New Research Finds A Molecule That Could Be Key To Looking Young & Healthy

In what’s believed to be the first study of its kind, a research team led by Sagar Vyavahare and Sandeep Kumar at Augusta University in Georgia discovered that blocking one specific molecule could be the key to staying young and healthy.

The molecule, called microRNA-141-3p, is said to cause many health concerns that older adults usually face, like bone and muscle loss.

This research, published in Aging and Disease, aimed to find ways to prevent further damage to the body by suppressing microRNA and its impacts on aging bodies. 

Sadanand Fulzele, one of the team’s aging researchers at the Medical College of Georgia at Augusta University, said in a press release they want to suppress the elevation of microRNA during aging, which caused “complications like chronic inflammation, muscle loss [and] bone loss.”

In their research, mice were adjusted to mimic the health of 60-year-olds and were treated with antagomir injections, another molecule designed to suppress microRNA, twice a week for 12 weeks. Researchers then studied its effects on the blood, spleen, bone and muscle. 

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The effects that antagomir injections had were that there were more anti-inflammatory cells than pro-inflammatory cells in the spleen, fewer pro-inflammatory proteins in the blood and more solid bone and larger muscle fibers. Anti-inflammatory cells, scientifically known as macrophages, repair tissue by inhibiting inflammation and promoting collagen production. 

Anti-inflammatory cells are important because inflammation in the body can cause various problems by damaging healthy cells, tissues and organs, especially in older adults. The team found that the presence of microRNA-141-3p decreased the expression a “good” gene called AUF1. This good gene helps regulate pro-inflammatory proteins, called cytokines, and by doing so can prevent chronic and harmful inflammation.