting like ‘competing interests’ in other animals.

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The hairless creatures have long lifespans, are resistant to cancer, and can even survive extended periods of time deprived of oxygen, making them a key target in the ongoing search for the ‘fountain of youth.’ File photo

A process known as cellular senescence is responsible for preventing damaged cells from dividing out of control, which can lead to cancerous tumors.

But, this comes with a price.

As senescence stops cell division, it also accelerates aging.

In the new study, the researchers from the University of Rochester investigated whether naked mole rats exhibit this anticancer mechanism – and, how it may behave differently than in other animals.

‘In humans, as in mice, aging and cancer have competing interests,’ said Vera Gorbunova, a biology professor at the university.

‘In order to prevent cancer, you need to stop cells from dividing. However, to prevent aging, you want to keep cells dividing in order to replenish tissues.’

‘We wanted to look at these animals that pretty much don’t age and see if they also had senescent cells or it they evolved to get rid of cell senescence,’ said co-author Andrei Seluanov.

The researchers compared the senescence responses of naked mole rats and mice.

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A new study has identified a unique characteristic behind a cellular process that may allow the rodents to fight both cancer and the effects of aging, despite the two acting like ‘competing interests’ in other animals

While naked mole rats can live upwards of 30 years, mice live only about two to three years.

And, to their surprise, the team found that naked mole rats do experience cellular senescence.

For these rodents, however, the researchers found the process resulted in higher resistance to the damaging effects by inhibiting the metabolic process of the senescent cells.

‘In naked mole rats, senescent cells are better behaved,’ Gorbunova says.

WHY ARE SCIENTISTS INTERESTED IN THE NAKED MOLE RAT?

With wrinkly skin and walrus like teeth, naked mole rats are never going to win any beauty contests.

Yet these creatures, which live underground in the deserts of east Africa, are one the medical marvels of the natural world.

If a human was to have the same lifespan as a naked mole rat, relative to its size, they would live for up to 600 years.

As well as being resistant to cancer, they have very low respiratory and metabolic rates, meaning they use oxygen sparingly.

Scientists have put considerable effort into sequencing the creatures' genome in an attempt to understand its secrets.

The machinery that translates their DNA into the functioning molecules in the cells, proteins, have also been found to be highly accurate.

This means their proteins contain few errors compared to other mammals, and meaning their is less chance of something malfunctioning. ‘When you compare the signals from the mouse versus from the naked mole rat, all the genes in the mouse are a mess.

‘In the naked mole rat, everything is more organized. The naked mole rat didn’t get rid of the senescence, but maybe it made it a bit more structured.’

According to the researchers, this more structured response may have an important evolutionary role to give these creatures an edge.

‘We believe there was some strategy during the evolution of naked mole rats that allowed them to have more systematic changes in their genes and have more orchestrated pathways being regulated,’ said postdoctoral associate Yang Zhao.

‘We believe this is beneficial for longevity and cancer resistance.’

Could diabetes be triggered by a virus? 

Alert as scientists identify pathogens that could derail insulin in the body

• The exact cause of types 1 and 2 diabetes is not known 
• Proteins in viruses that mimic insulin may trigger type 1 by tricking the body into thinking the hormone is an invader 
• Tissues may become resistant to insulin due to the similar viral proteins, causing type 2 diabetes 
• The Harvard researchers found the insulin-like proteins in four viruses, but think their research could be 'the tip of the iceberg'  
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Viruses may trigger both type 1 and type 2 diabetes because they contain proteins that mimic insulin, a surprise discovery suggests.

People suffering from both forms of diabetes have shortages of the sugar-metabolizing hormone insulin, but the underlying causes of the disease are largely unknown.

Researchers at Harvard University found that four kinds of viruses produce proteins that mimic insulin, which could lead to diabetes in humans exposed to the microorganisms.

It is not yet clear if humans can get the particular viruses the researchers studied, but the discovery indicates that viruses and other microbes could play a key role in causing diabetes and even other diseases, the researchers say.

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Both types of diabetes may be triggered by insulin-like proteins in viruses, a new study found

In type 1 diabetes, which is an autoimmune disease, the body misidentifies its own healthy insulin cells as invaders, and attacks them.

About 30 percent of autoimmune disease are thought to be genetic, while the other 70 percent are believed to be instigated by environmental factors, including toxins, diet and infections.

Type 1 diabetes was once called 'juvenile diabetes,' because its effects often set in during the early stages of life and carry on throughout adulthood.

We know that in this type of the disease, the body destroys the islet cells in the pancreas that produce insulin, a key hormone to the breakdown and use of blood sugar, or glucose for energy.

But we don't know why the immune system turns against these particular kinds of cells.

