The new insulin-like peptide hormone INSL3 is a critical early biomarker for predicting age-related illness, according to researchers from the University of Nottingham in the United Kingdom, because it is constant over long periods of time. The study, led by Ravinder Anand-Ivell and Richard Ivell, is the most recent of three on the hormone.
INSL3 is produced by the same cells that produce testosterone, but this new hormone changes throughout a man’s life. The amount during puberty remains relatively constant throughout a man’s life, only slightly decreasing in old age.
This makes it the first reliable and crystal-clear predictive biomarker of age-related morbidity when compared to other quantitative markers.
The findings show a link between INSL3 levels in the blood and a variety of age-related illnesses, including bone loss, sexual dysfunction, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.
What is a INSL3:
Male INSL3 knockout mice have bilateral cryptorchidism, indicating that insulin-like peptide 3 (INSL3), a protein hormone produced by Leydig cells, may play an important role in testicular descent. INSL3 serum levels and mRNA levels in foetal umbilical cord blood and foetal testes will be measured.
A non-commercial highly sensitive and specific radioimmunoassay was used to measure the concentrations in 50 l of serum from male human foetal umbilical cord blood.
Secondary confirmation was obtained by measuring INSL3 relative mRNA expression in 7 age-matched human foetal testes using quantitative real-time PCR.
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