But a fresh study on roundworms suggests how the relationship between aging and antioxidants just isn't so simple.
The research, published in June inside the journal Genetics, revealed that roundworms with innate mutations that slowed their metabolic process lived longer than regular roundworms — although the mutated worms showed no proof increased protection from free radicals.
living may very well be more important to lifespan in comparison with free radical damage, said Siegfried Hekimi, a molecular geneticist at McGill University and the lead author of the paper.
"You do not need to possess lowered free radical production to reside long, " Hekimi said.
Free radicals and aging are linked since the 1950s, when researchers argued why these unstable molecules could damage tissue. Over many years of normal function, the theory goes, the damage accumulates and the organism ages. Antioxidants help inhibit free radical production and therefore protect cells from damage.
Though the evidence for a straightforward relationship between free radicals and aging has been mixed.
To try further, Hekimi and his colleagues used C. elegans, a 1 millimeter-long roundworm. They induced random mutations into the worms and picked out the ones that exhibited slow growth and sluggish physiological behaviors, like defecation. Then they exposed the worms to several compounds that enhance the concentration of oxygen-containing free radicals on the inside cells.
Although all 10 types of mutated worms lived several days to weeks longer than their non-mutated counterparts (a significant chunk of your time for a creature with any maximum lifespan of three weeks), they showed no extra resistance towards the stress caused by the no cost radicals. In most cases, the actual mutants were actually more delicate than non-mutants.
The study "fits with a number of the work that's coming out in the field, " said Siu Sylvia Lee, a geneticist at Cornell University who was not mixed up in study. Though free radicals are probably somehow involved in aging, your woman said, this and other studies enjoy it suggest that the relationship in between free radicals and aging isn't a straight correlation.
Hekimi isn't sure why is the slow-living worms live extended or what role free radicals perform play. But while it's too early to extrapolate the results to help humans, the research does suggest consumers should be cautious about buying into antioxidant hype, he / she said.
"This is some data that shows that even in principle, [antioxidants] cannot do you any good, " he said. "Free radicals might still be involved in aging in complex ways, but this simple notion regarding ‘They're there, they're toxic, many people cause aging, ' that seems to be wrong. ".
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