Previous research has led scientists - including lead study author Dr Emrah Altinidis, a postdoctoral fellow at the Joslin Diabetes Center at Harvard – to hypothesize that the disease could have underlying genetic and viral causes.

'People have had interest in the potential of environmental triggers of diabetes for many years and even some interest in the possibility that viruses could trigger the disease,' says senior study author and chief Academic Officer of the Joslin Center, Dr C Ronald Kahn.

'Up until now, most of that had been focused on that the way they might be causing diabetes might be by causing infection or inflammation in the pancreas,' he says.

The most popular theories have suggested that viruses, including coxsackievirus B4, mumps and rubella, could act as triggers for type 1 diabetes, but still the question of 'how' has remained largely a mystery.

Bacteria and viruses produce proteins, just as our cells do, and Dr Altinidis wondered if some of these proteins might mimic insulin, driving the autoimmune response behind the disease.

To find out whether or not his theory had any merit, Dr Altinidis, with senior study Dr Kahn, had to mine a public database of the DNA sequences of viruses, looking for any section of the genetic code that held instructions similar to those for insulin.

Scientists believe that there are over 300,000 viruses that could affect mammals. Only about 7,500 of those have been sequenced.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN TYPE 1 AND TYPE 2 DIABETES  

Both type 1 and type 2 diabetes occur in people whose bodies do not make enough insulin to properly break down carbohydrates into the form of sugar we use for energy, called glucose.

The exact causes of the two forms of the disease are unknown. 

Type 1 diabetes, once called 'juvenile diabetes,' is essentially an autoimmune disease that usually begins affecting people in childhood. 

The body does not recognize its own insulin, so the immune system attacks it like it would an infection. 

Type 2 diabetes is a metabolic disorder in which the body becomes insulin resistant. 

In this form, tissues important to metabolizing glucose do not recognize insulin. 

Type 2 diabetes usually develops later in life, and may be, in part, a result of a poor diet that exposes the body to too much insulin, leading to resistance. Still, the Harvard researchers found their needle-in-the-haystack - four of them, in fact.

The viruses all belonged to the iridovirus family, which primarily infect fish, including kinds we consume, like grouper.

It is unclear whether or not these viruses infect humans directly, but 'to serve as a trigger for diabetes wouldn't require that they actually infect us,' suggests Dr Kahn, 'if we're just exposed to the proteins that could be enough.'

Their discovery, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicates that there 'may be whole different ways viruses can interact with the body and produce hormone-like molecules - in this case, insulin-like - that can could either potentially trigger diabetes for type 1 as an autoimmune disease or cause alterations and mutations by using insulin-like properties, but being weaker than normal insulin,' Dr Kahn explains.

He suspects that when the body detects the insulin-like molecules, it attacks them because they are just dissimilar enough to raise a red flag. But in the process, the immune system may get confused, causing a 'cross-reaction to our own insulin and damage to our own cells.'

He and Dr Altinidis tested the viruses' effects on mouse and human cells. In each kind, they found that the virus proteins caught the attention of some of the same receptors that insulin does, telling them to take up glucose, or blood sugar.

Mice that were injected with the insulin-like viral proteins also had lower blood glucose levels, suggesting that the body had been tricked into thinking there was more insulin present than there actually was.

This could indicate the development of type 2 diabetes as well. The form of the disease that develops later in life involves insulin resistance, meaning that the body produces insulin, but tissues don't respond to it properly, which is a metabolic issue.

Viruses could cause this phenomenon in one of two ways: 'It could cause abnormalities in metabolism itself because they have insulin-like effects, but they are weak, and not fully active,' offers Dr Kahn.

'Or, it could affect the ability of our own cells to respond to our own insulin, a form of insulin resistance,' he says.

The research team's next steps will be to try to use one of the viruses or their proteins to recreate the autoimmune response in type 1 diabetes and to search a large set of human stool samples for evidence of these insulin-like proteins in humans.

Because there are so many viruses, and so many of them are un-sequenced, Dr Kahn says: 'We think this is just the tip of an iceberg in terms of potential' ways that viruses could be implicated in the development of diabetes.

Could you live forever? Humans will achieve IMMORTALITY using AI and genetic engineering by 2050, expert claims

• Dr Ian Pearson claims people born after 1970 should be able to live forever  
• Genetic engineering could be used to reduce or reverse the ageing of cells  
• AI could lead to android bodies for humans to live in after their body's fail
• Virtual reality worlds could be created for people to upload their minds to

Old age could soon be old news, according to a leading futurologist who claims people born after 1970 could live forever. 

He predicts that by the year 2050, humans could outlive the constraints of the physical body. 

Genetic engineering could be used to extend the body's life expectancy, by reducing or reversing the ageing of cells. 

Advances in AI could lead to android bodies for humans to live in after their own flesh and blood frames have ceased to function.

