Previously Unknown Driver of Aging Discovered – Simple Supplement May Reverse It

Before and After Young Old Anti Aging Concept

The decline of Menin in the hypothalamus may contribute to physiological aging, affecting cognition, bone mass, skin thickness, and lifespan. A recent study using mice suggests that a simple dietary supplement of an amino acid may help mitigate some of these age-related changes.

Loss of Menin helps drive the aging process, and dietary supplement can reverse it in mice.

Cognition, bone mass, skin thickness, and lifespan are all affected by Menin’s decline.

According to a new scientific study, the decline in the hypothalamic Menin may play a key role in aging. The findings reveal a previously unknown driver of physiological aging and suggest that supplementation with a simple amino acid may mitigate some age-related changes. The research, by Lige Leng of Xiamen University, Xiamen, China, and colleagues, was published on March 16th in the open access journal PLOS Biology.

The hypothalamus has been recognized as a key mediator of physiological aging, through an increase in the process of neuroinflammatory signaling over time. In turn, inflammation promotes multiple age-related processes, both in the brain and the periphery.

Loss of Menin Helps Drive Aging Process

Researchers find that the loss of a hypothalamic hormone helps drive the aging process, and a supplement can help reverse it in mice. Credit: Lige Leng, Ziqi Yuan and Jie Zhang, 2023, PLOS Biology, CC-BY 4.0

Recently, Leng and colleagues showed that Menin, a hypothalamic protein, is a key inhibitor of hypothalamic neuroinflammation, leading them to ask what role Menin may play in aging. Here, they observed that the level of Menin in the hypothalamus, but not astrocytes or microglia, declines with age. To explore this decline, they created conditional knockout mice, in which Menin activity could be inhibited. They found that reduction of Menin in younger mice led to an increase in hypothalamic neuroinflammation, aging-related phenotypes including reductions in bone mass and skin thickness, cognitive decline, and modestly reduced lifespan.

Another change induced by loss of Menin was a decline in levels of the amino acid D-serine, known to be a neurotransmitter and sometimes used as a dietary supplement found in soybeans, eggs, fish, and nuts. The authors showed this decline was due to loss of activity of an enzyme involved in its synthesis (which was in turn regulated by Menin).

Brain Anatomy Illustration

The hypothalamus is a small but essential part of the brain located at the base, above the brainstem, responsible for regulating a wide range of bodily functions. It acts as a bridge between the nervous and endocrine systems, helping to maintain homeostasis by receiving input from various regions of the brain and the body. The hypothalamus regulates body temperature, hunger, thirst, sleep, mood, and hormone production, and plays a role in the body’s response to stress and controlling the release of hormones from the pituitary gland. Overall, the hypothalamus is critical for maintaining the body’s balance and health.

Could reversing age-related Menin loss reverse signs of physiological aging? To test that, the authors delivered the gene for Menin into the hypothalamus of elderly (20-month-old) mice. Thirty days later, they found improved skin thickness and bone mass, along with better learning, cognition, and balance, which correlated with an increase in D-serine within the hippocampus, a central brain region important for learning and memory. Remarkably, similar benefits on cognition, though not on the peripheral signs of aging, could be induced by three weeks of dietary supplementation with D-serine.

There is much left to be learned about Menin’s role in aging, including the upstream processes that lead to its decline, and there is much to learn about the potential for exploiting this pathway, including how much phenotypic aging can be slowed, and for how long, and whether supplementation with D-serine may trigger other changes, yet to be discovered.

Nonetheless, Leng said, “We speculate that the decline of Menin expression in the hypothalamus with age may be one of the driving factors of aging, and Menin may be the key protein connecting the genetic, inflammatory, and metabolic factors of aging. D-serine is a potentially promising therapeutic for cognitive decline.”

Leng adds, “Ventromedial hypothalamus (VMH) Menin signaling diminished in aged mice, which contributes to systemic aging phenotypes and cognitive deficits. The effects of Menin on aging are mediated by neuroinflammatory changes and metabolic pathway signaling, accompanied by serine deficiency in VMH, while restoration of Menin in VMH reversed aging-related phenotypes.”

Reference: “Hypothalamic Menin regulates systemic aging and cognitive decline” by Lige Leng, Ziqi Yuan, Xiao Su, Zhenlei Chen, Shangchen Yang, Meiqin Chen, Kai Zhuang, Hui Lin, Hao Sun, Huifang Li, Maoqiang Xue, Jun Xu, Jingqi Yan, Zhenyi Chen, Tifei Yuan and Jie Zhang, 16 March 2023, PLoS Biology.
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3002033

38 Comments on "Previously Unknown Driver of Aging Discovered – Simple Supplement May Reverse It"

  1. Thank you for this article. I would like to be on your mail list.

  2. Steve Nordquist | March 19, 2023 at 2:43 pm | Reply

    And it’s like, menin is a human protein in the hypothalamus too! But maybe just take D-Serine? https://journals.plos.org/plosbiology/article/comments?id=10.1371/journal.pbio.3002033

    • Great results 👏 so far hopefully they become more knowledgeable about this it’s a great thi g to learn about the body mind and aging process and how to help live your life happy,energetically, and revived feeling healthy. Thanks.

