Antioxidants do not explain longevity in naked mole rat

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I think you should think twice about downing megadoses of your favorite pill-based antioxidant, because animals don't necessarily need to resort to manipulating this variable to attain a longer life. Maybe these reseachers didn't know how to "get to" the right "oxidant" variable to see if this was contributing, but, I think at the very least this research highlights the importance of "intrinsic rigor" to organisms that can surmount frilly oxidative considerations.

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http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/journal/00476374

Antioxidants do not explain the disparate longevity between mice and the longest-living rodent, the naked mole-rat

Blazej Andziaka, b, P. O’Connorc and Rochelle

Buffensteina, b, , aDepartment of Biology, City College of New York, 138th St. and Convent Avenue, New York, NY 10031, USAbGraduate Center of the City University of New York, 365 5th Avenue, New York, NY 10016, USAcDepartment of Genetic Medicine, Weill Cornell Medical College, 515 East 71st St., New York, NY 10021, USA Received 3 May 2005; revised 21 June 2005; accepted 28 June 2005. Available online 8 August 2005.

Abstract

The maximum lifespan of naked mole-rats (NMRs; Heterocephalus glaber) is greater than that of any other rodent. These hystricognaths survive in captivity >28 years, eight-times longer than similar-sized mice. The present study tested if NMRs possess superior antioxidant defenses compared to mice and if age-related interspecies changes in antioxidants were evident. Activities of Cu/Zn superoxide dismutase (Cu/Zn, SOD), Mn SOD, catalase and cellular glutathione peroxidase (cGPx) were measured in livers of physiologically equivalent age-matched NMRs (30, 75 and 130 months) and CB6F1 mice (4, 12 and 18 months). In mice, Mn SOD activity increased with age, while the activity of catalase and cGPx declined. None of the antioxidants changed with age in mole-rats. cGPx activity of NMRs was 70-times lower (p < 0.0001) than in mice, and resembled that of cGPx knock-out animals. NMRs may partially compensate for the lower cGPx when compared to mice, by having

moderately higher activities of the other antioxidants. It is nonetheless unlikely that antioxidant defenses are responsible for the eight-fold longevity difference between these two species. Maintenance of constant antioxidant defenses with age in NMRs concurs with previous physiological data, suggesting delayed aging in this species. Keywords: Antioxidants; Longevity; Mice; Naked mole-rats

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