Can This Little Brown Bat Help Humans Live Longer?

Well, it’s doing its batty best! The little brown bat* lives up to 50 years, despite closely related species living only around 7 years.

^{*Yes, that’s it’s name, the “little brown bat”. Or Myotis lucifugus, for those who like taxonomy.}

So, what’s its secret, and can it help us?

Researchers (Dr. Elise Lauterbur et al.) did an analysis of eight Myotis genomes, and found that genes associated with longevity frequently overlap with genes involved in immune function and cancer defense, suggesting that (shocking nobody) protection against infections and age-related diseases may share genetic mechanisms.

We’ve talked about the relatedness between these superficially different-seeming things before, for example here: Fisetin: The Anti-Aging Assassin

This becomes especially relevant in this case, as cells from the long-lived little brown bat respond to severe DNA damage by activating genes that promote cell death rather than attempting DNA repair, preventing badly damaged cells from potentially becoming cancerous.

One of the reasons that it’s particularly clear in their case is because bats have unusually active immune systems that control harmful inflammation, while tolerating persistent viral infections, and their genomes contain distinctive adaptations involving proteins that interact with DNA viruses, including proteins involved in interferon signaling.

However, exercise may also play a role, as Dr. Lauterbur’s paper also suggests that bats’ exceptionally high levels of physical activity, including extensive nightly flight, may be connected to their strong immune function, disease resistance, and cancer prevention.

Now, perhaps “extensive nightly flight” isn’t something easily accessible for you, but it does seem that exercise helps.

You may be wondering how much of this is actually useful for humans, what with us not being bats. Well, bats show greater evolutionary adaptation involving DNA-virus-interacting proteins, whereas humans and other primates have more adaptations involving RNA-virus-interacting proteins, potentially helping explain why some viruses transmitted from bats can cause serious disease in humans.

In other words, despite our dissimilarities, it seems things can indeed be transferred from one to the other—for better or for worse.

See also: Lyssavirus is rare, but deadly. What should you do if a bat bites you?

And as for this paper, you can find it here: Insights into longevity and virus-driven adaptation from Myotis bat genomes

Want to do something practical about it?

From bats, to zombies!

This has to do with what we said earlier about fisetin, and how it can be helpful in clearing out “zombie cells”.

For a refresher on what “zombie cells” are, the medical term is “senescent cells“, but actually the popular term is a little more accurate in this case, because they are not merely cells that are getting old, but rather are also cells that failed to die when they were supposed to. These faulty cells accumulate with age, release inflammatory signals, get in the way of tissue repair, and slow down wound healing. Programmed cell death is an important part of how we function as organisms; it’s important to clear out the old cells to make way for the new ones.

Otherwise you just get undying (and yet increasingly faulty) cells building up and building up and if they keep at, then yes, this is absolutely connected to how cancer happens.

The relationship between cellular senescence and cancer is a bit more complicated than we have room to get into today, but if you’d like a bit more about senolytics in general before continuing, you might consider:

The Drug & Supplement Combo That Reverses Aging

Take care!