Live Longer the Nuclear Mutant Way
Food containing heavy isotopes of hydrogen, carbon and nitrogen could slow down the aging process. That’s the claim1 of Oxford-based researcher Mikhail Shchepinov, who suggests that seeding key biological molecules with deuterium or carbon-13 could drastically reduce oxidative damage or even avert it altogether.Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are a staple of ageing research, as they are believed to cause cumulative damage to biomolecules such as DNA, proteins, and lipids. Typically, breaking a carbon-hydrogen bond is the rate-limiting step of these reactions. But if the carbon or hydrogen atoms involved were replaced by a heavier version of the same element (13C or D), the reaction will be slowed down due to a well-established phenomenon known as the kinetic isotope effect.
I’ll tell you what… you try it first.