The key to living longer could be tied to a surprising substance, study suggests
Researchers at the Emory University Department of Medicine in Atlanta, Georgia, discovered that psilocybin extended cellular lifespan and improved survival in aged mice.
Psilocybin is the "naturally occurring psychedelic compound produced by hallucinogenic mushrooms," as defined in the study.
Single Dose Of 'Magic Mushrooms' Provides 5 Years Of Depression Relief, Researchers Find
Psilocybin has recently received attention due to "considerable clinical evidence" for its potential in treating various psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions, the researchers noted.
The study, published in the journal Nature, uncovered the first experimental evidence that treatment with psilocin – the "active metabolite" in psilocybin – increases longevity in aged mice.
Read On The Fox News App
This suggests that psilocybin may be a "potent geroprotective agent," the researchers wrote.
Co-author Louise Hecker of Emory University said the data suggests psilocybin impacts "multiple hallmarks of aging."
This includes reducing oxidative stress levels and preventing DNA damage, also known as preserving "telomere length." (Telomere are DNA-protein structures on the ends of chromosomes, which help to prevent cellular damage.)
Parkinson's Patients Who Take 'Magic Mushrooms' See Key Benefits, Study Finds
"Psilocybin appears to slow the 'wear and tear' that accompanies aging," Hecker said in an interview with Fox News Digital. "Mice and cells are healthier and live significantly longer."
The treatment led to "a dramatic impact on cellular life extensions" and increased the survival of mice, even when administered later in life, the researcher noted.
The mice also appeared healthier, growing back black hair that was once white.
"Most of what we know about psilocybin is clinical outcomes and what it does in the brain," Hecker commented. "These studies shed light on the fact that psilocybin has potent impacts on the entire body."
As these are the first studies showing the impact of psilocybin on aging, Hecker noted that there is still "much more to learn" about the drug's potential.
"What are the optimal dosing protocols for humans? What is the optimal age for treatment initiation for optimal benefits?" Hecker questioned.
"Is there an age, beyond which point, when treatment does not provide efficacy? Are there potential harms or adverse effects associated with long-term treatment? What are the mechanisms of its action? All these questions need to be rigorously tested."
Additional studies are needed to answer these questions and confirm whether treatment impacts lifespan, Hecker noted.
Gabe Charambides, founder of Odyssey – America's first legal psilocybin retreat, located in Oregon – said he considers these findings "compelling."
"While most human psilocybin trials have focused on mental health outcomes — depression, anxiety, PTSD — this work highlights physiological shifts, including markers of cellular aging," he said in an interview with Fox News Digital.
While Charambides' retreat doesn't test for any biological changes, he said that many guests report relief from physical ailments like chronic pain and migraines.
"Those self-reports suggest the mind–body effects the study hints at may translate to humans as well," he told Fox News Digital.
Click Here To Sign Up For Our Health Newsletter
Administration of psilocybin should differ "sharply" from mice to humans in terms of screening, preparation and safeguards, Charambides noted.
Individuals who benefit the most from psilocybin therapy include those who "feel stuck" after significant life events – like childhood trauma, divorce, career upheaval or bereavement – or people who aim to improve their mental health, he added.
Ryan Moss, chief science officer at Filament Health, a clinical-stage natural psychedelic drug development company in Canada, has emphasized the importance of administering psychedelics in a safe setting.
For more Health articles, visit www.foxnews.com/health
"Psychedelic experiences can sometimes feature anxiety, hallucinations and paranoia," Moss previously told Fox News Digital. "Some patients using traditional psychedelics have reported experiencing adverse cardiovascular events during clinical trials."
