A vitamin found to 'stop' the aging of organs

A team of scientists discovered that a Vitamin called Nicotinamide riboside ''stops'' the aging (degeneration) process of organs in mice. The discovery could lead us to novel ways for treating degenerative diseases of biological organs.

The research was published in the journal 'Science titled ''NAD repletion improves mitochondrial and stem cell function and enhances lifespan in mice.'

The magical vitamin

A well-known vitamin called Nicotinamide riboside has very useful capabilities for the body, it was found that this vitamin plays an essential role in metabolism and other important functions as well.

Now a team of researchers at EPFL's Laboratory of Integrated Systems Physiology (LISP) have discovered new striking function for the vitamin; the researchers have demonstrated the effect of the vitamin on Stem Cells which has strong ''restorative'' abilities, which in turn slows down or ''stops'' degeneration of cells.

The point behind the research is that any organ is constantly renewed by generating new cells for itself, but by time the body's ability to produce new cells declines, and this leads to many disorders that only happen with age.

Curing the 'degeneration'' process

The source of power in the cell is the ''Mitochondria'', it is well known that mitochondria plays an essential role in metabolism, but what the researchers have demonstrated is that the mitochondria are essential for the life of ''stem cells'', the better mitochondria the better stem cells, as one of the researchers states ''we were able to show for the first time that their ability to function properly was important for stem cells,"

Working with 2-year old mice (which is very old relative to mice), the researchers were able to show that by feeding mice with the NR vitamin (which is very useful to the mitochondria), the mice had much better health and their organs were much healthier than the mice that were not fed with the NR vitamin.

"We are not talking about introducing foreign substances into the body but rather restoring the body's ability to repair itself with a product that can be taken with food," said one of the researchers.