Longevity

Secrets
of the

Naked Mole Rat

The Naked Mole Rat
• The naked mole rat is a type of rodent found
naturally in the hot, arid regions of eastern Africa,
which spends its entire existence underground, or
subterranean.

• They live in colonies with about 75 other rats, but

their colonies can be as large as 300 mole rats.

• Their large, protruding teeth are used to dig, and

their mouths are sealed just behind their teeth so
their mouths don’t fill with soil while they’re digging.

• They can move backwards as quickly as they

can move forwards.

• They eat primarily large tubers that they find

underground through their mining operations.

• And their tunnel systems can stretch from

three to five kilometres (2–3 miles) in
cumulative length.
 Mindblowing Facts About
the Naked Mole Rat
1 They Reproduce From Birth
to The Grave
• Humans tend to believe that men have
the capacity to reproduce their entire
lives, but women can only reproduce
until menopause.

• Is menopause inevitable?

• Not for naked mole rats, who can

reproduce for their entire lifespans.

If we can figure out what is conferring their lifelong reproduction, perhaps

humans can gain the same benefit.

(Edrey YH. et al, 2011)

2 They Don’t Feel Pain After Being
Burnt with Acid
The naked mole rat “is exceptional in its acid insensitivity,” wrote
scientist ES Smith and his colleagues in a 2011 study published in the
journal Science.

Studies testing pain threshhold of

naked mole rats found that they
registered no pain after being burnt
with acid.

Their theory explaining why was a

species-specific gene modification
that allowed acid sensors to not be
activated upon contact with acid.

(Smith ES. et al, 2011)

3 Their Brains Can Survive Long
Periods Without Oxygen

Mammalian brains typically suffer irreversible

damage after brief periods of oxygen deprivation,
for example, during a stroke or cardiac arrest.

A 2009 study published in Neuroreport found that

“brain tissue from naked-mole rats, rodents that
live in a chronically low-oxygen environment, is
remarkably resistant to hypoxia.”

Their theory explaining why was that brain

tolerance to hypoxia “may result from slowed or
arrested brain development.”

(Larson J. et al, 2009)

4 They Are Immune to Damage from
Toxins and other Stressors
Compared with mice, naked mole rat cells have a
remarkable resistance to many harmful insults including,

• Paraquat
• High temperature
• Heavy metals
• DNA damaging agents
• Harmful foreign materials

Naked mole rats have the ability to resist damage at the

cellular level over the course of their lives. And as
researchers in a 2016 study admitted, “the underlying
mechanisms are unclear.”

(Orr. et al, 2016)

5
They Are Immune To Cancer

• Cancer has never been

observed in naked mole rats
living in their natural habitats
underground.

• Something about their

natural environment makes
them immune to cancer.

(Liang S, et al, 2010)

Interestingly, in 2016, a report was published claiming that two naked mole rats developed
cancer. However, as it turns out, both naked mole rats in this case were born and living in
captivity at zoos, which is a much different environment then their subterranean burrows.

(Delaney MA, et al. 2016)

6 They Live 16x Longer Than Normal
Rats
• Rats typically live only 2 to 2.5
years maximum.
• And yet the longest lived naked
mole rat ever observed was 32
years old.
• That’s a 16x increase in lifespan.
• The naked mole rat is the longest-living
rodent known.
• The exceptional longevity and disease
resistance of the naked mole rat have
researchers calling it “a true ‘supermodel’ for
aging research and resistance to chronic
age-associated diseases.”
(Edrey YH. et al, 2011)
7
Naked Mole Rats Don’t Age
• Unlike all other mammals studied to date, a
naked mole rat’s risk of death does no go up as
it gets older, wrote scientists in a study from
January 2018.

• “This absence of hazard increase with age, in

defiance with Gompertz’s law, [a mathematical
equation that describes aging] uniquely
identifies the naked mole-rat as a non-aging
mammal,” they continued.

• “After they reached sexual maturity at 6 months of age, each naked mole rat’s daily chance of
dying was a little more than one in 10,000. It stayed the same the rest of their lives and even
went down a little,” reported scientist Buffenstein.

“It goes against everything we know in terms of mammalian biology.”

(Ruby JG. et al. 2018)
 What is the Mechanism for
the astounding features of
the Naked Mole Rat?
• Mainstream scientists have a number of theories, some of which we touched upon.

