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	Podcast:		UC Science Today
	Episode:		Observations in the lab may reflect aging in humans
	Category:		Science & Medicine
	Duration:		00:01:02
	Publish Date:		2016-06-19 19:00:00
	Description:		This is Science Today. Low calorie diets in the early lives of some animals have long been associated with metabolic changes that increase lifespan. In experiments on mice and worms known as C.elegans, biologist Andrew Dillin of the University of California, Berkeley and his team uncovered two critical genes responsible for these striking changes. Dillin’s laboratory also discovered that these metabolic shifts are caused by genetic switches, or enzymes that can control these genes and be manipulated by the researchers as well. "These genes are the number one correlation of extreme longevity. So the ones that are long-lived have these two genes very highly upregulated, and the animals that are short-lived have these two genes downregulated." Basically, the long-lived organisms express these genes more than the short-lived ones. These observations may also reflect aging in humans. "The next step is, can we begin to look at super centenarians, people that are living well into their hundreds. Do they have alterations in these genes that people that are only living to be 80 or 70 don’t have?" For Science Today, I’m Larissa Branin.
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