Get less oxygen, live longer? It’s true in ageing mice Premium

Researchers have noted in a new study that it’s the first to demonstrate that oxygen restriction, or continuous hypoxia, can extend lifespan in an ageing mammal. This line of research has been interesting, at least in part, by the naked mole rat.

In addition to its tranquil quality and a sense of peace, the fresh, crisp, pollutant-free mountain air could help some animals live longer.

Specifically, the lower oxygen content at high altitudes increases lifespan significantly in ageing mice, according to a study published in PLOS Biology on May 23, 2023.

The researchers have noted that theirs is the first study to demonstrate that oxygen restriction, or continuous hypoxia, can extend lifespan in an ageing mammal. Previous reports on oxygen restriction lengthening lifespan have come from mammalian cells grown in Petri dishes, yeast, and in less complex lab animals such as roundworms and fruit flies.

This line of research has been interesting, at least in part, by the naked mole rat: a rodent that spends most of its life in an oxygen-deficient burrow with a lifespan much longer than scientists have been able to predict based on its size or evolutionary history.

“Because of several observations about the effects of hypoxia in other organisms, we were motivated to assess the effect of chronic continuous hypoxia in a mammalian ageing model,” Vamsi Mootha, a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Maryland, and professor at Harvard Medical School, whose team made the discovery, told The Hindu.

For its experiments, the team worked with a strain of mutant mice that age prematurely and have a shorter lifespan, of fewer than six months. “Wild type mice (without the mutations causing a shortened lifespan) can live over three years, which would have been a very long first experiment to assess survival, so we chose a mouse model of accelerated ageing,” said Dr. Mootha.

The strains they used “also responds powerfully to the best-known intervention to extend lifespan across organisms – caloric restriction.” Caloric restriction, or dietary restriction without malnutrition, first described in 1935, is the gold-standard for increasing lifespan in diverse species like yeast, roundworms, fruit flies, mice, and rats.