Why Aging Muscles Heal Poorly

More on the fading capacity of muscle stem cells with age via ScienceDaily: "as we age, the lines of communication to the stem cells of our muscles deteriorate and, without the full instructions, it takes longer for injured muscles to heal. Even then, the repairs aren't as good. But now that the researchers have uncovered the conduit that conveys the work orders to muscle stem cells, that knowledge could open the door to new therapies for injuries in a host of different tissues. The key to the whole process is Wnt, a protein traditionally thought to help promote maintenance and proliferation of stem cells in many tissues. But in this instance, Wnt appears to block proper communication. ... the ability of muscle stem cells to regenerate tissue depends on the age of the cells' environment (including the age of the blood supplying the tissue), not the age of the stem cell. Although Rando's research focused on the repair of acute trauma to muscles, he suspects that the same sort of problem arises on a lesser scale in repairing damage that results from the normal wear and tear of aging." I've been watching this research over the past couple of years - there are great opportunities there, a chance to take a bite out of degenerative aging, as is true of so much of modern biomedicine.

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070809172323.htm

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