Gaming the aging process is a billion-dollar industry built on plastic surgery, injectables, face creams, lasers, and a heck of a lot of societal pressures. Plastics and fillers aside, most roads of treatment lead to this premise: If we trick our cells into producing more collagen and/or elastin, wrinkles will fade, glow factor will surge, and voilà — skin will look younger. Now, scientists may have found a way to make old skin cells look and act young again, thanks to a breakthrough in so called, “reprogramming factors.”
In a study published to the journal Cell, researchers from La Jolla, California’s Salk Institute for Biological Studies were able to expand the lifespan of animals by 30%, stoking muscle regeneration and DNA repair in mice who suffered from an accelerated aging disease.