Cold activates a cellular cleansing mechanism that breaks down harmful protein aggregations responsible for various diseases associated with aging. A research team has now unlocked one responsible mechanism. Professor Dr. David Vilchez used a non-vertebrate model organism, the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and cultivated human cells. Both carried the genes for two neurodegenerative diseases that typically occur in old age: amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Huntington's disease. Both diseases are characterized by accumulations of harmful and damaging protein deposits—so-called pathological protein aggregations. In both model organisms, cold actively removed the protein clumps, thus preventing the protein aggregation that is pathological in...