You're listening to Bulletproof Radio with Dave Asprey.

Today's cool fact of the day is that over the hill cells may cause trouble in your brain

as it ages.

There's cells called senescent cells, which accumulate as you age, that are still alive

but are in a state of sort of suspended animation.

They stop doing their jobs and they stop dividing.

Scientists have figured out that getting rid of those cells in your body extends the lifespan,

at least it does in mice.

It also improves heart and kidney health.

New research suggests that senescent cells make mischief in your brain as you get older.

At the Mayo Clinic, molecular biologists studied mice with mutations that led nerve cells

in their brains to build up levels of a toxic protein called tau.

And damaging globs of that protein called neurofibularitangles are a hallmark of Alzheimer's

and lots of other bad things you probably read about in my bookhead's drawing.

But some of these mice, researchers engineered a genetic trick, a kill switch, to destroy

cells as soon as they became senescent.

And mutated mice with that switch did not accumulate that toxic protein as quickly.

And those mice were able to better recognize new smells and objects than mice that had

more of these suspended animation cells in their brains.

And the troublemakers in mice are called glial cells, the support cells that help nerves

in your brain do their jobs.

What does this mean for us?

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