Blog Tag: Daily 
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Critiquing Postmortal
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At Discover Magazine: "The Postmortal is not about a post-mortal society, it is about a post-aging society. Lots and lots and lots of people die in Magary's vision. In fact, he seems to argue that in the absence of death, people will not only seek death but will create circumstances that create death and thereby, create meaning. It is only when Farrell's life is most in peril that he finds purpose in existence. But Farrell is never immortal, no one is. So my question is: is the process of aging as meaningful as the condition of being mortal? This question vexed me, because I know a great many people who have aged with grac...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 12, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Cognitive Impairment Correlates With MortalityEmail this article to a colleague.
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Aging is damage, and therefore we should not be surprised to see that people with more obvious signs of damage are more likely to die sooner: "According to a new, long-term [study], cognitive impairment, especially at the moderate to severe stages has an impact on life expectancy similar to chronic conditions such as diabetes or chronic heart failure. Nearly 4,000 people between the ages of 60 to 102 years, initially seen from 1991 to 1993 by primary care physicians at Wishard Health Services, a large public hospital with community health centers in Indianapolis, participated in the study. The patients were followed for 13...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 12, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Increased Longevity in Mice via Polyamines and Gut BacteriaEmail this article to a colleague.
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Polyamines have been of interest since spermadine was shown to extend life in mice. Another topic of growing interest is the influence of gut bacteria on metabolism and longevity, and here is research to link these two items: "In mammals, levels of polyamines (PAs) decrease during the ageing process; PAs are known to decrease systemic inflammation by inhibiting inflammatory cytokine synthesis in macrophages. ... The probiotic strain Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis LKM512 is known to increase intestinal luminal PA concentrations. ... We supplemented the diet of 10-month-old Crj:CD-1 female mice with LKM512 for 11 mon...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 9, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Towards Synthetic Collagen for Regenerative MedicineEmail this article to a colleague.
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Via ScienceDaily: researchers "have unveiled a new method for making synthetic collagen. The new material, which forms from a liquid in as little as an hour, has many of the properties of natural collagen and may prove useful as a scaffold for regenerating new tissues and organs from stem cells. ... Our final product more closely resembles native collagen than anything that's previously been made, and we make that material using a self-assembly process that is remarkably similar to processes found in nature. ... Collagen, the most abundant protein in the body, is a key component of many tissues, including skin, tendons, li...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 9, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Confounding Factors AboundEmail this article to a colleague.
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It is now fairly well known that any animal study of longevity has to be controlled for calorie restriction, as the effects of even a modest change in dietary intake can outweigh the intended effects of the study, rendering the results useless. This is far from the only confounding factor out there, however. Here is some work on a different issue that might be problematic for longevity studies in worms: "The nematode worm Caenorhabditis elegans has been used to identify hundreds of genes that influence longevity and thereby demonstrate the strong influence of genetics on lifespan determination. In order to simplify lifespa...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 8, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
A Metastudy on Exercise and DementiaEmail this article to a colleague.
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Via EurekAlert!: "Any exercise that gets the heart pumping may reduce the risk of dementia and slow the condition's progression once it starts ... Researchers examined the role of aerobic exercise in preserving cognitive abilities and concluded that it should not be overlooked as an important therapy against dementia. The researchers broadly defined exercise as enough aerobic physical activity to raise the heart rate and increase the body's need for oxygen. Examples include walking, gym workouts and activities at home such as shoveling snow or raking leaves. ... We culled through all the scientific literature we could find...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 8, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Spinal Fusion Through Stem CellsEmail this article to a colleague.
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A modest new application of stem cells in therapy: researchers "have used a new, leading-edge stem cell therapy to promote the growth of bone tissue following the removal of cervical discs - the cushions between the bones in the neck - to relieve chronic, debilitating pain. [The procedure] used bone marrow-derived adult stem cells to promote the growth of the bone tissue essential for spinal fusion following surgery, as part of a nationwide, multicenter clinical trial of the therapy. ... We hope that this investigational procedure eventually will help those who undergo spinal fusion in the back as well as in the neck, and ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 7, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
More Autophagy ResearchEmail this article to a colleague.
