Live Longer with anti-depressants?
Researchers are finding out that in the experiments, a chemical virtually identical to the drug mianserin extended the lives of worms by 30 percent. “Lifespan can be extended by blocking certain types of retransmission implicated in food sensing in the adult animal,” Linda Buck, a researcher at the Howard Hughes Institute in Seattle, Washington, and two colleagues screened 88,000 chemicals to see which might enhance the lifespan. Turns out that a few of those used as anti-depressants actually did make a difference.
Three other compounds that also act on serotonin also had a similar effect: mirtazapine, methiothepin and cyproheptadine. Interesting to note that Antihistaminic side effects include drowsiness and weight gain.
The antidepressant mianserin also notably blocked uptake of another neurotransmitter, octopamine, which has a role in releasing fat from fat cells.
Now the dilemma, should we use the magnets or the drugs?
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