Scientists have found a genetic mutation in the Amish people of the midwestern United States that appears to make them live 10 years longer than people without it, a study said Wednesday.
The report is the latest clue in a decade-plus search for the secrets to healthy aging in this traditional, Christian community that balks at most modern technology.
Researchers in the US and Japan are currently testing an experimental drug that aims to recreate the effect of this mutation in people, in the hopes it may protect against age-related illnesses and boost longevity.
The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships with Swiss Anabaptist origins. They’re known for their simple living and plain dressing, and shunning of modern technology. Pictured are Amish people featured in the TV program ‘Amish: A Secret Life’
‘Not only do they live longer, they live healthier,’ said lead author Dr Douglas Vaughan, chairman of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and lead author of the new research.
‘It’s a desirable form of longevity.’
Researchers studied 177 members of the Berne Amish community in Indiana, and found 43 who had one mutant copy of the gene, SERPINE1.
These carriers lived to 85 on average, while those without it in the Amish community tend to live to 75.
Amish people with this gene mutation were also significantly less likely to get diabetes, and had 30 per cent lower fasting insulin levels, and more efficient metabolisms.
A measure that reflects vascular age was also lower – indicative of retained flexibility in blood vessels in the carriers of the mutation – than those who don’t have the mutation.
They lived more than ten per cent longer and had 10 per cent longer telomeres (a protective cap at the end of our chromosomes that is a biological marker of aging) than Amish family members who don’t have the mutation.
The Amish kindred (immediate family and relatives) in Berne, Indiana, have been genetically and culturally isolated and most are at least distantly related.
The ancestors of the Indiana Amish emigrated in the middle of the 19th century from Berne, Switzerland.
The researchers say that the mutation was introdiced into the Amish kindred by farmers from Switzerland, who moved into the area.
Amish people who had one mutant copy of the gene SERPINE1 lived more than ten per cent longer and had 10 per cent longer telomeres (a protective cap at the end of our chromosomes that is a biological marker of aging) than Amish family members who don’t have the mutation
Two of their descendants, who carried their mutation, married into the Amish community – and the Amish community outsid of the Berne area does not carry this mutation.
‘This is the only kindred on the planet that has this mutation,’ Dr Vaughan said.
‘It’s a ‘private mutation.”
The key protein at play in the aging of cells appears to be PAI-1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor,), which is influenced by SERPINE1.
HOW THEY DID THE STUDY
On May 5, 2015, a caravan of 40 doctors, nurses, sonographers and other health care workers drove to Berne before dawn to set up 10 testing stations in a nearby community center.
Over the following two days, 177 Amish arrived by horse and buggy for testing, half on each day.
It took a full day for each person to go through all the testing stations that included: fasting blood samples, echocardiograms, systolic blood pressure testing, pulse wave velocity (a measure of stiffness of their large arteries), pulmonary function tests and urine samples.
A team of 40 doctors, nurses, sonographers and other health care workers drove to Berne before dawn to set up 10 testing stations in a nearby community center. Over the following two days, 177 Amish arrived by horse and buggy for testing, half on each day
According to Dr Douglas Vaughan, the lead author of the study, so many Amish people agreed to participate in the study because: ‘They are curious about the mutation because they know some of them have a bleeding problem.’
The Northwestern University research team found that people with two copies of the mutated PAI-1 genes not only has a bleeding disorder, but also varying degrees of an unusual cardiac disorder that leads to fibrosis – scarring of the heart.
The team treated 11 Amish patients with the double mutation.
The single mutation, however, led to increased logevity.
Amish people with the mutation has very low levels of PAI-1, which is known to be related to aging in animals but its effect in humans has been less clear.
‘The findings astonished us because of the consistency of the anti-aging benefits across multiple body systems,’ said Dr Douglas Vaughan, the lead author of the paper who has been studying PAI-1 for almost 30 years.
‘For the first time we are seeing a molecular marker of aging (telomere length), a metabolic marker of aging (fasting insulin levels) and a cardiovascular marker of aging (blood pressure and blood vessel stiffness) all tracking in the same direction in that these individuals were generally protected from age-related changes,’ Dr Vaughan said.
