Arthur Everitt, now 84 years of age, began his research on ageing in 1953 as a PhD student in the Physiology Department. His research on the Wistar rat compared the effects of hypophysectomy (surgical removal of the pituitary gland) with food restriction on various aspects of physiological and pathological ageing and life duration. This work showed that rats on the same food intake aged more slowly and lived longer when hypophysectomized and given weekly injections of cortisone. These studies support the concept that low level stress and the stress hormone cortisol are prolonging life. [More...]

Arthur Everitt, now 84 years of age, began his research on ageing in 1953 as a PhD student in the Physiology Department. His research on the Wistar rat compared the effects of hypophysectomy (surgical removal of the pituitary gland) with food restriction on various aspects of physiological and pathological ageing and life duration. This work showed that rats on the same food intake aged more slowly and lived longer when hypophysectomized and given weekly injections of cortisone. These studies support the concept that low level stress and the stress hormone cortisol are prolonging life.

After retirement from the Physiology Department in 1985 these studies were continued at Concord Hospital in the Centre for Education and Research on Ageing, and also at Macquarie University from 1986 to 1989, and the University of Sydney in the Histology and Anatomy Department's from 1987 to 2003. Arthur resumed his association with the Physiology Department in 2004. Since 2001, at Concord Hospital Arthur has collaborated with Professor David Le Couteur on the role of the liver in the ageing of rats and mice.

Arthur's research from the 1960s showing that hypophysectomy had a greater anti-ageing effect than food restriction was recognised in 2008 by The American Aging Association, which presented him with its Distinquished Achievement Award at its Annual Conference in Boulder, Colorado, on 2nd June 2008. It was at this meeting that Max Haring, from the book publisher Springer, invited Arthur to write a monograph on Caloric Restriction, Aging and Longevity. This work of 18 chapters is currently being written by 25 authors with 4 editors, and is expected to be published late in either late 2009 or early 2010. [Hide detail]