To mitigate these risks, Moss recommended that clinical trial participants receive thorough preparation and monitoring by trained professionals during sessions.Original article source: The key to living longer could be tied to a surprising substance, study suggests
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
12 hours ago
- Yahoo
Scientists watch a solar system being born for the first ever time
Scientists have watched a solar system being born for the first ever time. Using a powerful telescope, researchers saw the first pieces of material that will go onto form planets. A solar system has never been seen this early in its formation before. Researchers hope that the breakthrough discovery will allow for a new understanding of how such systems form – including our own. The findings are like 'a picture of the baby Solar System', said Merel van 't Hoff, a professor at Purdue University, USA, and a co-author on the new study. 'We're seeing a system that looks like what our Solar System looked like when it was just beginning to form.' The new system is being born around HOPS-315, a baby star located around 1300 light-years away. Researchers believe that it looks like our Sun would have done in its youth. Those baby stars often have 'protoplanetary discs' around them, made up of dust and gas that will eventually clump together and form the beginnings of planets. Researchers have seen massive newborn planets in those discs before, but they have now spotted those baby planets as they begin to form. The work is described in a new paper, 'Refractory solid condensation detected in an embedded protoplanetary disk', published in the journal Nature. More follows
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Energy Drinks Seen Fuelling Cancer, But There's a Strange Catch
Energy drinks are big business. Marketed as quick fixes for fatigue and performance dips, energy drinks are especially popular among young people, athletes, sports enthusiasts, and so-called "weekend warriors" – people who pack their workouts into the weekend instead of exercising regularly. Gamers are now a major target too. But as the market grows, so do concerns about what's actually in these drinks – and what these ingredients might be doing to our bodies. Many energy drinks contain some combination of three familiar stimulants: caffeine, found naturally in coffee, tea and cacao; guarana, an Amazonian plant rich in caffeine; and taurine, a naturally occurring amino acid found in scallops, mussels, turkey and chicken. Related: Taurine, in particular, has drawn both hype and hope. It is credited with performance-enhancing properties and potential health benefits. But new research is raising important questions about how it behaves in the body – and when it might do more harm than good. In May 2025, a study published in Nature sparked headlines and unease in equal measure. It found that taurine may fuel the progression of leukaemia, a group of blood cancers that begin in the bone marrow. The study showed that while healthy bone marrow cells naturally produce taurine, leukaemia cells cannot. But they can absorb taurine from their surroundings and use it as a fuel source to grow and multiply. Research on mice and in human leukaemia cell samples demonstrated that taurine in the tumour microenvironment – the area around a tumour that includes blood vessels, immune cells and structural support – accelerated the progression of leukaemia. Crucially, when researchers blocked taurine uptake by leukaemia cells (using genetic techniques), cancer progression slowed significantly. The authors suggest taurine supplements could potentially worsen outcomes in people with leukaemia and propose that developing targeted ways to block taurine uptake by cancer cells might offer a new treatment strategy. Taurine: friend or foe? Taurine is one of the most abundant free amino acids in the human body, found in especially high concentrations in the heart, muscles and brain. In healthy people, it's mainly obtained through diet, but the body can also synthesise taurine from the amino acids methionine and cysteine, provided it has enough vitamin B6, which is found in foods such as salmon, tuna, chicken, bananas and milk. Most people consuming a typical western diet take in 40mg–400mg of taurine a day from food alone. This figure refers only to taurine that is directly ingested, not including the additional amount the body can synthesise internally, which may vary depending on age, diet and health. Taurine is listed on the Food and Drug Administration's (FDA's) generally recognised as safe (GRAS) database, and according to the European Food Safety Authority (EFSA), it's safe to consume up to six grams per day. By comparison, a serving of Red Bull or Monster contains around one gram – comfortably below that threshold. Despite recent concerns about a possible link to blood cancer progression, taurine isn't inherently harmful. In fact, some people may benefit from supplementation, especially those receiving long-term parenteral nutrition, where nutrients are delivered directly into the bloodstream because the gut isn't working properly. People with chronic liver, kidney or heart failure may also have trouble producing or holding on to enough taurine, making supplementation helpful in specific clinical settings. Ironically, some research suggests taurine may actually help reduce the side effects of chemotherapy in leukaemia patients – even as emerging studies raise concerns that it could also fuel the disease. This contradiction underscores how much context matters: the effects of taurine depend not just on dosage and delivery, but also on the patient's underlying condition. What helps in one context, could harm in another. But here's the catch: taking taurine as a supplement for particular health reasons is very different from consuming large quantities through energy drinks, which often combine taurine with high levels of caffeine and sugar. This combination can put strain on the heart, interfere with sleep and increase the risk of side effects, particularly for people with underlying health conditions or those taking other stimulants. The latest research raises important questions about whether taurine-heavy products could be harmful in some cases, especially for people with, or at risk of, blood cancers. So, should you worry? According to the current evidence, if you're a healthy adult who occasionally sips an energy drink, there's little cause for alarm. But moderation is key. Consuming multiple high-taurine drinks daily or taking taurine supplements (without prior professional consultation), on top of a taurine-rich diet might not be wise, especially if future research confirms links between taurine and cancer progression. Until more is known, the safest approach would be to enjoy your energy boosts by consuming a nutritious diet rather than consuming energy drinks. If you have any underlying health conditions – or a family history of cancer – it's always best to consult a healthcare professional before diving into taurine supplementation or consumption of energy drinks. Gulshanara (Rumy) Begum, Senior Lecturer in Nutrition & Exercise Science, University of Westminster This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the . Related News Study of 1.2 Million Children Finds No Risk From Common Vaccine Additive Signs of Autism Could Be Encoded in The Way You Walk It's True: Soup Can Help You Recover Faster From Colds And Flus Solve the daily Crossword
