Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) may play a wide-ranging role in
staving off ageing, says a research team from China who has explored the
compound’s plethora of potential anti-ageing pathways.
H2S has been gaining increasing attention as an
important endogenous signaling molecule because of its significant effects on
the cardiovascular and nervous systems, the team noted.
The evidence is mounting, they said, that hydrogen sulfide slows
ageing by inhibiting free-radical reactions, by activating SIRT1, an enzyme
believed to be a regulator of lifespan, and probably through its interactions
with a gene, klotho, which appears to have its own market basket of anti-ageing
activity.
Hydrogen sulfide is produced within the human body, and has a
variety of important physiological effects. For example, it relaxes the
vascular endothelium and smooth muscle cells, which is important to maintaining
clean arteries as one ages, explained first author Zhi-Sheng Jiang, of the
University of South China, Hunan.
It functions as an antioxidant. And it inhibits expression of
pro-inflammatory factors, all of which “imply an important role in ageing and
age-associated diseases,” according to the study.
For example, mice lacking CSE, the gene for an enzyme involved in
producing H2S, manifest extensive, premature arteriosclerosis, an
inevitable consequence of ageing, said Jiang.
The gene, klotho, which appears to be upregulated by hydrogen
sulfide, is thought to extend lifespan via a number of different pathways, some
of which promote production of endogenous antioxidants, according to the their
report.
Produced in the kidneys, it has direct angiotensin-converting
enzyme (ACE) inhibiting activity; that is, it’s an ACE inhibitor, just like
certain drugs that mitigate high blood pressure. Not surprisingly, plasma H2S
declines with age, and is lower in spontaneously hypertensive rats than in
those with normal blood pressure. More generally, a lack of H2S is
implicated in cardiovascular disease.
A decline in H2S is also thought to undermine
neurological health. Endogenous H2S has been found wanting in an
animal model of Parkinson’s disease, and is found to be depressed in the brains
of patients with Alzheimer’s disease. There are even suggestions, mostly in
animal models, but also in human studies, that H2S may be protective
against cancer, according to the report.
“Data available so far strongly suggest that H2S may
become the next potent agent for preventing and ameliorating the symptoms of
ageing and age-associated diseases,” concluded Jiang.
In the future, he asserted, people may take H2S via
food, or as an anti-ageing supplement.
The results appeared online ahead of print in the journal
Molecular and Cellular Biology.
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