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... "In the labs today, people are discovering how to fabricate new nanometer-scale structures for regenerative medicine," he said. Eigler believes that this technology could blossom over the next 10 to 15 years and that it eventually will result Read More...
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Via the transhumantech list, an interview with researcher Lenny Guarente and Robert Butler of the International Longevity Center, folk from the longevity dividend camp: "I dont think of life span as the gold standard. The gold standard is health span. All the indicators from the laboratory are that the genes were studying and the kinds of drugs we would be developing would extend health span. If you can extend health span, and you also happen to extend life span, so be it. Thats a side benefit. ... Why does 50 percent of all cancer occur after 65? Why does 80 percent occur after age 50? As we age, there are changes at the cellular molecular level that predispose us to disease and disability. But so far, no government, no foundation, no corporation anywhere in the world has fully embraced the importance of longevity science. If we could target aging, that would have an impact on diseases." He means no foundation of massive size of course - the Methuselah Foundation is way ahead of the longevity dividend position. It is interesting to note that Guarente puts a timeline of 10-15 years on the arrival of drugs to replicate the effects of calorie restriction on healthy longevity.
View the Article Under Discussion: http://postbiota.org/pipermail/tt/2007-May/000469.html
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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Via PLoS Medicine, a look at the benefits calorie restriction (CR) brings to mitochondrial function - and hence to your long-term health: "A calorie-restricted diet provides all the nutrients necessary for a healthy life but minimizes the energy (calories) supplied in the diet. ... A major factor in the age-related decline of bodily functions is the accumulation of 'oxidative damage' in the body's proteins, fats, and DNA. Oxidants - in particular, chemicals called 'free radicals' - are produced when food is converted to energy by cellular structures called mitochondria. One theory for how caloric restriction slows aging is that it lowers free-radical production by inducing the formation of efficient mitochondria. ... The induction of these efficient mitochondria in turn reduces oxidative damage in skeletal muscles. Consequently, this adaptive response to caloric restriction might have the potential to slow aging and increase longevity in humans as in other animals. ... CR and CR [plus exercise] both increased the number of mitochondria in skeletal muscle. Both interventions also reduced the amount of DNA damage - a marker of oxidative stress - in the participants' muscles." The normal caveats are given, but the more we learn about the mechanical operation of calorie restriction, the better it looks, given that it costs nothing but thought and time to try.
View the Article Under Discussion: http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0040076
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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Scientists continue to try and recreate aspects of the biochemical changes brought on by calorie restriction, in an effort to generate the health and longevity benefits via medicine. An example can be found at ScienceDaily: "a newly discovered vitamin activates the yeast anti-aging gene product Sir2, which resembles sirtuins found in humans. ... NR (nicotinamide riboside), a natural product found in milk. Like the B3 vitamin, niacin, NR is a precursor to a versatile cellular factor that is vital for all life. The factor, called NAD, short for nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, is elevated by calorie restriction. So the researchers set out to develop an intervention to elevate NAD, using yeast cells, whose genes are easy to manipulate. ... It's surprising that no one was be able to elevate NAD with a small molecule before ... The team discovered two pathways that allow yeast to raise NAD levels with NR, improve their control of gene expression and live longer in the presence of high glucose." Some folk in the gerontology community are skeptical, pointing out that no success has been obtained in mammals through the use of other precursor biochemicals in this pathway - this may be one of the many differences rather than similarities between yeast and people.
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/05/070503125741.htm
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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From Newswise, an update on progress towards treating progeria - and maybe "normal" aging too: "Scientists studying the genes of two infants who died of mysterious illnesses found the infants had mutations in LMNA, the same gene altered in patients with the premature aging condition progeria. ... when researchers treated cell samples from one of the patients with a drug targeted for progeria, they saw signs that the cells were improving. ... progeria treatment may not be as distant as we thought. If physicians can reduce production of bad lamin A by as little as half in progeria patients, we might see significant improvement. ... Progeria treatment also has potential implications for larger populations. The LMNA gene is involved in several other more prevalent disorders including forms of muscular dystrophy and heart disease. ... recent studies by other labs have shown that occasional errors in the production of lamin A may take place even in people with 'normal' copies of the gene. Scientists suspect that accumulation of these bad copies may contribute to aging. If so, treatments that work for progeria patients may one day be adapted to reduce the effects of aging."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/529622/
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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The Wall Street Journal reports on another gene that regulates the benefits to health and longevity produced by calorie restriction: "This gene is absolutely essential for the response to dietary restriction [in] prolonging life span ... we're still in the identification [of genes] phase and a long way from clinical trials. ... The gene [known] as PHA-4 was discovered in worms, where it plays a key role in the embryonic development of the intestine. However, PHA-4 also coordinates other genes that influence how the adult worm's body responds to a restricted diet. Humans possess three genes that are very similar to PHA-4. ... The gene is highly conserved in humans, mice and worms. So its function in humans could be similar. ... Other researchers have studied a different gene, SIR-2, which plays a role in extending longevity of yeast, worms and flies. However, its role isn't as specific in influencing the calorie-restriction response as PHA-4." So continues the process of narrowing down the focus: how exactly is it that calorie restriction extends healthy life? When that question is answered, engineering similar benefits for everyone through medical science becomes a plausible goal - albeit not as efficient a way forward as other plausible goals.
