EXACTLY what causes our physical decline as we grow old? The creation of mice that age twice as fast as normal provides strong support for one theory.
“This doesn’t solve every mystery of ageing,” says Nils-Goran Larsson of the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. “But we have established a clear cause-and-effect relationship between ageing symptoms and mitochondria.”
Mitochondria are the energy-generating structures found in cells, and contain their own DNA. Biologists have long suspected they play a key role in ageing. This is because the chemical reactions that take place inside mitochondria generate dangerous by-products called free radicals that can…
