\u201cNegligible ageing means that if an animal\u2019s chance of dying in a year is 1 per cent at age 10, if it is alive at 100 years, it\u2019s chance of dying is still 1 per cent,\u201d said Professor David Miller<\/a>, a corresponding author of the new paper. \u201cBy contrast, in adult females in the US, the risk of dying in a year is about 1 in 2,500 at age 10 and 1 in 24 at age 80.\u201d<\/p>\n Though there were no mammals with negligible ageing in Miller and colleagues\u2019 study, previous research has shown that naked mole-rats do age slowly enough<\/a> to be essentially un-ageing.<\/p>\n Read more about ageing:<\/strong><\/p>\n The team also found that animals with in-built physical or chemical protections \u2013 like a hard shell, a spiky spine, or a bite full of venom \u2013 had slower ageing and lived longer than animals that didn\u2019t. As these features affect an animal\u2019s chance of dying, they likely influenced how the species evolved.<\/p>\n \u201cFor the species we looked at, having protective adaptations, being larger, and taking longer to mature are all characteristics of species that age slower,\u201d said Miller. \u201cThese [traits] all affect mortality, and likely shape how evolution selects for physiological adaptations [in the animal] that limits ageing.\u201d<\/p>\n While these characteristics offer animals protection from their predators, they can\u2019t always safeguard against threats like climate change and habitat loss. Their slow pace of life can become easily unbalanced.<\/p>\n \u201cLong-lived species that take a long time to mature are especially dependent on maintaining that low mortality\u2026 Many turtles need to survive a decade or more just to reach the age where they can first reproduce.\u00a0Small changes in survival become amplified over many years to reduce the likelihood of animals becoming adults.\u201d<\/p>\n However, an animals\u2019 longevity can have advantages, helping them endure and overcome challenges. For example, one species in the new study was shown to grow more slowly in times of trouble. The western terrestrial garter snake, Thamnophis elegans,\u00a0<\/em>was able to slow its growth rate in areas where food supplies were unreliable, and changed how it used resources to prioritise living.<\/p>\n \u201cThis allows them to weather droughts that reduce the availability of their prey by taking a break from reproducing and hunkering down until conditions get better,\u201d said Miller.<\/p>\n Understanding the evolution and impact of protective traits in animals could bring us closer to understand our own ageing, and point towards new treatments and medicines for ailments related to human ageing.<\/p>\n \u201cWe believe that turtles and other slow-ageing reptiles can be a model for learning about the physiological and genetic processes that underlie ageing [across all animals],\u201d said Miller. \u201cTurtles and some of our longer-lived reptiles we studied, like the tuatara and crocodiles, share some characteristics with humans.<\/p>\n \u201cLike humans, they take a long time to mature. Like humans, their external sources of mortality are lower than most species, and, like humans, they are long lived.<\/p>\n \u201cThe difference in the \u2018shape\u2019 of ageing between humans and turtles is that when we compare modern humans to the long-lived turtles in our studies, mortality is much lower at younger ages \u2013 humans have extremely low mortality rates up to say age 60 or 70 as compared to most any other species \u2013 however, in later life, human mortality rates increase with age relatively more quickly than what we saw with the turtles.\u201d<\/p><\/body><\/html>\n By Amy Barrett Published: Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 12:00 am Some cold-blooded animals can slow their ageing so effectively that they\u2019re essentially not ageing at all. By studying these animals, researchers hope to gain insights that could inform treatments and medicines for human age-related conditions. The most comprehensive study of ageing to date was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":14199,"template":"","categories":[1],"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"4"},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/06\/turtles-have-figured-out-how-to-essentially-stop-ageing-why-cant-we.jpg",1200,798,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/06\/turtles-have-figured-out-how-to-essentially-stop-ageing-why-cant-we-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/06\/turtles-have-figured-out-how-to-essentially-stop-ageing-why-cant-we-300x200.jpg",300,200,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/06\/turtles-have-figured-out-how-to-essentially-stop-ageing-why-cant-we-768x511.jpg",768,511,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/06\/turtles-have-figured-out-how-to-essentially-stop-ageing-why-cant-we-1024x681.jpg",800,532,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/06\/turtles-have-figured-out-how-to-essentially-stop-ageing-why-cant-we.jpg",1200,798,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/42\/2022\/06\/turtles-have-figured-out-how-to-essentially-stop-ageing-why-cant-we.jpg",1200,798,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"importmanagerhub@sprylab.com","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/author\/importmanagerhubsprylab-com\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"By Amy Barrett Published: Thursday, 23 June 2022 at 12:00 am Some cold-blooded animals can slow their ageing so effectively that they\u2019re essentially not ageing at all. By studying these animals, researchers hope to gain insights that could inform treatments and medicines for human age-related conditions. The most comprehensive study of ageing to date was…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed\/14198"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rss_feed"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/rss_feed"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14198"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14198"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"""\"](\""https:\/\/images.immediate.co.uk\/production\/volatile\/sites\/4\/2022\/06\/GettyImages-636371056-1579164.jpg?quality=90&resize=620%2C412"\" "\\"\"\"\\"\/")
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