Skip to Content

A New Approach to Boosting Good Cholesterol

Activating longevity-linked genes could protect against atherosclerosis.
October 12, 2007

Hoping to repeat the blockbuster success of cholesterol-lowering statins, pharmaceutical companies have been doggedly searching for a new kind of cholesterol drug–one that pumps up levels of heart-healthy good cholesterol. High levels of bad cholesterol (LDL) build up in the arteries and lead to heart attacks, while good cholesterol (HDL) appears to protect against cardiovascular disease, likely by flushing away its harmful cousin.

But finding such drugs has been a challenge. One promising, high-profile candidate from Pfizer, called torcetrapib, was pulled from development last year when clinical trials revealed serious safety concerns. And derivatives of niacin, a B vitamin shown to boost good cholesterol, has problematic side effects that stop many people from taking the drug.

New research from Leonard Guarente at MIT could provide a new target for HDL-raising drugs: the sirtuins, a class of genes linked to longevity. (See “The Enthusiast” and “The Fountain of Health.”) According to Guarente, SIRT1 can promote formation of good cholesterol and lowers the cholesterol burden in tissues by removing excess cholesterol from those tissues and flushing it out of the body. The findings were published today in the journal Molecular Cell.

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, a company based in Cambridge, MA, that’s developing novel compounds that target the sirtuins, has already licensed the patent covering the research from MIT. Sirtris already has one sirtuin-activating compound in early clinical trials for diabetes.

Keep Reading

Most Popular

Large language models can do jaw-dropping things. But nobody knows exactly why.

And that's a problem. Figuring it out is one of the biggest scientific puzzles of our time and a crucial step towards controlling more powerful future models.

OpenAI teases an amazing new generative video model called Sora

The firm is sharing Sora with a small group of safety testers but the rest of us will have to wait to learn more.

Google’s Gemini is now in everything. Here’s how you can try it out.

Gmail, Docs, and more will now come with Gemini baked in. But Europeans will have to wait before they can download the app.

This baby with a head camera helped teach an AI how kids learn language

A neural network trained on the experiences of a single young child managed to learn one of the core components of language: how to match words to the objects they represent.

Stay connected

Illustration by Rose Wong

Get the latest updates from
MIT Technology Review

Discover special offers, top stories, upcoming events, and more.

Thank you for submitting your email!

Explore more newsletters

It looks like something went wrong.

We’re having trouble saving your preferences. Try refreshing this page and updating them one more time. If you continue to get this message, reach out to us at customer-service@technologyreview.com with a list of newsletters you’d like to receive.