Midlife Pitstop

“It gave us insight into which brain structures are involved in memory. It gives us a means of intervening in the way we have already done in Parkin-son’s and for mood disorders such as depression, and it may have therapeutic benefit in people with memory problems,” he said.

The biggest hope of all is that Lozano’s unexpected discovery could offer new ways of treating the degenerative diseases of the brain that are emerging as one of western society’s greatest modern plagues. Already Lozano is testing the approach on six Alzheimer’s patients, three of whom have had electrodes surgically implanted to deliver a low-level current to stimulate the brain.

The research is too young to have delivered results but it is just part of a scientific assault on the diseases of ageing. There is a growing confidence that the decline that once seemed inevitable as we aged might be arrested and even reversed. Is the time coming when we could have a midlife medical “pit stop” to reduce the negative effects of ageing? BEHIND the burgeoning research into ageing lie some stark figures. Since 1978 the life expectancy of British men has risen from 69 to 76, while for women it went from 76 to 81. By 2030 the number of people over 60 is predicted to reach 13m compared with 9m in 1995. The number of very old people will also increase. In 1951, there were 300 people aged over 100 but by 2030 this could reach 36,000.

For many people the chance of a longer life has been a thoroughly positive experience but for others, old age can mean years of affliction beset by physical and mental decline.

It is this realisation that is driving research into ageing – and generating insights and optimism on a scale that would have seemed impossible just a few years ago.

Some of the most exciting research in this area lies with stem cells, a type of prototype cell that can be transformed into any other type of cell.

Last August scientists from the University of Washington revealed how they had used these cells to repair a living heart. They implanted human embryonic stem cells into rats four days after inducing a heart attack in the animals. The stem cells helped rebuild the damaged heart muscles and improved the functioning of the whole heart.

In Britain Jack Price, professor of developmental neurobiol-ogy at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College London, has been carrying out similar research using stem cells to repair the brain. Next year he will implant neural stem cells into the damaged brains of people who have suffered strokes.

“We have tried implanting these cells into the brains of animals which have suffered induced strokes. The cells divide and develop and even restore function,” Price said.

Similar trials are under way at the Institute of Neurology, part of University College London, where Professor Geoffrey Raisman hopes to use stem cells to repair the spinal cords of people paralysed by injuries.

If either succeeds it will have huge implications, suggesting potential treatments for degenerative conditions ranging from brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s to those which ravage the skeleton, such as arthritis.

Stem cells are, however, just one strand of the fight against ageing. Others have seen not revolutions but subtle incremental improvements in what were also once cutting-edge techniques. Among them is coronary heart disease, which used to be the leading cause of death in the UK. The problem is simple: as the heart gets older, it gets weaker – and especially so in people whose lifestyle includes smoking, overeating and lack of exercise.

In the past few years, however, scientists have brought in many new medical techniques to keep hearts functioning despite their owners’ neglect. These include statins, drugs that reduce cholesterol levels to lower the risk of a coronary seizure, along with ACE inhibitors, which lower blood pressure after one has occurred.

The benefits of keeping hearts and brains in good condition are, however, lessened if the beneficiaries are immobi-lised by other conditions. Osteoporosis, for example, is becoming one of the commonest and most fearsome of the diseases brought on by old age.

Its sufferers – estimated at one in three woman and one in 12 men over the age of 50 – risk snapped wrists, broken hips and fractured vertebrae as their skeletons are stripped of their strength.

Here there is hope, too. One new approach involves a group of drugs called bisphospho-nates that block the cells that naturally destroy bone tissue in the body. Late last year the NHS approved one such drug, zoledronic acid, which can be injected just once a year to protect the skeleton.

Most excitement surrounds another group of drugs that actually regenerate bone. One such pharmaceutical – parathy-roid hormone – is already helping sufferers, though its expense has limited its use.

Graham Russell, professor of musculoskel-etal pharmacology at Oxford University, where much of the work in this area has been pioneered, said such treatments could revolutionise the lives of the elderly, reju-venating their skeletons and rescuing them from the frailty and accompanying fear of injury associated with ageing.

A similarly subtle approach is emerging in treatments for cancer, which kills 150,000 people in Britain every year. Herbie Newell, director of clinical and translational research at Cancer Research UK, believes that cancer treatments are undergoing a revolution that might soon make inroads into that dreadful death toll.

“The incredible change has been in our understanding of what goes wrong at the molecular level to cause cancers,” he said. “This understanding has already led to a dozen new drugs for specific cancers with another 100 or so in clinical trials. These are specific drugs for tackling the genetic defects that lead to particular cancers. Coupled with developments in screening, diagnosis, surgery and radiotherapy, the outlook for cancer treatment is improving fast.”

Some diseases have, however, proved impossible to diagnose until it is far too late to reverse them. Of these the dementias such as Alzheimer’s present perhaps the greatest challenge. They can develop for 20 years before symptoms appear and it seems impossible even to predict who is at risk. Solving such puzzles is crucial. There are 700,000 people with dementia in Britain and this figure will rise to 1.7m by 2051.

Recently, however, there might finally have been some breakthroughs. Among the most potentially important is a blood test being trialled by Professor Simon Lovestone of the neurodegeneration research centre at King’s College London that could be used to spot the onset of the disease years before symptoms emerge.

Most people, however, will be only be diagnosed once symptoms appear meaning in the majority of cases they will need treatment to slow down the disease.

Lozano’s discovery of a potential treatment came by chance but others are targeting the condition. At Harvard, Professor Dennis Selkoe has used gene therapy to clear the brains of afflicted mice of the deadly “amyloid plaques” associated with the worst effects of Alzheimer’s. In Britain, Price’s stem cell research could evolve from treating stroke victims into a therapy for dementia. Many other treatments are on trial. THE possibility of such treatments will raise the spirits of many people. Their natural next question is: when will they be available?

Some already are. More than 30,000 people around the world are already being treated for Parkinson’s disease using implanted electrodes. But the reality is that there is a necessary lag between scientific research and its results becoming a mass treatment. Human trials must be undertaken and then there is the the cost. As many cancer sufferers have discovered, it can be difficult to persuade the NHS to let them try the latest drugs.

So it is likely to be years before we are receiving cancer vaccinations or bone preservation injections in middle age as a matter of routine. Until then, both doctors and scientists agree that the real aim has to be prevention rather than cure – and that means detecting age-related diseases, and those who are prone to them, far earlier.

Anna Bosworth is one of those to have been given just such an early warning. Her doctors have worked with her to trace a family history in which rheumatoid arthritis has played a disastrous role. Her grandfather was confined to a wheel-chair by thedisease that attacks bone and cartilage around the joints, and her mother has suffered for 24 years.

The 25-year-old movie marketing manager from London knows she, too, is at risk and is determined to take every precaution. “If you exercise, eat healthily and take care of your joints, you are more likely to limit the possibility of developing the disease,” she said.

So Bosworth does jazz and ballet dancing and swims, she avoids certain foods and takes dietary supplements, all to keep her joints supple – and put off the day when she will need to take advantage of scientific advances in this field.