Chilly Mice Live Longer

A day after all the hoopla over how a chemical in red wine keeps mice alive longer, a new study in Science says that mice bioengineered with lower body temperatures have longer life spans too.

The research could help explain why calorie-restricted diets are so successful at helping animals extend their lives.

HealthDay News reports:

Lowering the core body temperature of a mammal such as a mouse or ahuman is not easily done. In this study, it required tinkering with thehypothalamus, the brain structure that acts as the body's thermostat.
The mice were "bioengineered" to produce large quantities of a moleculecalled uncoupling protein 2, which had the effect of making thehypothalamus believe the outside temperature was high. So the rodents'
core body temperature was reduced by 0.3 to 0.5 degrees Celsius.

Compared to mice that hadn't been bioengineered, the average lifespan was longer for the low-temperature mice -- 20 percent longer forfemales and 12 percent longer for males.