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Boosting NAD+ reverses muscle ageing and associated diseases

Drugs boosting NAD+ target toxic proteins by turning on the mitochondrial function

19-Jan-2021

Key points from article :

The older we grow, the weaker our muscles get, riddling old age with frailty and physical disability.

Scientists looked at the similarities between muscle aging and degenerative muscle diseases.

Protein aggregates deposit in skeletal muscles during natural aging.

Found that these aggregates impair mitochondrial function.

"These abnormal proteotoxic aggregates could serve as novel biomarkers for the aging process," - Auwerx, co-author.

Fed worms with vitamin nicotinamide riboside and the antitumor agent Olaparib.

Boost the levels of NAD+, essential for maintaining mitochondrial function, and whose levels decline during aging.

Turning on "mitochondrial quality control system" reduced the protein aggregates and improved the worms' fitness and lifespan.

Scientists then moved on to human muscle tissue, taken from aged subjects and IBM patients.

Produced similar improvements in protein and mitochondrial homeostasis.

Research by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne published in the Journal Cell reports

Mentioned in this article:

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Cell Reports

Journal publishing research papers across a broad range of disciplines within the life sciences.

Johan Auwerx

Professor at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne.

Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL)

University that specializes in natural sciences and engineering.

Topics mentioned on this page:
Musculoskeletal, NAD+