View the Article Under Discussion: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117804593208188504.html
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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Randall Parker lends his voice to common sense foresight for medicine and longevity: "I would [argue] that the general advance in biotechnology, with the continuing development of much more powerful tools to measure and manipulate biological systems at the molecular level, makes the idea of rejuvenation seem much more attainable. ... [we should] expect orders of magnitude more powerful tools in a couple of decades. Just as the shrinking size [of] computer technology allows computer chips, hard drives, fiber optics, and transceivers to go through long series of doublings in capability so does the miniaturized level at which biological instrumentation advances. Why shouldn't we treat aging as curable? The amazing physicist Richard Feynman gave a speech in 1959 entitled There is plenty of room at the bottom where he argued that we can develop the ability to manipulate matter at the molecular level. A continuing trend in technology since that speech has been the development of tools to better measure and manipulate increasingly smaller amounts of material. ... That trend is also going to lead to technology that allows us to make nanodevices that can repair human tissue at the level of individual cells and molecules."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/004218.html
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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A dose of common sense from calorie restriction (CR) practioner April Smith: "First, no one I know thinks that true immortality is a possibility. There will always be accidents ... However, there are some very reasonable people who believe that it is possible that technology will advance enough to defeat many of the mechanisms that cause aging. If we could repair the damage of aging, then we could dramatically extend life and health. I believe that would be a very good thing. ... Before I got involved in the CR Society, I wasn't aware that these perspectives existed. I was hopeful that CR could help me look forty at fifty-five, or at least help me not feel like total crap at 29, but I didn't even think about radical life-extending biomedicine. ... but there are quite a few who hope that by pursuing vigorous CR, we might live and be in good health at a time when more advanced medical technologies are available to extend healthy life further. For those who dismiss this as childish fantasy, I ask on what basis they make that determination. ... I can attest that I was quite unaware of the real progress that has been made in recent years, and when I found out more, my perspective changed."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.mprize.org/blogs/archives/2007/04/unusual_means_t.html
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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An interesting position paper from Aubrey de Grey via the Annals of the NYAS: "The early days of biogerontology were blessed with an undiluted forthrightness concerning the field's ultimate goals, epitomized by its leaders. Luminaries from Pearl to Comfort to Strehler declared the desirability of eliminating aging with no more diffidence than that with which today's oncologists aver that they seek a cure for cancer. The field's subsequent retreat from this position garnered a modicum of political acceptability and public financial support, but all biogerontologists agree that this fell, and continues to fall, vastly short of the funding that the prospect of even a modest postponement of aging would logically justify. The past 20 years' discoveries of life-extending genetic manipulations in model organisms have weakened the argument that a policy of appeasement of the public's ambivalence about defeating aging is our only option; some of the biogerontologists responsible for these advances have espoused views of which our intellectual forefathers would be proud, without noticeably harming their own careers. With the recent emergence of a detailed, ambitious, but practical roadmap for the comprehensive defeat of aging, this process has moved further: our natural and most persuasive public stance is, more than ever, to reembrace the same unassailable logic that served pioneering biogerontologists perfectly well."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://dx.doi.org/10.1196/annals.1395.046
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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From Michen and Sinclair, a look at the present consensus on sirtuins: "Sirtuins are a conserved family of proteins found in all domains of life. The first known sirtuin, Sir2 (silent information regulator 2) of Saccharomyces cerevisiae, from which the family derives its name, regulates ribosomal DNA recombination, gene silencing, DNA repair, chromosomal stability and longevity. Sir2 homologues also modulate lifespan in worms and flies, and may underlie the beneficial effects of caloric restriction, the only regimen that slows aging and extends lifespan of most classes of organism, including mammals. Sirtuins have gained considerable attention for their impact on mammalian physiology, since they may provide novel targets for treating diseases associated with aging and perhaps extend human lifespan. In this review we describe our current understanding of the biological function of the seven mammalian sirtuins, SIRT1-7, and we will also discuss their potential as mediators of caloric restriction and as pharmacological targets to delay and treat human age-related diseases."
View the Article Under Discussion: http://pmid.us/17447894
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/
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