• However, ultimately, in even the most recent studies, they admit that they haven’t
figured it out yet; to the mainstream, the longevity secrets of the naked mole rat remain
a mystery.

Scientists are Baffled!

 Mainstream Medicine Funds
Genetic-Based Research ONLY
The reason why scientists haven’t figured it out yet is that mainstream scientific research is focused
almost entirely on genetics, and as it turns out genetics have virtually nothing to do with the naked mole
rat’s outstanding health.

A friend of mine and fellow researcher emailed one of the reknowned scientists working with naked
mole rats asking them to study the metabolism of naked mole rats.

The scientist replied,

“No way in hell I am going to check metabolism. I got 3 grants from NIH [The
National Institutes of Health] decoding the naked mole rat genome so I have
no time for this metabolic nonsense.”

Mainstream medicine is not interested in metabolic research, because it would lead to cures for
diseases. By focusing (and funding) studies solely on genetics, the answers, like the explanations for
the outstanding features of the naked mole rat, are never found.

But they can’t control all research…

 The Naked Mole Rat EXPLAINED
“They live in burrows that are kept closed, so the
percentage of oxygen is lower than in the outside
air, and the percentage of carbon dioxide ranges
from 0.2% to 5%,” explains Dr. Raymond Peat.

A 2005 study by Israeli scientists investigated the

oxygen and carbon dioxide content in burrows of
three species of subterranean mole rats and found
that maximal CO2 levels were 6.1% and minimal
O2 levels were 7.2%. (Shams I. et al, 2005)

Carbon dioxide Oxygen

Air on Earth 0.04% 20.95%

Mole Rat Burrow Up to 6.1% 153x As low as 7.2% 2.9x

In the 2016 study that documented cancer in two naked mole rats living at the zoo, they
lived in an environment with 21% atmospheric oxygen compared to their natural 7%, and
CO2 was 0.04% compared to their natural 6%.
Similar Effects to Elevation
At Elevation Inside the Body
CO2 = 0.04%
O2 = 20.95% (Reduced pressure)
CO2 O2

Naked Mole Rat Burrow Inside the Body

CO2 = 6% (Increased concentration)

O2 = 7% (Reduced concentration)
CO2 O2
 Highly Saturated Tissue
Phospholipids
The Key to Maximum Longevity Cell Membranes of Naked Mole Rats

• In a 2004 study, researchers investigated • A 2006 study investigated tissue phospholipids

longevity in mammals by looking at the type of
fatty acids contained within their cell
membranes.
• The study found, “The degree of unsaturation of
tissue fatty acids also correlates inversely with
maximum longevity.”
(Barja G, et al. 2004)
• “Animals that naturally have a relatively low
level of highly unsaturated fats in their tissues
have the greatest longevity.”
- Dr. Raymond Peat, PhD
in mice compared to naked mole rats.
• “Both species had similar amounts of
membrane total unsaturated fatty acids,
however, mice had 9 times more
decosahexaenoic acid (DHA).”
• “Because this n-3 PUFA is more susceptible to
lipid peroxidation, mole rat membranes are
substantially more resistant to oxidative stress
than are mice membranes.”
(Hulbert AJ, et al. 2006)

“DHA-containing phospholipids represent 27-57% of all phospholipids in

mice but only 2-6% in naked mole-rats.”
(Mitchell TW, et al. 2007)
 Study Shocks Researchers
Synopsis:
In 2010, Researchers at the College of
Staten Island in New York re-created the
environmental conditions of a naked
mole-rat burrow (lower oxygen and
increased carbon dioxide) in their
laboratory and examined its effects on
naked mole rat activity levels, memory
and social interaction.

Hypothesis:
They hypothesized that the environment
would have a negative impact on the
activity, memory and social interaction of
the rats.

Results:
When the rats were put into an
environment of decreased oxygen
(“hypoxic”) and increased carbon dioxide
(“hypercapnic”)…
 They became more social

They had significantly improved memory

scores

Their overall movements increased by

76.8%

Conclusion:
“Results did not support the original hypothesis that activity, memory and social interaction
levels would decrease under hypercapnic hypoxia.”
(Berkovits R. et al, 2017)
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 References
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