Sulfatide and Longevity

In the interesting article published in the Biological Sciences section of the Journals of Gerontology Series A (1), it is stated that people being very old have low blood concentrations of sulfatide, and although not entirely concluded, it may give an understanding that low sulfatide is associated with low mortality and high longevity. This is an important issue to clarify, becuase a high concentration of sulfatide has otherwise been considered to be beneficial. In 2004 we published that low concentration of sulfatide is associated with the development of type 2 diabetes by a double high risk (2). Furthermore, in animal studies, fenofibrate has been found to increase the amount of sulfatide in pancreas (3), and a beneficial effect of fenofibrate against type 1 diabetes has been shown in animal studies (4). In a human case (5), treatment with fenofibrate just after the diagnosis of type 1 diabetes, was associated with preserved beta cells and avoided insulin treatment for more than 3 years. A large, randomized, double-blind trial to investigate this is ongoing. In another study, fenofibrate has proven to be beneficial against heart failure in type 2 diabetes (6), lowering the risk by a third. Thus, we explored the association between sulfatide concentrations and longevity in our population-based cohorts of the Skaraborg Project (2).