Yahoo
16 hours ago
- Yahoo
Study confirms there's no innate difference in aptitude between boys and girls in math
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. Classroom teaching may be driving a gender gap in math performance, and the effect starts from the moment children begin school, a new study finds. The study, published July 11 in the journal Nature, included data on the math skills of more than 2.5 million first-grade children in France. It revealed that, while girls and boys started school with a similar level of math skills, within four months, boys performed significantly better than girls. That gap quadrupled in size by the end of the first year of formal education. Gender gaps in math performance have been documented the world over, and the origin of this disparity has long been blamed on supposedly inherent differences between the genders — "boys are better at math" and "girls are better at language" — that are actually just stereotypes without scientific backing. But the new study — and previous studies conducted in the U.S. — throw a wrench in those ideas, and instead suggest that something about formal math education spurs the gap to form. "I was very surprised, not by the fact that there was a gender gap, but that it emerges at the time when formal math instruction in school begins," study coauthor Elizabeth Spelke, a professor of psychology at Harvard University, told Live Science. Formal education widens gaps The new study leveraged an initiative by the French Ministry of Education to boost national math standards, which was launched after several years of disappointing performances in international assessments and uncovered the disturbing extent of the math skills gender gap in the country. Related: Is there really a difference between male and female brains? Emerging science is revealing the answer. With the aid of cognitive scientists and educators, the French government implemented a universal program of testing for all French children to help teachers better understand the needs of each class and inform updated national standards. Since 2018, every child's math and language skills have been assessed upon entry into first grade, the first mandatory year of schooling in France. They were tested again after four months of formal education and then after one complete year of learning. These tests revealed no notable differences between girls' and boys' mathematical ability when starting school. However, within four months, a sizable gap opened up between them, placing boys ahead, and that gap only grew as schooling progressed, suggesting that classroom activities had created the disparity, the study authors proposed. Spelke and her team's analysis covered four national cohorts whose data were collected between 2018 and 2022, and included demographic data to probe the role of external social factors — such as family structure and socioeconomic status (SES) — on school performance. But they found that the emergence of the math gender gap was universal and transcended every parameter investigated: regardless of SES, family structure or type of school, on average, boys performed substantially better in the third assessment than did girls. This bolstered the hypothesis that an aspect of the schooling itself was to blame. And that idea was further supported by data from the cohort impacted by COVID-related school closures, Spelke added. "When schools were closed during the pandemic, the gender gap got narrower and then they reopened and it got bigger again," she said. "So there are lots of reasons to think that the gender gap is linked in some way that we don't understand to the onset and progress of formal math instruction." Causes of the math performance gap For Jenefer Golding, a pedagogy specialist at University College London who was not involved in the study, the research raises worrying questions about attitudes or behaviors in the classroom that could be creating this disparity. "Gendered patterns are widespread but they're not inevitable," Golding told Live Science. "It's about equity of opportunity. We need to be quite sure that we're not putting avoidable obstacles in the way of young people who might thrive in these fields." However, separating these educational factors from possible social or biological contributors remains a complex issue, she said. As a purely observational study, the research does not allow any firm conclusions to be drawn about why this gender gap becomes so pronounced upon starting school. But the alarming findings are already prompting discussion among educational experts. Educational analyst Sabine Meinck of the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement drew on her own research, noting that "our data suggest early gendered patterns in parental engagement, [so] gender stereotypes may begin to take root through early childhood play." RELATED STORIES —'Let's just study males and keep it simple': How excluding female animals from research held neuroscience back, and could do so again —When was math invented? —Parents who have this gene may be more likely to have a girl For example, "parents report engaging girls significantly more in early literacy activities, while boys are more often involved with building blocks and construction toys," she told Live Science in an email. That may be laying a foundation for how kids engage with reading and math learning in school. These differences in early childhood play have previously correlated with differing levels of scholastic achievement down the line. The next step requires more research in classrooms, Spelke said, where researchers should gather data to develop interventions that could be useful to students, then test them. "And when we find that something is working, then it can be implemented across the board."