And virtual reality worlds could be created for people to upload their consciousness into once their bodies have failed. 

Scroll down for video  

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Old age could soon be old news, according to a leading futurologist who claims people born after 1970 could live forever. He predicts that by the year 2050, humans could outlive the constraints of the physical body 

The claims were made by Dr Ian Pearson, an engineer and inventor from Ipswich who lectures on the future of our daily lives, according to The Sun.

The holy grail for genetic engineering, human immortality, has long been a fascination for many, he says.

'There are quite a lot of people interested in living forever,' Dr Pearson told The Sun.

'There always has been, but the difference now is tech is improving so quickly, lots of people believe they can actually do it.' 

Dr Pearson says that anyone alive today who survives until 2050 may never have to face death.

He added: 'By 2050, it will only really be for the rich and famous.

'Most people on middle-class incomes and reasonable working-class incomes can probably afford this in the 2060s. So anyone 90 or under by 2060.

'If you were born sometime in 1970 onwards, that would make you 48 this year.

'So anybody under 50 has got a good chance of it, and anyone under 40 almost definitely will have access to this.'

Dr Pearson claims that there are a number of promising avenues that could allow people to skirt death. 

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The claims were made by Dr Ian Pearson (pictured), an engineer and inventor from Ipswich who lectures on the future of our daily lives - from work to leisure. He believes that in just over three decades humans will be able to survive forever

One involves using genetic engineering to renew or build new body parts.

Lab grown tissues and organs are successfully being grown for use in transplants to reduce the need for human donors and decrease organ rejections.

Cells age naturally and become less resilient and start failing but with certain techniques some people believe ageing can be reversed.  

Dr Pearson says: 'No one wants to live forever at 95 years old, but if you could rejuvenate the body to 29 or 30, you might want to do that.'

Although improving the human body is a possibility, there are many complications associated with undoing ageing. 

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Dr Pearson says that sex dolls (pictured) are starting to look quite human-like and that after another 30 years of development and they'll be extremely life-like and could form the foundation for android bodies humans live in after 'death'

A more likely avenue is that we abandon our failing bodies as we age and move into an artificial shell.  

'A long time before we get to fix our bodies and rejuvenate it every time we feel like, we'll be able to link our minds to the machine world so well, we'll effectively be living in the cloud,' Dr Pearson said.

Last week, an exhibition at the World Government Summit in Dubai showcased HIBA (Hybrid Intelligence Biometric Avatar).

HIBA was the result of several studies and concluded that humans would be joined through a 'collective AI consciousness'.

This international network will allow us to ditch speech and communicate using nothing but thoughts by 2050.

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The Netflix series Altered Carbon (pictured) explores similar idea, with people escaping death by storing their mind, consciousness and memories in a computer chip called a 'stack' implanted in their spinal column

Dr Pearson took this idea one step further and claimed that we will not only be linked by a computer system in 2050, we will be living inside an android shell when we do. 

Human consciousnesses will be uploaded to online servers, and we will able to use any android body to inhabit the real world.

One indicator of progress in this area is the current state of sex dolls, Dr Pearson says, which are looking more human-like with each new generation

In another three decades, they could be extremely lifelike.

Dr Pearson compares using such android bodies as homes for our consciousness to hiring a car.

Rather than travelling to Australia to visit the Sydney opera house, you could download your mind into an android body in the country.  

HOW CAN HUMANS BECOME IMMORTAL?  

Humans have long been fascinated by the idea of immortality and have been pursuing it for centuries. 

Ancient Greek alchemists once tried to find a 'Philosopher's Stone' to obtain immortality, but were unsuccessful.

In recent decades, the average life expectancy in many countries has increased drastically and now most, healthy individuals in the UK can expect a life duration of about 80 years. 

With the rapid development of technology and an increasing scientific understanding of the flaws of the human body, some people to believe that immortality is closer now than it has ever been before.

In the late 20th Century, an idea called cryonics was founded - the ability to bring someone back to life after death. 

Now, futurologists think that humans will be able to live forever thanks to a combination of tech advances. 

There are now three schools of thought for how people will be able to endure permanently. 

Option one: Body regeneration 

Scientists have already managed to grow chemicals, tissues and organs in the lab and as technology advances in this field.

Combined with 3D printing and reversing the ageing of cells, our bodies may last longer than ever before. 

Option two: Robotic body replacements

Robots are becoming better and more human-like all the time, and we may be able to upload a human consciousness into an android in the future. 

Option three: A virtual world 

Virtual reality and Augmented reality have started to blur the lines between the tangible and the artificial. 

Human consciousness could potentially exist completely independently of a body in a computer simulation.  The Netflix series Altered Carbon explores similar idea, with people escaping death by storing their mind, consciousness and memories in a computer chip called a 'stack' implanted in their spinal column.

