Bucky Spice

From The prolongation of the lifespan of rats by repeated oral administration of [60] fullerene:

3.3. Chronic toxicity and effects of C60 on lifespan of rats

Fig. 3 shows the animal survival and growth. After five months of treatment (M15) one rat treated with water only exhibited some palpable tumours in the abdomen region. Due to the rapid development of tumours (about 4 cm of diameter) this rat died at M17. As rats are known to be sensitive to gavages, we decided to stop the treatment for all rats and to observe their behaviour and overall survival.

All remaining animals survived with no apparent sign of behavioural trouble until M25 (Fig. 3a). At the end of M25 the animals of the control groups showed signs of ulcerative dermatitis with ageing while C60-treated animals remained normal. As the growths of all surviving animals showed no significant difference until M30 (Fig. 3b) indicating that the treatment did not alter their food intake, we continued observing their survival.

At M38 all water-treated control rats were dead (Fig. 3a). This agrees with the expected lifespan of this animal species that is thirty to thirty six months. At this time 67% of olive-oil-treated rats and 100% of C60-treated rats were still alive.

The survival distributions for C60-olive oil-treated rats and controls were estimated by the non-parametric Kaplane–Meier estimator (Fig. 3) and compared by a log-rank estimated test. The estimated median lifespan (EML) for the C60-treated rats was 42 months while the EMLs for control rats and olive oil-treated rats were 22 and 26 months, respectively. These are increases of 18 and 90% for the olive-oil and C60-treated rats, respectively, as compared to controls.

The log-rank test leads to Χ2 values (one degree of freedom) of 7.009, 11.302, and 10.454, when we compare water-treated and olive oil-treated rats, water-treated and C60-treated rats, and olive oil-treated and C60-treated rats, respectively. This means that olive oil extends the lifespan of rats with respect to water with a probability of 0.99 while C60-olive oil extends the lifespan of C60-treated rats with a probability of 0.999 and 0.995 with respect to water and olive oil treatments, respectively.

So I guess doubling the expected lifespan of a lab rat after seven months of daily dosing counts as no measurable levels of toxicity to C60 buckyballs. Hunh.

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Baati T, et al., The prolongation of the lifespan of rats by repeated oral administration of [60]fullerene, Biomaterials (2012), doi:10.1016/j.biomaterials.2012.03.036

April 19, 2012 · by xalieri · Posted in Everything Else  
    

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