AUCKLAND, New Zealand, Feb. 03, 2022 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- A leading scientist, known for his studies on the elimination of senescent cells to improve lifespan and healthspan, serves on the scientific advisory board of SRW Laboratories (SRW) to bring more attention to the natural ingredient, fisetin.
Scientists are in a race to boost the average lifespan and healthspan for men and women and billionaires are betting on anti-aging research to make a huge return on investment. Drugs called senolytics are being identified as promising candidates in this quest for healthy aging. They are designed to rid the body of senescent cells, also known as “zombie cells,” which are basically old cells that stop dividing, but never die and just hang out like “zombies” in tissues throughout the body and can cause damage to other active cells. Senescent cells are linked to typical aging conditions like frailty, cognitive impairment, inflammation and chronic diseases.
Matthew Yousefzadeh, Ph.D., with the Institute on the Biology of Aging and Metabolism, Department of Biochemistry, Molecular Biology and Biophysics at the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, has published more than 30 scientific publications with heavy emphasis on cellular senescence and aging. His latest study, published in 2021, in the journal Science, showed that senescent cells exacerbate COVID-19, which may explain why older populations struggle with recovery from the virus more than younger populations. Senescent cells naturally increase with age, thus driving up age-related diseases. This was the first study observing how these senescent cells might influence recovery from COVID-19. Yousefzadeh along with other researchers from Mayo Clinic showed that senescent cells have an amplified inflammatory response to severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). When the senescent cells were removed from old mice infected with a SARS-CoV-2–related virus via treatment with senolytics, this reduced mortality and increased antiviral antibodies, increasing their survival rate to 50%.
“What the study suggests is that, in humans, the reason older people may have a more difficult time with recovering from the COVID-19 virus is because of the senescent cell burden associated with older age,” said Yousefzadeh, who won the 2020 Aging Cell Best Paper Award for his research on senescent cell accumulation during physiologic and accelerated aging of mice. “Reducing that burden of senescent cells could reduce the risk of dying from COVID-19.”
Yousefzadeh, who is also a scientific advisory board member of SRW, says beyond senolytics drugs, nutraceuticals also provide an answer as a preventative strategy to rid the body of senescent cells and improve health. In fact, the Mayo Clinic is currently conducting a trial on how fisetin helps with frailty in older adults and in a separate trial with older women investigating the use of fisetin to remove senescent cells to confirm whether it has measurable health benefits.
Fisetin is a plant flavonol and can be found in many fruits and vegetables, such as strawberries, apples, persimmons, onions and cucumbers, but getting enough of this nutrient through food alone is challenging. Supplementing with fisetin is more efficient. Fisetin is a key ingredient in SRW’s Cel3 Renewal. Yousefzadeh has led numerous projects researching the efficacy of fisetin and how it supports both healthspan and lifespan.
“We have extensively researched fisetin in several studies, which have demonstrated its ability to support healthy aging,” said Yousefzadeh. “Fisetin is a natural senolytic that may reduce the burden of senescent cells that accumulate as we age and supports normal antioxidant synthesis, which is the body's natural defense against harmful chemicals, used to protect our DNA and cellular function.”
Yousefzadeh was instrumental in advising in the development of SRW’s Cel3 Renewal, a dietary supplement that helps clear out and recycles senescent cells in the body. Additionally, Cel3 Renewal supports autophagy, the natural, conserved degradation of the cell that removes unnecessary or dysfunctional components. Cel3 Renewal contains three key ingredients for these important cellular housekeeping processes: apigenin, fisetin and oleuropein, which work together to support the body's natural defenses against aging. Learn more at: www.scienceresearchwellness.com.
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