Youth can be poured into test tubes. Scientists took young worms, ground them into a paste, and added that liquid to living worms. Those that received the supplement lived on average 21% longer than usual.
In the young worms that received the broth, a chain of reactions linked to insulin switched on. But it kicked in not in the intestine, where food is usually digested, but somewhere else. In old worms this chain was not needed at all: they still lived longer even when it was turned off. So with age, the body starts using a different method of protection.
This happens in nature too: when worms run short of food, their offspring can hatch inside the mother and eat her. Perhaps along with the food they receive signals that make them more resilient. For now, scientists do not know which molecules in this broth are doing the work or whether it will help humans. But the very fact that ground-up young cells can extend life makes us look at aging differently.
When threatened by starvation, a C. elegans worm can hatch inside its own mother and eat her from the inside out, a phenomenon known as a 'bag of worms.' It is possible that the offspring thereby gain not only food but also signals that boost their hardiness.
The idea of rejuvenation through consuming the young echoes dystopias like 'Elysium' or vampire legends, but here it gets an unexpected scientific grounding at the level of cellular signals.
Not published on arXiv. Here are its page, the PDF and the formalization: you can check it yourself, not only read our account.