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Autophagy is important in longevity, and research groups are investigating this process with an the intent of developing ways to safely manipulate it: "two cellular processes - lipid metabolism and autophagy - work together to influence worms' lifespan. Autophagy, a major mechanism cells use to digest and recycle their own contents, has become the subject of intense scientific scrutiny over the past few years, particularly since the process (or its malfunction) has been implicated in many human diseases, including cancer and
Source: Fight Aging! - September 7, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Statistics: Europeans Have Mental Health Issues TooEmail this article to a colleague.
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Two news stories over the long holiday weekend made the rounds about the prevalence of mental disorders in Americans and Europeans. Virtually all the news stories I’ve read completely missed important information contained within the actual reports, instead doing more reporting on the news release rather than the research itself.
I previously wrote about the CDC’s report, which contrary to headlines in newspapers such as USA Today, HealthDay, the International Business Times and others, did not report on any new data that “half of Americans will suffer from mental disorders” (data that comes from a ...
Source: World of Psychology - September 6, 2011 Category: Psychiatrists and Psychologists Authors: John M. Grohol, PsyD Tags: Disorders General Mental Health and Wellness Minding the Media Policy and Advocacy Research Adhd Associated Press Business Times Cdc Central News daily Mail Datasets Dementia Deutsche Welle Europeans Healthday Holiday Wee Source Type: blogs
Further Investigation of the Effects of Guanfacine on MemoryEmail this article to a colleague.
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Guanfacine is a drug used to manipulate signaling mechanisms shown to improve working memory in monkeys. Here is some further work on this topic: "Alpha-2 adrenergic receptors are potential targets for ameliorating cognitive deficits associated with aging as well as certain pathologies such as attention deficit disorder, schizophrenia and
Source: Fight Aging! - September 6, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Growth Hormone and Zebrafish RegenerationEmail this article to a colleague.
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An investigation of the role of growth hormone in the regenerative capacity of zebrafish: "Unlike mammals, teleost fishes are capable of regenerating sensory inner ear hair cells that have been lost following acoustic or ototoxic trauma. Previous work indicated that immediately following sound exposure, zebrafish saccules exhibit significant hair cell loss that recovers to pre-treatment levels within 14 days. Following acoustic trauma in the zebrafish inner ear, we used microarray analysis to identify genes involved in inner ear repair following acoustic exposure. Additionally, we investigated the effect of growth hormone ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 6, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Early Tests of a Viral Targeted Cancer TherapyEmail this article to a colleague.
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The development of engineered viruses to selectively attack cancer has been underway for a number of years, and here is an example of an early trial for one strand of this research: "Scientists modified the vaccinia virus, which is more famous for being used to develop a smallpox vaccine. The virus, named JX-594, is dependent upon a chemical pathway, common in some cancers, in order to replicate. It was injected at different doses into the blood of 23 patients with cancers which had spread to multiple organs in the body. In the eight patients receiving the highest dose, seven had the virus replicating in their tumours, but...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 4, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Working With Colon Stem CellsEmail this article to a colleague.
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Via EurekAlert!, news of research to complement recent work on tissue engineered intestines in mice: "Human colon stem cells have been identified and grown in a lab-plate for the first time. ... Throughout life, stem cells of the colon regenerate the inner layer of our large intestine in a weekly basis. For decades scientists had evidences of the existence of these cells yet their identity remained elusive. Scientists [discovered] the precise localization of the stem cells in the human colon and worked out a method that allows their isolation and in vitro expansion, that is their propagation in lab-plates. Growing cells ou...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 4, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Epigenetics of Calorie RestrictionEmail this article to a colleague.
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An open access review paper in PDF format that discusses some of the fine details of current research into the mechanisms by which calorie restriction slows aging. This work is aimed at establishing a level of understanding sufficient to produce calorie restriction mimetic drugs that also slow aging: "The molecular mechanisms of aging are the subject of much research and have facilitated potential interventions to delay aging and aging-related degenerative diseases in humans. The aging process is frequently affected by environmental factors and caloric restriction is by far the most effective and established environmental ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 1, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
The Effects of Exercise on Bone MarrowEmail this article to a colleague.
