We don’t just need to know body temperature when checking if we have a fever or hypothermia. It can be an indicator of all sorts of things. Research suggests it may even have an impact on longevity. A little bit of cold may be just what you need to counteract some of those negative effects of aging (https://longevity.technology/news/longevity-is-a-dish-best-served-cold/).
Now, we’re not talking about lying out in the Arctic Circle without a coat. Extreme cold is still highly dangerous. We’re talking about tiny downward shifts in temperature, or even people with a steady body temperature that’s on the lower end of a human’s normal range. We’ve known for a while that many animals seem to benefit from being on the moderate to low side, but we didn’t know how it worked.
The latest research comes out of the University of Cologne, specifically the CECAD Cluster for Excellence in Aging Research. It didn’t just look at humans, although there were cultivated human cells involved. It also used nematodes as subjects, tiny worms that are found in almost every part of the world. What the humans and nematodes had in common was a specific gene that is associated with neurodegenerative diseases.
Two diseases in particular were linked to that gene: Huntington’s disease and amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), both of which worsen with age. The diseases’ progression involves what are known as pathological protein aggregations, or buildups of damaging protein. It seems that cold may remove the accumulating protein before it reaches excess levels.
Specifically, colder temperatures can activate a proteasome called PA28?/PSME3. Proteasomes are responsible for degrading protein that has been damaged or that we don’t need anymore. This particular proteosome is the one responsible for clearing the age-related protein damage associated with those two neurodegenerative diseases.
Scientists are hopeful that they may find similar results with other neurodegenerative diseases common with aging. They also looked at ways to activate the proteasomes without body temperature changes as a way to develop therapeutic interventions. It seems that genetic overexpression of the activator may improve proteasome performance.
Popular modern therapies like ice baths do have some science behind them. The effects on proteosomes and neurodegeneration are not the only potential benefits of the cold, so let’s hope researchers continue to reveal ways that our body temperature can be used to improve our longevity.
