- Nov 1, 2001
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If this becomes commercialized, would you drink up?
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2013120496_amino10.htmlCocktail of amino acids does wonders for mice
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES Want to live longer? One of the most surefire strategies is caloric restriction. Going on what amounts to a permanent diet has been shown to stave off age-related diseases and death in worms, flies, rodents and monkeys.
But caloric restriction isn't for everyone. Scientists have been looking for ways to get the same benefits with less sacrifice. Some Italian researchers are offering one potential alternative: water fortified with a cocktail of branched-chain amino acids, or BCAAs for short.
Such cocktails are sometimes offered as supplements to people with age-related diseases, such as type-2 diabetes, heart disease and loss of skeletal muscle mass and strength. The Italians investigated the value of a more all-purpose drink made from an amino-acid supplement that a Milan company sells to athletes. Among the key ingredients are leucine, isoleucine, valine, lysine and threonine.
The mice began drinking the BCAA water instead of regular water when they were 9 months old and kept drinking it for the rest of their lives. Those lives turned out to be significantly longer than for mice that drank normal water: a median of 869 days versus 774 days. The extra time amounted to a 12 percent increase in life span.
The amino acids apparently boosted the mitochondria often dubbed the power plants of cells in the rodents' skeletal and cardiac muscles. Their treadmill endurance improved, as did their motor coordination.
In their paper, published last week in Cell Metabolism, the researchers, led by Enzo Nisoli of Milan University's School of Medicine, noted the same amino-acid cocktail was "found to promote several healthy effects in humans."