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An interesting discovery, and one more benefit of exercise: "researchers have found one more reason to exercise: working out triggers influential stem cells to become bone instead of fat, improving overall health by boosting the body's capacity to make blood. The body's mesenchymal stem cells are most likely to become fat or bone, depending on which path they follow. ... The exercising mice ran less than an hour, three times a week, enough time to have a significant impact on their blood production ... In sedentary mice, the same stem cells were more likely to become fat, impairing blood production in the marrow cavities o...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 1, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Perhaps the Cryonics Industry Needs a Luxury LineEmail this article to a colleague.
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Industries are rather like certain forms of insect - they go through characteristic stages in their life cycle in which the look, internals, and behavior are very different. Moving from one stage to the next is a matter of growth: gaining customers, revenue, mindshare, and the funds for significant research and development. Industries start out as advocacy projects - a few people who think they're right, and have the necessary luck, skill, and staying power to convince a market into their way of thinking. In those early stages, the dynamic between leaders and followers is very different than it is in mature industries. The...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 1, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Exercise Slows Many of the Consequences of AgingEmail this article to a colleague.
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A mainstream press article on exercise and aging: "As we age, our bodies change in ways that challenge athletic ability. But exercise also can slow down - and in some cases even prevent - some of the physiological ravages of time. ... A lot of things that we thought were just inherent to the aging process and were going to happen no matter what don't really have to happen if you maintain an appropriate lifestyle. ... How much can exercise slow down the ravages of aging? Potentially a lot. It will partially, but not completely, prevent arterial stiffening with age and completely prevent the dysfunction of the arterial linin...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 31, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Stem Cell Trials Slowly ProgressingEmail this article to a colleague.
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News of another step towards the availability of autologous stem cell therapies in US clinics: "Using a patient's own bone marrow stem cells to treat acute stroke is feasible and safe ... The trial was the first ever to harvest an acute stroke patient's own stem cells from the iliac crest of the leg, separate them and inject them back into the patient intravenously. ... In order to bring stem cells forward as a potential new treatment for stroke patients, we have to establish safety first and this study provides the first evidence in addressing that goal. Now we are conducting two other stroke cell therapy studies examinin...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 31, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Older Cells Lose Ability to Mobilize Antioxidant DefensesEmail this article to a colleague.
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Via EurekAlert!: "When the body fights oxidative damage, it calls up a reservist enzyme that protects cells - but only if those cells are relatively young, a study has found. [Biologists] discovered major declines in the availability of an enzyme, known as the Lon protease, as human cells grow older. ... Lon protects the mitochondria - tiny organisms in the cell that convert oxygen into energy. The conversion is never perfect: Some oxygen leaks and combines with other elements to create damaging oxidants. Oxidation is the process behind rust and food spoilage. In the body, oxidation can damage or destroy almost any tissue....
Source: Fight Aging! - August 30, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
The Digital Aging AtlasEmail this article to a colleague.
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Researcher João Pedro de Magalhães and colleagues are working on a new online resource: "We have developed a new web portal to integrate molecular, physiological ,and pathological age-related data that may be of interest. ... The Digital Ageing Atlas is a portal of changes covering different biological levels. There are currently portals for both humans and mice. The idea is to integrate molecular, physiological and pathological age-related data and create an interactive portal that serves as the first centralised collection of ageing changes and pathologies. ... It allows users to search and retrieve age-related changes...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 30, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Can You Optimize Exercise for Longevity?Email this article to a colleague.
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Given the current state of research, I'd say that optimizing exercise for its effects on longevity is as much a fool's game as optimizing diet - if you want to take it on as a hobby, then by all means, but don't expect to beat the scientific community in terms of finding a better way, or to know how well you're doing. Obtaining significant benefits to life expectancy is easy: just exercise as recommended by physicians, the standard 30 minutes of aerobic exercise a day. The tricky question is whether there is a reliable way of gaining more expected years of life than are provided by that 80/20 position. But the research kee...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 29, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
On Brittle Bones and AgingEmail this article to a colleague.