‘That played out in them having a longer lifespan.
‘Not only do they live longer, they live healthier.
‘It’s a desirable form of longevity.
‘It’s their ‘health span.”
However, Amish people with not one but two copies of the mutant gene suffer from a rare bleeding disorder, leading to the absence of PAI-1 in the blood and resulting in bleeding.
People with just one copy of the mutated gene did not have a bleeding disorder.
Northwestern University researchers have partnered with Japan’s Tohoku University to develop and test an experimental oral drug (called TM5614) that would inhibit the action of PAI-1, like in Amish people with the mutant gene.
The drug has passed basic safety trials and is now being tested in phase 2 trials in Japan on how well it works on insulin sensitivity in people with type 2 diabetes and obesity.
Amish people with the mutation has very low levels of PAI-1, which is known to be related to aging in animals but its effect in humans has been less clear
And Northwestern University is seeking FDA approval to begin a US trial, possible within the next six months.
In addition, cognitive measurements will be part of future measurements for the study.
Experimental data is promising – it shows that lower levels of PAI-1 can protect against Alzheimer’s-like pathology.
‘We hope to be able to revisit them regularly and do additional testing to look at the velocity of aging in this kindred and unearth more details about the protective effect of this mutation,’ Dr Vaughan said of the Amish population studied.
WHO ARE THE AMISH PEOPLE?
The Amish are a group of traditionalist Christian church fellowships with Swiss Anabaptist origins.
They’re known for their simple living and plain dressing, and shunning of modern technology.
The Amish trace back their origins to the Protestant Reformation in Europe, where there was an emphasis on returning to the purity of the New Testament church.
Amish girls play softball after class during an end of the school year celebration on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Bergholz, Ohio. The celebration was also part of a farewell picnic for those sentenced in hair and beard cutting scandal earlier in 2013
One group of reformers rejected the concept of infant baptism, and thus became known as ‘Anabaptists.’
The Anabaptists believed that only adults who has confessed their faith should remain separate fro the larger society.
Anabaptist groups were severely persecuted throughout Europe, and thousands were put to death as heretics by Catholics and Protestants.
To avoid persecution, many went to the mountains of Switzerland and southern Germany – and this is where the Amish tradition of farming and holding worship services in homes rather than churches began.
Frame from the television program ‘Amish: A Secret Life.’ Pictured is the The Lapp Family: David, Benuel, Jacob, Katie Lynn, Daniel, Miriam, Allan
Many Amish accepted William Penn’s offer of religious freedom as part of Penn’s ‘holy experiment’ of religious tolerance, and this later became known as Pennsylvania.
The first large group of Amish arrived in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania in the 1720’s and 1730’s.
Today, the Amish can be found in 23 US states and in one Canadian province.
Because of their large families, the total Amish population has more than doubled since 1960 to over 85,000.
Amish men fill-up the school house to listen to their children sing during the final day of class on Tuesday, April 9, 2013 in Bergholz, Ohio
Some Amish customs include:
- Women’s dress: Women and girls wear modest dresses made from solid-colored fabric with long sleeves and a full skirt – not shorter than half-way between the knee and floor. These dresses are covered with a cape and apron. They never cut their hair and wear it in a bun – and on their heads they wear a white prayer covering if they are married and a black one if they are single.
- Men’s dress: Men and boys wear dark-colored suits, straight-cit coats without lapels, suspenders, solid-colored shirts, black socks and shoes, and black or straw broad-brimmed hats. They don’t grow mustaches but do grow beards after marriage.
- Technology: They do not use electricity because they interpret linking with electrical wires as a connection to the world – and the Bible tells them they are not to be ‘conformed to the world.’
- Language: In their homes and in conversations with each other, the Amish speak Pennsylvania Dutch – a dialect of German. However, when children go to school they learn English. Their worship services are given in German, which is also taught in Amish schools.
Source: LancasterPA.com – Amish History, Amish People and Amish Culture