Editor's Choice Main Category: Diabetes Also Included In: Seniors / Aging Article Date: 10 Aug 2012 - 10:00 PDT

Current ratings for: Longevity Protein Has Diabetes-Prevention Qualities

More than ten years ago, Leonard Guarente, a biology professor at MIT, discovered that the protein SIRT1 had properties that boosted longevity. Since then Guarente has investigated how the protein works in several different body tissues.

In this study, Professor Guarente set out to determine what happens when the protein is missing from adipose cells, which made up body fat.

Guarente fed mice a high-fat diet and discovered that mice lacking SIRT1 started to develop metabolic disorders, such as diabetes, significantly faster than normal mice consuming a high-fat diet.

Guarente, the Novartis Professor of Biology at MIT, explained:

Results from the study indicate that medications designed to enhance SIRT1 activity may help protect against diseases associated to obesity.

The effects of SIRT1 and other sirtuin proteins were discovered by Guarente while he was studying yeast in the 1990s. According to the researchers, these proteins have been shown to help keep cells alive and healthy, coordinate a variety of hormonal networks, regulatory proteins and other genes.

In order to examine the effects of the gene more precisely, the researchers deleted the gene from organs such as the brain and liver. In earlier studies, the team found that SIRT1 protects against neurodegeneration in the brain observed in diseases, such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and Huntington's diseases.

SIRT1 removes acetyl groups from other proteins by modifying their activity. According to Guarente "the possible targets of this deacetylation are numerous, which is likely what gives SIRT1 its broad range of protective powers."

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Longevity Protein Has Diabetes-Prevention Qualities