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Via EurekAlert!: "It is a well-established fact that as we grow older, our bones become more brittle and prone to fracturing. It is also well established that loss of mass is a major reason for older bones fracturing more readily than younger bones, hence medical treatments have focused on slowing down this loss. However, new research [shows] that at microscopic dimensions, the age-related loss of bone quality can be every bit as important as the loss of quantity in the susceptibility of bone to fracturing. Using a combination of x-ray and electron based analytical techniques as well as macroscopic fracture testing, the re...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 29, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Glue For Joining Blood VesselsEmail this article to a colleague.
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Small blood vessels are a great challenge in tissue engineering: both creating them in the first place in order to supply blood to constructed tissue, and then linking them into the body's existing blood supply when tissue is transplanted. The smaller the blood vessels, the harder this all becomes - so better ways of linking blood vessels together are necessary. "Reconnecting severed blood vessels is mostly done the same way today - with sutures - as it was 100 years ago ... Now, a team of researchers [has] developed a sutureless method that appears to be a faster, safer and easier alternative. In animal studies, a team [u...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 28, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Building Momentum for Human RejuvenationEmail this article to a colleague.
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From the SENS Foundation: "The fifth biannual Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence biomedical conference is just days away. Getting ready for the trip has cast my mind back not only to previous meetings of this exciting interdisciplinary series, and also to the recent 40th meeting of the American Aging Association (AGE). Along with its international sister organization, the International Association for Biomedical Gerontology (IABG), AGE was the first, and remains the premier, professional scientific organization focused specifically on biomedical research in aging. That is, much of biogerontology research is de...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 28, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
A Reminder that Genetic Contributions to Longevity are ComplexEmail this article to a colleague.
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In conclusion, we report that a combination of functional SNPs within ADA and TNF-α genes can influence life-expectancy in a gender-specific manner and that males and females follow different pathways to attain longevity."
Link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21865054
Source: Fight Aging! - August 25, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Induced Pluripotency, Drug Testing, and Personalized MedicineEmail this article to a colleague.
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From the Technology Review: "I was observing an intimate demonstration of how stem-cell technologies may one day combine with personal genomics and personal medicine. I was the first journalist to undergo experiments designed to see if the four-year-old process that creates induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells can yield insight into the functioning and fate of a healthy individual's heart cells. Similar tests could be run on lab-grown brain and liver cells, or eventually on any of the more than 200 cell types found in humans. ... This is the next step in personalized medicine: being able to test drugs and other factors on ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 25, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Welcome to the Human ConditionEmail this article to a colleague.
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Sometimes life comes at us with such force, surprise and ruthlessness, it stuns us. I don’t have any more answers than you do but I do have it whacking me in the face or elsewhere, every day of my life. I know if you’re reading this, you do, also.
This week has been a good example of that as so much is going on in our little world as well as the impending danger for millions of Americans facing a hurricane in the east. Let me use yesterday as an example. Jim, my dear man, who had just returned from a trip to California on family business had missed his flight because the hotel did not give him the wake-up call...
Source: Life with Chronic Pain - August 25, 2011 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: Chronic pain Chronic pain community Chronic pain lifestyle Pain treatment happiness natural disaster daily pain management Fall family pain and travel Source Type: blogs
Alcor's CaveatsEmail this article to a colleague.
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Cryonics provider Alcor dedicates a section of their website to challenges and problems, and it is well worth reading: "When you buy a house, the seller is legally obliged to disclose any known defects. When you review a company's annual report, it tells you every problem that could affect the corporate share value. Since arrangements for cryopreservation may have a much greater impact on your life than home ownership or stock investments, we feel an ethical obligation to disclose problems that affect cryonics in general and Alcor specifically. We also believe that an organization which admits its problems is more likely t...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 24, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Progress in Regenerating Tooth DecayEmail this article to a colleague.
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Good news from the dental research community: scientists "have developed a revolutionary new way to treat the first signs of tooth decay. Their solution is to arm dentists with a peptide-based fluid that is literally painted onto the tooth's surface. The peptide technology is based on knowledge of how the tooth forms in the first place and stimulates regeneration of the tooth defect. ... This may sound too good to be true, but we are essentially helping acid-damaged teeth to regenerate themselves. It is a totally natural non-surgical repair process and is entirely pain-free too. ... It contains a peptide known as P 11-4 th...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 24, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Considering Reprogramming Cells in the BodyEmail this article to a colleague.
