Talk about having your cake and eating it. Fasting might not be the only route to a longer life – a hormone seems to work just as well, for mice at least. We know that some animals can extend their lifespan by consuming fewer calories. Engineered mice can get the same effect by simply pumping out high levels of a hormone normally produced during a fast, according to Steven Kliewer and David Mangelsdorf at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas. Their team found that mice engineered to make higher levels of the hormone, FGF21, increased their lifespan on average by over a third.
