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Genes that control an organism's ability to withstand adversity cause changes throughout the body that render it temporarily supercharged for survival.
Activated over the long term, this stress response prolongs life span and forestalls disease in a wide range of organisms.
Sirtuins are a family of genes that may be master regulators of this survival mechanism.
Understanding how they produce their health and longevity-enhancing effects could lead to disease treatments and ultimately longer, disease-free human life spans.