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So far research on cellular reprogramming has largely focused on manipulation of cells outside the body. Here a researcher suggests that the future of medicine will involve achieving much the same thing inside the body: "To date, somatic cell reprogramming has been achieved in vitro. It would be of great importance to explore whether the anti-aging agents, e.g. rapamycin, could function to enhance stem cell function, protect stem cell pluripotency and even promote reprogramming in vivo. It is also very interesting to verify whether some or all adult organs/tissues do possess some significant regenerative capacity due to th...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 23, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Stress, DNA Damage, and p53Email this article to a colleague.
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Researchers here outline one possible mechanism for the known association between chronic stress and biomarkers of health: "While the human mind and body are built to respond to stress - the well-known "fight or flight" response, which lasts only a few minutes and raises heart rate and blood glucose levels - the response itself can cause significant damage if maintained over long periods of time. When stress becomes chronic, this natural response can lead to a number of disease-related symptoms, including peptic ulcers and cardiovascular disorders. To make matters worse, evidence indicates that chronic stress eventually le...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 23, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Metabolic Syndome and Kidney DiseaseEmail this article to a colleague.
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Metabolic syndrome is, for the vast majority of us, an avoidable lifestyle condition. If you exercise and avoid gaining excess body fat then in all likelihood you won't suffer from the condition. Here's another reason to make that effort: "Metabolic syndrome comprises a group of medical disorders that increase people's risk of diabetes, heart disease, stroke, and premature death when they occur together. A patient is diagnosed with the syndrome when he or she exhibits three or more of the following characteristics: high blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat in the waist/abdomen, low good cholesterol, and higher...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 22, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
The Mouth as a Source of Useful Stem CellsEmail this article to a colleague.
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Researchers are engaged in a body-wide hunt for stem cells that are easy to work with and easy to obtain - low cost sources will make a big difference to the ultimate cost of therapies: "As we age, our stem cells are less pliant and less able to transform into the stem cells that science needs to find breakthrough treatments for disease. An exception to this can be found in the stem cells of oral mucosa, the membrane that lines the inside of our mouths. ... A wound that might take weeks to heal and leave a life-long scar on the skin will be healed in a matter of days inside the mouth, regardless of the patient's age. ... P...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 22, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Arguing for Programmed AgingEmail this article to a colleague.
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A proportion of the aging research community think aging to be at least partially a programmed phenomenon, rather than an accumulation of damage, and thus something to be primarily manipulated by changing the operation of our metabolism. Here is an argument for that viewpoint from researcher Michael Rose: "I should be clear that my present view is also not one generally held, at least not yet, even by most evolutionary biologists who work on aging. Like them, I spent more than thirty years thinking that William Hamilton's declining forces of natural selection, which he published in 1966, showed that evolution by natural se...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 21, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Tension in Growing Muscle TissueEmail this article to a colleague.
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Via ScienceDaily: researchers "have found a simple way to grow muscle tissue with real muscle structure in the laboratory. They found that the muscle cells automatically align themselves if they are subjected to tension in one direction - this is essential for the ability of the muscle cells to exert a force. The endothelial (blood vessel) cells in the culture also automatically grouped themselves to form new blood vessels. This finding is a step forward towards the engineering of thicker muscle tissue. ... Another important aspect of the finding is that it was not necessary to add any biochemical growth factors to initiat...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 21, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
The Public You Versus the Private You in a Life of Chronic PainEmail this article to a colleague.
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Early on in a life of chronic pain we learn to guard ourselves against being hurt by callous comments from others. We say, “I’m fine, thanks.” What we’re really thinking is, “If only you knew, even as I stand here my knees are buckling, my rear is throbbing and I’m trying to concentrate on what you’re saying. I don’t think you could handle the truth and I don’t want to see that cold dead look come into your eyes if I dump the truth on you.”
We ask the checker at the supermarket to keep our cloth bags light; which we bring with us because we’re “green” citizens and because the plastic bags will lea...
Source: Life with Chronic Pain - August 18, 2011 Category: Other Conditions Authors: admin Tags: Chronic pain Chronic pain lifestyle Emotional Health happiness chronic pain management daily chores daily tasks emotions God groceries living with chronic pain spirituality Source Type: blogs
On Mitochondrial Function in Ames Dwarf MiceEmail this article to a colleague.