This in-tact stack can be taken out of a dead person and implanted into a new body, known as a 'skin'. 

A similar process would be involved with the robotic bodies he envisages.

The cost of this immortality in a machine will initially be very high, with only the rich being able to afford it in 2050.

Soon after, by 2060, it should be more attainable for middle and working-class individuals.   

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One final possibility is that consciousness could exist in a completely virtual world. In the film Transcendence (pictured) the character played by Johnny Depp uploads his consciousness onto a computer

By 2070 people in poor countries on modest incomes will be able to afford it, he says, giving the chance of digital immortality. 

It could even be provided on the NHS. 

One final possibility is that consciousness could exist in a completely virtual world. 

This would open up the possibility of exploring every conceivable fantasy, travelling anywhere in the world at any point in history.

He believes humans could also link their consciousness to that of others in a giant hive mind. 

This could offer humans of the future unlimited intelligence and let them exist in multiple places at once.

Could your sleeping position be making you ill? A host of ailments can be fixed simply by changing the way you lie

• Common maladies can be made worse by poor sleeping patterns and habits
• Luckily, these can be easily adjusted and may even help you recover quicker
• Experts give their recommendations for the best positions to sleep in

A bad night's sleep isn't just unpleasant, it's dangerous. 

Existing problems like a bad back, period pains or even a cold can be worsened by sleeping poorly. The position you sleep in can have a lot to with this.

The way you sleep affects the way blood moves around your body, as well as putting pressure on various parts of your body for many hours at a time, which may impair circulation.

If you find your sleeping position uncomfortable, or wake from a troubled night not feeling rested: there are a few different positions you can try to manage your discomfort.

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A bad night's sleep isn't just unpleasant, it can be dangerous

Acid reflux

Acid reflux is a burning feeling in the chest caused by stomach acid travelling up towards the throat, casually known as heartburn.

Eating a large meal right before bed increases the chance of gettin heart burn. However, some people may be predisposed to it, or suffer from gastro-oesophageal reflux disease (GORD).

If you are suffering from acid reflux, lie on your right side, with your arms out in front of you. Your knees should be bent and slightly pulled up towards your abdomen.

Dr John de Caestecker, consultant gastroenterologist from University ­Hospitals Leicester, told the Mirror: ''The gullet joins the stomach on the left side so by lying on the right, food can move more effectively through the digestive tract.

'If you do have to eat late, research shows raising the head of the bed a few inches can alleviate symptoms. It's a much better option than adding more pillows, which you're likely to roll off and can crease you up in the middle and hinder digestion,' he said.

Painful back

A bad sleeping position can actually exacerbate problems with your back and spine.

As before, lay your arms out in front of you. Lie on either side, bending your knees slightly and try to keep your hips in line with the rest of your body, as opposed to curling inward.

Place a pillow between your knees that they rest about the width of your hips apart. This position may feel strange at first, but you should persist beyond the feeling.

Nasal congestion

You should not sleep on your back if you're suffering from a cold, or anything that stuffs the sinuses.

Instead, you should lie on your side with extra pillows to elevate your head, to help the congestion to drain naturally.

You may need to experiment with adjusting your arms and legs so that they are comfortable as well.

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Grinding your teeth and snoring can be partly addressed by changing the way you sleep 

PMS

Unusually, you actually should lie on your back for period-related pain. 

Put a pillow underneath your knees to take pressure off your upper back (you can use two if you're still uncomfortable).

Sleeping on your side would put pressure on the breasts, while sleeping face down puts pressure on the uterus, only making symptoms worse.

Painful hips from running

Once again, you should sleep on your back. This takes pressure off your hips, which can become swollen after too much running - a condition known as bursitis.

Chartered physio Sammy Margo, author of The Good Sleep Guide says: 'Side-lying puts ­pressure on your hips. 

'Dozing on your back gives your hips a break from the stress of walking and sitting all day. 

'If it feels good, prop a pillow under your knees for added support.'

Sore neck

You should sleep on your back with your neck as straight as possible to prevent it from crinking.

If you grind your teeth while you sleep

Grinding your teeth at night is said to affect 8 per cent of adults and can, obviously, damage your teeth, as well as change the overall shape of your face.

By lying on your back, your jaw muscles should naturally sag and stretch with gravity. 

Keep your arms relaxed but straight at either side, because we naturally tend to roll toward bent arms.

Snoring

Snoring can actually be resolved by lying on your front - but it's not necessarily advisable.

When you lie on your front your throat muscles don't fall backwards, which causes snoring.

However, for a lot of the above mentioned problems: lying on your front can make things worse.

'When lying on the front, too many or too few pillows will affect the neck position and put it out of alignment with the spine. 

'This ups the likelihood of nerve compression, especially in older people,' says Sammy.