We all get old, but fun is different. Since the dawn of time, humans have done everything we can to prevent this aging process. Creams, pills, Botox and other remedies People do all kinds of things to slow down the aging process, including sleeping well, eating healthy, and not smoking.

But could there be a new way to fight aging in the not-too-distant future? According to A wonderful studyIt was published last weekend in the journal Science Go, may be. “Aging appears to be a process you can reverse,” says anti-aging expert David Sinclair. In return CNN. “It doesn’t matter if the body is 50 or 75, healthy or sick.”

Old, blind mice become young again

A Harvard University researcher conducted experiments on mice in laboratories in Boston. By ‘reprogramming’ their genes (pieces of DNA), the genetics professor saw old, blind mice regain their sight, develop new brains and develop new muscle tissue. A reverse effect was also observed in young mice. They were prematurely obsolete.

The results of the experiments are amazing, explains the researcher CNN He has worked in education for not less than 13 years. According to him, the results contradict current theories of aging.

Currently, many scientists believe that aging is the result of genetic changes that gradually affect our bodies. This eventually creates a ‘graveyard of damaged cell tissue’. That cell tissue causes all kinds of aging characteristics, degeneration and disorders and the process is irreversible.

Aging researcher: ‘Our DNA can be reactivated’

But according to researcher Sinclair, there is something else behind our aging process. “There’s no question of a cell tissue graveyard. Nor is damage to our genes the only thing that causes us to age,” he says. “Rather, the body loses the cell’s ability to read your original DNA, causing the body to forget how the cell is supposed to function.”

According to him, everyone backs up their DNA. We are losing that copy more and more. Not because that copy is actually gone, but because our cells don’t have instructions to retrieve and read that copy. As a result, we age and – for example – get gray hair.

But the good news is: we can turn our DNA copy on again. Sinclair himself has done this in mice by turning on a biological switch.

Fights aging by ‘rebooting’ cells

It has been possible to reverse the aging process in animals by re-teaching cells how to access the original DNA. It was then able to read the DNA copy again. Sinclair likens the process to an old computer, he says CNN. Such a computer sometimes cannot open software programs because it is old. Sinclair says that programs must crash and then be restarted.

But we cannot begin. This should be done from outside. He did just that by tinkering with the body cells and genes of old blind mice. Their youth was still hidden somewhere in the depths. It was the cells that lacked the ability to restore that youth that were able to do it again.

Smoking and chronic lack of sleep cause aging

You also affect turning your DNA on and off. For example, if you smoke heavily or suffer from chronic sleep deprivation, the cells in your body will panic. As a result, epigenomes, the bits of DNA that reside in each genome and give them instructions, are misdirected, explains researcher Sinclair. CNN.

“Because instead of checking your cells, they now have to repair them. After that, not all of the epigenomes come back. Some of these cellular bits lose their way home. Over time, it’s like a game of ping-pong, and more and more balls hit the floor.

Make a backup on your body that you can restore

Epigenomes that have lost their way home have less good means of reading the original DNA. As a result, people who don’t live healthy lives often have to deal with the signs of aging more quickly. But here comes the surprise: “Your body has a backup of software that you can restore,” says researcher Sinclair.

“We can reverse the aging process, which shows that the system is intact. There is a backup. The software needs to be restarted.” According to the co-author, the study “will change the way we look at the aging process. It also changes the way we treat diseases associated with aging.” The co-author mentions, among other things, heart complaints or dementia.

‘The question is no longer if revival is possible, but when’

How we hit the reset button in humans is still unknown. “At the moment we only know that we can flip the switch, not how. By tapping the reset button we show why the software in our bodies goes awry and how to reboot the system. That button restores the cell’s ability to read DNA correctly again.

The next step is to test cell regeneration in humans. For American Press Time Sinclair says It is only a matter of time. “We still don’t understand how rejuvenation actually works, but we know it works. Now when I look at an elderly person, I don’t think of them as old, but as someone whose computer needs to be rebooted. It’s no longer a question of whether rejuvenation is possible. , but when.

Are you overweight or obese? Tips to shed pounds the easy way