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An open access paper on the biology of one of the longest-lived engineered mouse species: "The age-associated decline in tissue function has been attributed to ROS-mediated oxidative damage due to mitochondrial dysfunction. The long-lived Ames dwarf mouse exhibits resistance to oxidative stress, a physiological characteristic of longevity. It is not known, however, whether there are differences in the electron transport chain (ETC) functions in Ames tissues that are associated with their longevity. In these studies we analyzed enzyme activities of ETC complexes, CI-CV and the coupled CI-CII and CII-CIII activities of mitoc...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 17, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
An Update on the SENS Foundation Academic InitiativeEmail this article to a colleague.
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The SENS Foundation Academic Initiative is a long-term project aimed at helping to build the research community of tomorrow - one interested in the repair and reversal of aging, rather than a next generation that is only interested in slowing down aging a little via manipulation of metabolism, a simple repeat of today's research community. Here is an update from the Foundation: "The SENS Foundation Academic Initiative's new structure is actively in the process of being implemented, and involves a number of significant changes. Among these are the separation of the Initiative into branches, an updated membership system that...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 17, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Proposing Concurrent Manipulation of Multiple Metabolic PathwaysEmail this article to a colleague.
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That part of the research community focused on manipulating metabolism to slow down aging has advanced to the point of considering multiple distinct simultaneous changes to achieve the desired end result: "Modern medicine is directed towards the prevention, detection and cure of individual diseases. Yet, current medical models inadequately describe aging-associated diseases. We now know that failure in longevity pathways including oxidative stress, multisystem dysregulation, inflammation, sarcopenia, protein deposition and atherosclerosis are associated with age-related diseases. Such longevity pathways are potential targe...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 16, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
The Cost of InactivityEmail this article to a colleague.
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Researchers find what looks to be a proxy measure for the degree to which a person is sedentary - but of course there might be other important correlations here, such as with wealth or intelligence: "Watching TV for an average of six hours a day could shorten the viewer's life expectancy by almost five years ...The impact rivals that of other well known behavioural risk factors, such as smoking and lack of exercise, the study suggests. Sedentary behaviour - as distinct from too little exercise - is associated with a higher risk of death, particularly from heart attack or stroke. Watching TV accounts for a substantial amoun...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 16, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Quantifying the Benefits of Modest ExerciseEmail this article to a colleague.
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Gaining a large fraction of the estimated maximum possible long-term benefits from exercising can be achieved with only modest levels of regular exercise according to researchers. This recent paper is representative of earlier, similar findings: "The health benefits of leisure-time physical activity are well known, but whether less exercise than the recommended 150 min a week can have life expectancy benefits is unclear. We assessed the health benefits of a range of volumes of physical activity in a Taiwanese population. In this prospective cohort study, 416,175 individuals (199,265 men and 216,910 women) participated in a...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 15, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
A Brief Look at Mitochondria in AgingEmail this article to a colleague.
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A short piece on mitochondria and their role in aging: "Despite propaganda to the contrary, aging is rarely a pleasurable experience. A lifetime of damage to cells and tissues results in malfunction, making old age a significant risk factor for ailments such as cancers and neurologic disabilities typified by Alzheimer's disease. As a consequence, the graying of world populations has triggered a scientific frenzy to unravel the basic processes behind aging and find ways to slow down and perhaps even prevent age-related degeneration. ... Two linked ideas are at the core of our current aging theory. The first is that proteins...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 15, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Cleaning Up Engineered TissueEmail this article to a colleague.
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A lesser but still important detail in tissue engineering is given some thought: "scientists are seemingly approaching a day when they will be able to make nearly any type of tissue from human embryonic stem cells. You need nerves or pancreas, bone or skin? With the right combination of growth factors, skill and patience, a laboratory tissue culture dish promises to yield therapeutic wonders. But within these batches of newly generated cells lurks a big potential problem: Any remaining embryonic stem cells - those that haven't differentiated into the desired tissue - can go on to become dangerous tumors called teratomas wh...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 14, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Populating a Decellularized Heart with Embryonic Stem CellsEmail this article to a colleague.
