logo
The key to living longer could be tied to a surprising substance, study suggests

The key to living longer could be tied to a surprising substance, study suggests

Yahoo16-07-2025
A new study suggests that psilocybin, also known as magic mushrooms, could extend lifespan.
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
Orange background

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Comments

No comments yet...

Related Articles

Physicists Create First-Ever Antimatter Qubit, Making the Quantum World Even Weirder
Physicists Create First-Ever Antimatter Qubit, Making the Quantum World Even Weirder

Gizmodo

time2 hours ago

  • Gizmodo

Physicists Create First-Ever Antimatter Qubit, Making the Quantum World Even Weirder

Readers following our existential physics coverage may remember a recent breakthrough from CERN concerning matter's evil twin, antimatter. An outstanding mystery in physics is that our universe contains more matter than antimatter, contradicting most theoretical predictions. Scientists, therefore, understandably want to explain why and how this is the case. CERN announced yet another significant leap for studying antimatter—and this time, the achievement creeps into the realm of quantum computing. In a Nature paper published on July 23, CERN's Baryon Antibaryon Symmetry Experiment (BASE) collaboration announced the first-ever demonstration of an antimatter quantum bit, or qubit—the smallest unit of information for quantum computers. The qubit in question is an antiproton, a proton's antimatter counterpart, caught in a curious quantum swing—arcing back and forth between 'up' and 'down' spin states in perfect rhythm. The oscillation lasted for 50 seconds. The technical prowess that enabled this result represents a significant leap forward in our understanding of antimatter, the researchers claim. For the experiment, the team applied a technique called coherent quantum transition spectroscopy, which measures—with chilling precision—a particle's magnetic moment, or its behavior inside magnetic fields. First, the team brought in some antiprotons from CERN's antimatter factory, trapping the particles in an electromagnetic Penning trap—a superposition of magnetic fields. Next, they set up a second multi-trap inside the same magnet, extracting individual antiprotons to measure and tweak the particle's spin states in the process. Quantum states are fragile and easily disturbed by outside distractions. The wrong push can immediately send them spiraling down the drain toward decoherence—at which point the system loses the valuable information physicists hope to find. This fundamental limitation of quantum systems was a major concern for the BASE collaboration, who in 2017 used a similar setup to the new experiment to confirm that protons and antiprotons had practically identical magnetic moments. The team made substantial revisions to its technology, paying special attention to developing the mechanisms needed to suppress and eliminate decoherence. This hard work paid off; the antiproton performed a stable quantum swing for 50 seconds—a motion akin to how qubits exist in superpositions of states, which theoretically could allow them to store exponential loads of information. Additionally, it marked the first time physicists observed this phenomenon in a single free nuclear magnetic moment, whereas previous experiments had only seen it in large groups of particles. 'This represents the first antimatter qubit and opens up the prospect of applying the entire set of coherent spectroscopy methods to single matter and antimatter systems in precision experiments,' BASE spokesperson Stefan Ulmer said in a statement. That said, the team doesn't believe the new results will introduce antimatter qubits to quantum computing, at least not anytime soon. 'It does not make sense to use [the antimatter qubit] at the moment for quantum computers, because, simply speaking, engineering related to production and storage of antimatter is much more difficult than for normal matter,' Latacz explained, adding that since matter and antimatter are known to share fundamental properties, opting for the latter wouldn't make practical sense. 'However, if in the future [we find] that antimatter behaves differently than matter, then it may be interesting to consider this.' There are additional improvements the team hopes to make, which will happen sometime very soon, Latacz said. The upgrades to BASE—termed BASE-STEP—will greatly improve our capacity to study antiprotons with higher precision and allow us to 'improve the measurement of the magnetic moment of the antiproton by at least a factor of 10, and in a longer perspective even a factor of 100,' she said. The new breakthrough could contribute to engineering advances in quantum computing, atomic clocks, and other areas. But as the researchers emphasize, such technological applications aren't anything we should expect any time soon. Nevertheless, the result itself presents some fascinating lessons for fundamental physics—questions that may take years to answer, but to quote physicist Sean Carroll from the other recent CERN finding, 'Well, it's a small part of a much bigger puzzle—but you know, every part matters.'

Smart Speakers Like Alexa and Google Assistant Could Tell if You Have Parkinson's
Smart Speakers Like Alexa and Google Assistant Could Tell if You Have Parkinson's

Newsweek

time6 hours ago

  • Newsweek

Smart Speakers Like Alexa and Google Assistant Could Tell if You Have Parkinson's

Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. A new AI-powered, speech-based screening tool could help people assess whether they are showing signs of Parkinson's disease at home. Developed as part of a study by University of Rochester computer scientists, the web-based test asks users to recite two pangrams, short sentences using every letter of the alphabet. In just seconds, the AI can analyze the voice recordings to look for subtle patterns linked to Parkinson's—with nearly 86 percent accuracy. The researchers believe such a tool could be implemented as a feature in popular speech-based interfaces like Amazon Alexa or Google Home (with users consent). Parkinson's is typically diagnosed by specially trained neurologists through a combination of examinations, brain imaging and family history. While the new tool is not intended to be a replacement for a clinical diagnosis, the researchers see it as a fast, low-barrier and accessible way to flag people who might have the disease and encourage them to seek thorough clinical evaluation. Man connecting Alexa-like device to phone at home. Man connecting Alexa-like device to phone at 1.1 million people in the U.S. are living with Parkinson's disease, expected to rise to 1.2 million by 2030, according to Parkinson's Foundation. Nearly an estimated 90,000 people are diagnosed across the country each year, making it the second-most common neurodegenerative disease after Alzheimer's. While incidence increases with age, some four percent of people are diagnosed before 50. "There are huge swaths of the U.S. and across the globe where access to specialized neurological care is limited," said Rochester computer science professor Ehsan Hoque in a statement. "With users' consent, widely used speech-based interfaces like Amazon Alexa or Google Home could potentially help people identify if they need to seek further care." Most people living with Parkinson's in the U.S. seek their care from neurologists, with approximately 50 percent seeing a community neurologist and 9 percent seeing a movement disorders specialist, a previous Parkinson's Foundation study found. However, nearly 40 percent of people with the disease do not see a neurologist for their care but see a primary care provider (29 percent) or no provider (11 percent.) Home speaker device. Home speaker device. fabioderby/Getty Images To train and validate the new tool the researchers collected data from more than 1,300 participants—with and without Parkinson's—across home care settings, clinical settings at the University of Rochester Medical Center and the InMotion Parkinson's disease care center in Ohio. Using their computer's microphone, participants were asked to read aloud the following sentences: "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. The dog wakes up and follows the fox into the forest, but again the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." By utilizing advanced semi-supervised audio models trained on millions of digital recordings to understand the characteristics of speech, the tool can obtain enough vocal cues from the short sentences to flag warning signs. "For example, the way someone with Parkinson's would utter sounds, pause, breathe, and inadvertently add features of unintelligibility is different in someone without Parkinson's," explained paper author and computer science master's degree student Abdelrahman Abdelkader in a statement. The tool was 85.7 percent accurate when tested, providing a strong indication of whether someone may have Parkinson's, according to the study authors. Woman using Google Nest-like device at home. Woman using Google Nest-like device at well as speech, some people can display signs of Parkinson's through motor movement tasks or facial expressions. Over the past decade, this has led Hoque's lab to pursue algorithms to combine multiple indicators with state-of-the-art results. "Research shows that nearly 89 percent of people with Parkinson's have a deformity in their voice that can be indicative of the disease, making speech a strong starting point for digital screening," said paper author and computer scientist Tariq Adnan in a statement. "By combining this method with assessments of other symptoms, we aim to cover the majority of people through our accessible screening process." An interactive, browser-based demonstration of the lab's three screening tests, including this new speech test, is available to try out at home here. Newsweek has reached out to the study authors for more information. Do you have a health story to share with Newsweek? Do you have a question about Parkinson's? Let us know via health@ References Adnan, T., Abdelkader, A., Liu, Z., Hossain, E., Park, S., Islam, M. S., & Hoque, E. (2025). A novel fusion architecture for detecting Parkinson's Disease using semi-supervised speech embeddings. Npj Parkinson's Disease, 11(1), 176. Pearson, C., Hartzman, A., Munevar, D., Feeney, M., Dolhun, R., Todaro, V., Rosenfeld, S., Willis, A., & Beck, J. C. (2023). Care access and utilization among medicare beneficiaries living with Parkinson's disease. Npj Parkinson's Disease, 9(1), 108.

CRISPR can stop malaria spread by editing a single gene in mosquitos
CRISPR can stop malaria spread by editing a single gene in mosquitos

Engadget

time8 hours ago

  • Engadget

CRISPR can stop malaria spread by editing a single gene in mosquitos

CRISPR gene-editing therapy has shown great potential to treat and even cure diseases, but scientists are now discovering how it can be used to prevent them as well. A team of researchers found a way to edit a single gene in a mosquito that prevented it from transmitting malaria, according to a paper published in Nature . These genetically modified mosquitos could eventually be released into the wild, helping prevent some of the 600,000 malaria deaths that occur each year. Mosquitos infect up to 263 million people yearly with malaria and efforts to reduce their populations have stalled as late. That's because both the mosquitos and their parasites that spread malaria have developed resistance to insecticides and other drugs. Now, biologists from UC San Diego, Johns Hopkins and UC Berkeley universities have figured out a way to stop malarial transmission by changing a single amino acid in mosquitos. The altered mosquitos can still bite people with malaria and pick up parasites from their blood, but those can no longer be spread to others. The system uses CRISPR-Cas9 "scissors" to cut out an unwanted amino acid (allele) that transmits malaria and replace it with a benign version. The undesirable allele, called L224, helps parasites swim to a mosquito's salivary glands where they can then infect a person. The new amino acid, Q224, blocks two separate parasites from making it to the salivary glands, preventing infection in people or animals. "With a single, precise tweak, we've turned [a mosquito gene component] into a powerful shield that blocks multiple malaria parasite species and likely across diverse mosquito species and populations, paving the way for adaptable, real-world strategies to control this disease," said researcher George Dimopoulos from Johns Hopkins University. Unlike previous methods of malarial control, changing that key gene doesn't affect the health or reproduction capabilities of mosquitos. That allowed the researchers to create a technique for mosquito offspring to inherit the Q224 allele and spread it through their populations to stop malarial parasite transmission in its tracks. "We've harnessed nature's own genetic tools to turn mosquitoes into allies against malaria," Dimopoulos said. If you buy something through a link in this article, we may earn commission.

DOWNLOAD THE APP

Get Started Now: Download the App

Ready to dive into a world of global content with local flavor? Download Daily8 app today from your preferred app store and start exploring.
app-storeplay-store