24 September,2010 02:53 PM IST | | Agencies
Its just a matter of two years that we would be able to add decades to our lives after a visit to the chemist shop - researchers have discovered the holy grail - an anti-ageing pill, which will hit the shelves by 2012.
Its creator Professor Vladimir Skulachev from Moscow State University said the drug works by halting the damaging effects of oxygen on the body's cells.
This would stave off dangerous age-related illnesses thereby adding years to our lives.
Skulachev's findings have been backed up by the international community including Nobel prize winner Dr Gunter Blobel.
ALSO READ
11 turtles rescued from polluted water fountain in Thane
Bombay HC tells Mumbai civic body: ‘Show us you can crack down on hawkers’
PM Modi's visit to city leads to jams on Mumbai-Ahmedabad highway
Literary gem: Book lover's haven at Fort houses rare titles for seasoned readers
Mumbai Diary: Saturday Dossier
"It has been shown that oxidative damage is huge. But we do not have an anti-oxidant of the type that Professor Skulachev has developed," the Daily Mail quoted Blobel from Rockefeller University as saying.
"He is clearly the world's best bio-chemist and bio-energetic scientist," he added.
The cells in our bodies need oxygen during the energy exchange process, however oxygen can also destroy cells if it takes on active and poisonous forms.
Natural anti-oxidants have been found to help slow this fatal process but are not strong enough to have a lasting impact.
Skulachev said: "90 per cent of the time oxygen turns into harmless water, but there's that one per cent that turns into a super-oxide that later turns into very poisonous elements. So the task was to find an anti-oxidant that stops that process."
He added that he has created innovative anti-oxidants nicknamed 'Skulachev's ions' after 40 years of hard work.
They neutralise the dangerous form of oxygen inside the cells and have been designed to travel to within a few nanometers of the position where they will have most impact.
He said the most difficult part of the process has been trying to prevent any side effects.
He claims the treatment will need two more years of clinical testing, which has already started, and thousands of people have registered to take part.
"Finally, we hope that we will manage to convince people that a single pill treats many threats of ageing. So, it must be doing something with the ageing itself," said biologist Maksim Skulachev, son of Professor Vladimir Skulachev.
"Then, if authorities will accept this logic, maybe we could somehow market it as anti-ageing drug," he added.
