A: Can Bacillus F make us immortal?

Let me start by saying this - even if this bacteria was elixir of life, having anti-aging properties doesn't mean immortality. Being young doesn't protect you against accidents or infectious diseases. Now coming to the claims of Bacillus F, well extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence.

Should we crown Bacillus? Well I would say not yet!
Drawn by Morbid mumbles | CC BY 4.0

The scientist found this bacteria in permafrost, yes. The bacteria seemed to have survived in hostile conditions for 3.5 million years, yes. Well mostly because like many other bacillus strains, even this one forms very robust spores. The spores seem to be very think in the skin however and all rations, cold and lack of energy doesn't bother them. This bacteria forms much more robust spores. You can age such a sample by 3 methods

1. What is the age of surroundings it was found frozen in
2. If the spores have not exchanged material with environment from long time you can go ask it - are you made of carbon, because I would like to date you. Ok, don't use that pickup line, but you get the point, you can find C14/C12 isotope ratios.
3. You can sequence the modern strains and this guy and use molecular clock hypothesis to figure the age. And this point is interesting because despite its separation from its other strains in B.cereus for such a long time it only diverged by 1.5% (See Evgeniy et al., 2013).

Now I don't know what is meant by these bacteria don't age. Well given correct conditions bacteria just divide and rejuvenate every 20 mins. However what they might mean is that the accumulation of mutation is slow in this bacteria. Well - they have quite efficient spores to resist damage and probably their genome is under high selection pressure.

Now regarding the anti aging affect of this strain. Well I can see some articles online that says that experiments in mice fed or injected with this bacteria show reduced signs of ageing, though not reversal of ageing. However, It would be better to look at the published figures to discuss this in further details (as of now I could not find the paper, just some claims in media, but let's assume it's there somewhere buried in database).

First of all I wonder if they injected live bacteria in blood inside how it did not cause sepsis. How is this scientist still alive. He probably either used a very low dosage or maybe used dead bacteria. However, many bacillus strains have been proposed at probiotics, though not in sense of injecting them. More like consuming them. The probiotics can keep you healthy such as it can decrease risk of diseases such as - obesity, diabetes and neurodegenerative disorders. Well because microbiome and our body talk with each other. Certain bacteria can be good and certain can be bad. Bacteria can control metabolic rate which correlates with aging so if this strain F falls in that class nothing surprising. But I am still not sure of injecting them. Like why injecting them is a better idea over using the extract or active agent that is showing this effect.

Moreover, this won't be reversing ageing but more like slowing it down if anything. The anecdotal claim by scientist regarding common cold just makes me roll my eyes. If you are really curious about slowing aging however do check out research on Resveratol and other Sirtuin agonists.

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