2 replies to this topic

[VictorBjoerk]

What is the most common cause of death in CR animals? what do they die of if not getting heart attacks or cancer?

The most common cause of death in supercentenarians is amyloidosis of the heart which creates heart failure, could it be something similar in CR animals living a long time?

[Matt]

Maybe Michael who has studied CR for much longer and more in depth is knows the main causes of deaths in the different strains of rats and mice under CR.
There is a video of Dr Luigi Fontana stating that;

- 6% of AL (most of the young deaths) die without pathological lesions
- 28% of CR animals who had lived the 'very longest' had no pathological lesions.

I do not know which study he is getting these numbers from though.

Edited by Matt, 02 March 2009 - 02:19 AM.

[Michael]

Matt's quite correct that the percent of animals dying with no apparent pathology goes up on CR -- though even with CR, most non-mutant mice still die of cancer -- just a lot later in life.

Unfortunately (for us!), the mouse equivalent of the protein that causes senile cardiac amyloidosis (transthyretin (TTR)) is much less susceptible to misfolding than the human version, so they don't get the disease. There are transgenic mice that have been given either WT human or mutant TTR, but to what extent this could really mimic the human age-related disease -- and to what extent the simple introduction of extra, non-native protein itself would confound the results -- is not clear to me.