Have you heard about these compounds that promise to clear zombie cells from your body?

Well, today we're exploring the fascinating and still very new science of seniletics.

Hello and welcome to the Nutrition Diva podcast, a show where we take a closer look at the latest nutrition headlines, research, products, and trends, and sort fact from fiction.

I'm your host, Monica Reinagle, and today we're exploring some really fascinating new research on compounds that might actually help reverse aging at the cellular level.

Now, we've definitely heard this kind of thing before, right?

This type of claim, reversing aging at the cellular level, that is stock in trade for the multi-billion dollar supplement

industry, which sells an awful lot of supplements with very flimsy evidence to support them.

And indeed, the category of compounds that we're talking about today, Cenolytics, is already

being marketed as the latest anti-aging miracle.

Now, my goal today is not necessarily to give senoletics a thumbs up or a thumbs down

because I think it's far too soon to say. Instead, I want to brief you on what we do and don't yet

know about them so that if you do run across

these products or these claims, you've got a little background with which to assess them.

So let's start with this intriguing idea of zombie cells.

More scientifically known as senescent cells, these are cells that have been damaged or stressed

to the point where they stop dividing and they stop functioning, but they don't die off

the way healthy cells typically do. Instead, they hang around in the body, not doing anything

useful, and even worse, they secrete inflammatory

substances that can harm neighboring cells and tissues. Now, we all have some of these

senescent zombie cells floating around. As we age, they gradually accumulate in our bodies.

And one theory of aging is that it's this build-up

of senescent cells, which contributes to chronic inflammation, tissue damage, and is a major

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