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A great many interesting demonstrations of tissue engineering have taken place in recent years, and here is another: "Every organ in the human body has a scaffold or a structure, which provides it with its shape, and within this scaffold are many different types of cells with different functions. Tissue engineering aims to create the organ scaffold - either through the use of synthetic materials such as polymers, or through decellularization, which uses the whole organ as a scaffold after removing its cells. Decellularization is ideal for tissue regeneration because it preserves the three-dimensional structure of the organ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 14, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
The Correlation Between Species Lifespan and Mitochondrial Membrane CompositionEmail this article to a colleague.
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Damage to mitochondrial membranes is an important feature of the complex process by which mitochondrial DNA damage contributes to aging. It is known that differences in membrane composition may be an important factor in species of unusual longevity, such as naked mole rats. Here is another open access study on this topic: "The cellular energy produced by mitochondria is a fundamental currency of life. However, the extent to which mitochondrial (mt) performance (power and endurance) is adapted to habitats and life-strategies of vertebrates is not well-understood. A global analysis of mt genomes revealed that hydrophobicity ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 11, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Human Uncoupling Proteins and LongevityEmail this article to a colleague.
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Uncoupling proteins are involved in the processes by which metabolism determines natural longevity through their effects on mitochondrial activity, and are of interest to calorie restriction researchers: "The brown fat specific UnCoupling Protein 1 (UCP1) is involved in thermogenesis, a process by which energy is dissipated as heat in response to cold stress and excess of caloric intake. Thermogenesis has potential implications for body mass control and cellular fat metabolism. In fact, in humans, the variability of the UCP1 gene is associated with obesity, fat gain and metabolism. Since regulation of metabolism is one of ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 11, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Using Lasers to Spur Stem Cells Into ActionEmail this article to a colleague.
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A novel way to manipulate stem cells: "Though the heart is known to contain some stem cells, they have a very limited ability to repair damage caused by a heart attack [and] researchers have had to look elsewhere. One of the first efforts to use stem cells to reduce heart scarring involved harvesting them from the bone marrow and inserting them back into the heart muscle, close to the heart's blood supply, but this had limited success. Prof. Oron, who has long used low level lasers to stimulate stem cells to encourage cell survival and the formation of blood vessels after a heart attack, was inspired to test how laser trea...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 10, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Investigating the INDY GeneEmail this article to a colleague.
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The I'm Not Dead Yet (INDY) gene is one of the earlier longevity genes discovered by researchers in course of investigating the effects of calorie restriction. Here is a recent update: "It is known that excess calorie consumption leads to obesity, insulin resistance and increased mortality, whereas calorie restriction reduces accumulation of body fat and improves cellular energy balance and insulin action - reversing obesity and type 2 diabetes, delaying the aging process, and prolonging life in primates and many other species. It has also been shown in the past that reduced expression of the so-called 'INDY' gene in D. Me...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 10, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Understanding Our Non-Regenerative HeartsEmail this article to a colleague.
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Why are hearts in humans and other higher animals not able to regenerate like salamander hearts? Answering that question would be a step on the road to recreating that ability when needed: "A new study has shed light on why adult human cardiac cells lose their ability to proliferate, perhaps explaining why our heart have little regenerative capacity. The study, done in cell lines and mice, may lead to methods of reprogramming a patient's own cardiac myocytes, or muscle cells, within the heart itself to create new muscle to repair damage ... Recent research suggests that mammals do have the ability to regenerate the heart f...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 9, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
Exercise Versus Memory LossEmail this article to a colleague.
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Another of the many benefits of exercise: a study "shows that a small amount of physical exercise could profoundly protect the elderly from long-term memory loss that can happen suddenly following infection, illnesses or injury in old age. ... aging rats that ran just over half a kilometer each week were protected against infection-induced memory loss. ... Our research shows that a small amount of physical exercise by late middle-aged rats profoundly protects against exaggerated inflammation in the brain and long-lasting memory impairments that follow a serious bacterial infection. Strikingly, this small amount of running ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 9, 2011 Category: Health Medicine and Bioethics Commentators Authors: Reason Tags: daily News Source Type: blogs
