Can an Oxygen Hack Lead to Longer Lifespans?
A strange throughline that biologists see among the different species of the world is that animals that tend to require fewer breaths per minute live longer. Tortoises can live up to 150 years, and only take three or four breaths a minute. By contrast, humans 12 to 16 breaths per minute, and the average American has an average lifespan between 76 and 77 years.
So in the quest to hack our bodies to make them live longer, many people are starting to tout the effects of oxygen restriction—better known as hypoxia—as a potential solution. While this has been mostly relegated to new age circles, clinical researchers are finally starting to take these investigations into the lab. With the effects of calorie restriction on increased lifespan well documented by new research these days, scientists are eager to see if other limitations actually end up boosting longevity as well.
Scientists at Harvard Medical School and Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston have published what seems to be the first ever study that demonstrates how hypoxia can lead to long lifespans in mammals. The new findings were published Tuesday in PLOS Biology.