Everyone ages. Some of us live to a ripe old age, and many fight the process with anti-aging products. But the important thing is what we’re doing to make sure when we age, we do so well.

That doesn’t necessarily mean what it looks like to age on the outside, it’s also important to make sure our insides are taken care of. This secret may lie with the bowhead whale.

A team of researchers from New York have discovered that these Arctic giants have extremely efficient DNA-repair systems, which could explain their 200-year lifespans and cancer resistance.

For many years, scientists have hypothesized how such enormous animals avoid the health problems that seem to plague humans.

New research published in Nature offers an intriguing answer and it’s all about DNA repair.

Instead of having extra cancer-fighting genes, bowhead whales seem to have a built-in “genome maintenance crew” that keeps their DNA in tip top shape. Their cells fix broken DNA more precisely and quicker than ours, reducing errors that can lead to cancer or aging.

The star of this show is a protein called CIRBP (cold-inducible RNA-binding protein). Bowhead whales have it in spades, which isn’t surprising considering the climate of the Arctic homes. This protein improves the cell’s ability to fix DNA breaks and maintain chromosome stability.

When scientists introduced the protein into human cells and into fruit flies, it boosted DNA repair, slowed tumor growth and extended the lifespan.

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