  3. I would like to try it!

  4. Previously Unknown Driver of Aging Discovered “in Mice”– Simple Supplement May Reverse It

    Fixed your headline for you

  5. Rhiannon Anderson | March 20, 2023 at 12:29 am | Reply

    Id love to be on your email list!!!

  6. ELAINE STEVEN | March 20, 2023 at 6:26 am | Reply

    Wow would love to try that!!!

    • Margaret MICHINI | March 21, 2023 at 6:59 am | Reply

      It all starts in china….no thanks.
      Their experiments have been proven to have no good results…

  7. What truly causes the aging process is due to food, bad diets and)or steady / unsteady diets can dictate whether you age or not, if you eat bad foods at certain times, that dictates the aging process, tahini sauce, lemonade and rice are three of the best foods to ear

  8. Christine Trujillo | March 20, 2023 at 9:29 am | Reply

    Would love to try it!

  9. Great findings, let’s stay young!

  10. Are you young already mr. Sanam?

  11. WhyDoINeedAUserName | March 20, 2023 at 3:27 pm | Reply

    There are significant gene expression differences in rodent brains vs. human brains.

    Without mapping out genetic matching to the human version, next to sequencing of all involved enzymes and transcription factors, the significance for humans remains questionable.

    Surely as a hypothalamic compound some degree of conservation is expected, but that is no guarantee for significance in humans.

    Next to the fact that menin mutations are associated with exocrine tumor growth, as it has notable tumor suppressive activity.

    The enhanced aging could be a downstream effect of higher proinflammatory immue activity, hence ROS, in terms of extrinsic apoptosis via TNFR1 of abnormally proliferating cells accumulating with age and due to its reduction.

    There is evidence that older people have more serum cytokines, the concept known as inflammaging, after all.

    • Thanks for providing some of the bigger picture in this. Simply supplementing a substance is not always the answer. It’s not always a problem of deficiency.

  12. Patricia Drago | March 20, 2023 at 5:51 pm | Reply

    Add me to mailing list.
    Thank you.

  13. The quantity, the value and location to buy D-siren

  14. interested as a supplement?

  15. Marlene Custer | March 20, 2023 at 7:22 pm | Reply

    Very interesting! Thank you.

  16. Why don’t you get tired of feeding pulic with nonsence. What do you get out of it ?

  17. Christopher Williams | March 20, 2023 at 10:29 pm | Reply

    There must be People, like myself,that may age slower as I often hear from those who ask my age (83 this year) remark I look much younger by 20 years. My great grandfather died at 106 to the day. Maybe they’re trying to be kind:))😃

    • Not at all Christopher. They’re not just being kind – it’s in ur genes & outlook. My Mam passed away 6wks short of 95 & ‘every’ time she’d a hospital appt. the various Drs would ask her age & their eyes would pop as they rechecked her chart details & ask what yr she was born. Without fail, they’d then turn to me for confirmation & I would just smile😆.. She was diagnosed with vascular dementia approx 12 yrs b4 she died, but, could get a 9 letter anagram on a TV quiz show – while I was still figuring it out!🤣🤣 Mam’s motto was “hard work never killed anyone” & it certainly stood to her! Enjoy ur life we’ll all be long enough dead 🥂🥂🤸‍♂️🤸🏼!

  18. There is much information here I’ve not gotten from anywhere else. Great article

  19. Clarence jackson | March 20, 2023 at 11:22 pm | Reply

    Aging can not be reverse,slowed,or stoped. What ever science try will not stop human heritage of aging.aging causes no harm or damaged to the human body at all.

  20. Whine E Reader | March 21, 2023 at 5:32 am | Reply

    Clarence, aging is a chemical process. A complex and nuanced one, but a chemical process nonetheless. Like all chemical mechanisms, it will eventually be understood and there will be methods developed to slow, stop, and even reverse it. It’s not our “human heritage” or some magical nonsense. There are very complex organisms that age incredibly slowly or not at all compared to humans, and I’m not just talking about worms or jellyfish. And while our biology is somewhat removed from mice, it’s not as far removed as you think – they are more closely related to humans than modern dogs. Mouse studies have generated innumerable benefits to human pathology and continue to be relevant after more than 100 years of research.
    As for aging not causing damage to our bodies, I suppose shrinking muscles, weakening bones, hearing loss, eyesight changes, greying hair, had wrinkles are all just due to bad diet, right?

  21. Katherine Moore | March 21, 2023 at 9:14 am | Reply

    Did I miss the dietary supplement you are referring to? I see no solution to try here.

  22. Such drivel. Stop giving false hope. Is this an AI written article? If it is, it’s garbage. And I certainly wouldn’t trust ANYTHING Chinese scientists are hyping. Or anything from China.

  23. I’d prefer to age naturally, thanks.

  24. Julie Cunningham | March 23, 2023 at 1:25 am | Reply

    I would try it

  25. Please let me know what to use

  26. … MK Ultra could be good starting point… then is all… just leave it to AI…

  27. Serine is the worst tasting supplement of all time. Don’t buy the powder unless you plan to put it is capsules.

    Most of the protein thing taste at worst like cardboard and some actually taste good, not this one.

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