The Endocrine System, Longevity, and Methionine

A large portion of the aging research community is engaged in understanding the relationship between the endocrine system and longevity. The endocrine system is an extremely complex web of biochemical interactions, feedback loops, and specialized tissues that controls metabolism and growth. It is highly influential on the longevity of a species or an individual, but understanding this system is a vast and complex undertaking. I have no doubt that researchers will still be toiling at this labor when we're well into the era of tissue engineered replacement organs and early medical nanorobots. Some differences in life span between species can be ascribed to differences in endocrine configuration: The complex, highly integrative endocrine system regulates all aspects of somatic maintenance and reproduction and has been widely implicated as an important determinant of longevity in short-lived traditional model organisms of aging research. Genetic or experimental manipulation of hormone profiles in mice has been proven to definitively alter longevity. ... Here, we examine the available endocrine data associated with the vitamin D, insulin, glucocorticoid and thyroid endocrine systems of naturally long-living small mammals. Generally, long-living rodents and bats maintain tightly regulated lower basal levels of these key pleiotropic hormones than shorter lived rodents....