Day after day this ambitious goal is beginning to become reality thanks to the progress of biomedical research.

For several years, researchers have believed that the cells most damaged by aging, called "senescent", damage the surrounding tissue causing many of the pathologies characteristic of old age. These cells, which have stopped dividing due to the ravages of time, continue to secrete large quantities of molecules, many of which are toxic, in the surrounding environment.

In one studio recently published in the prestigious magazine Nature the scientists of the “Mayo Clinic” in Minnesota, not only have they tried the link between senescent cells and old age pathologies but they also demonstrate how, by getting rid of these cells, the health of older mice is significantly improved.

In the image you can see two mice of the same age involved in the study. One of them shows signs of “lordocyphosis”, the obvious spinal problem, “sarcopenia”, loss of muscle mass, cataracts and other pathologies. The second, apparently healthy, was treated by researchers by removing senescent cells from some of his tissues.

Scientists managed to selectively eliminate senescent cells from genetically modified mice by stimulating their apoptosis (a sort of programmed cell suicide) when they expressed the p16Ink4a gene. Senescent cells were removed in this way from musculoskeletal tissue, fat tissue and lens tissue. As a result, a notable reduction in aging-related pathologies affecting these tissues was observed. Unfortunately, the lifespan of the mice did not significantly change following the treatment. This is explained by the fact that heart attacks are the main cause of death in guinea pigs and the treatment had not been applied to the heart tissue or other internal organs of the mice which therefore continued to age anyway.

Researchers are already working on treating all tissues at once to see how much this can increase life expectancy in mice.

Senescent cells are just one aspect of the aging process. The eccentric biogerontologist has been around for several years now Aubrey de Gray, founder of the SENS foundation (an organization dedicated to carrying out and promoting scientific research aimed at defeating ageing) hypothesizes that there are 7 main mechanisms responsible for biological aging: these also include the problem of senescent cells for the
which he proposed a solution in principle similar to that described in this article.

Years will probably pass before the technique created by researchers at the Mayo clinic can be applied to humans, however this study remains an important step towards the possibility of "rejuvenating" our organisms by healing the damage of time. In a society in which the average age is increasingly rising, defeating aging in order to have an always active and healthy population will increasingly be a social necessity and
economic as well as the realization of a thousand-year dream of humanity.