Life Extension Research

Wonder Drug of the Century?

posted on June 23, 2009

I love my job!

I get to see the coolest life extending technologies, sometimes years before the general public. But first, an apology:

Last week, I sent you some incredibly important information on how you can extend your life on 9¢ a day. Then I told you about aspirin and vitamin D. But my fingers moved faster than my brain, and I left off a zero when I told you what the optimal dosage of vitamin D is. I said four hundred instead of four thousand IU. The optimal dose is actually 4000 IU. That’s what I take, and many doctors now recommend 5000.

And it’s still 9¢ a day for both.

In fact, a baby aspirin may not be enough for you unless you have over the top health habits, including heavy supplementation. You may need a full aspirin with your biggest meal, every day… or every other day.

And it’s still 9¢ a day for both supplements!

Now for the latest breakthrough:

Last Wednesday, I had lunch with an amazing scientist. He is developing a drug with zero apparent side effects which may be the wonder drug of the century.

It appears that it could stop swine flu dead in its tracks. Ditto for most other flu strains. And even better, it can be manufactured quickly. So quickly that in case of a national or worldwide outbreak, drug and biotech companies could marshal their forces to produce enough to treat the entire US population. They only have the ability to treat key government employees and medical personnel now with conventional vaccines. That leaves the other 90% of us exposed.

But that’s not all. This drug may be able to completely halt the progression of:

• Alzheimer’s
• Parkinson’s
• ALS
• Atherosclerosis
• Rheumatoid Arthritis
• Dengue Fever
• Lupus
• MS
• Psoriasis
• Herpes
• Hepatitis C
• Ebola
• West Nile Virus
• MRSA “superbug staph infections”

 

Look at the top five. All aging related diseases. Dementia is a huge concern when living for a long time. If you lose your faculties, what good does life extension do you?

Atherosclerosis is a cause of our number one killer. And what quality of life will you have if you are wracked with rheumatoid arthritis?

Remember, we’re after quality of life along with quantity. So take care of yourself now. It will pay huge dividends in your future.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Ouroboros on Longevity Mutants and Germ Cells (June 19 2009) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4255
Ouroboros likes the recent work on gene expression similarities between somatic cells and germ cells in longevity mutants: "both the germ line and soma are made of cells. How is it that the soma is mortal while the germ line is, for practical purposes, immortal? The germ line and soma are maintained in different ways, either in quality or extent. The germ line is doing something differently than the soma, the upshot of which is that the germ line is immortal. A strict interpreter of the theory would presume that this 'something' is resource-intensive, so that it wouldn’t be possible to apply the strategy to the soma. It's also possible, however, that it's simply inconsistent with optimal somatic functions. [but researchers] have shown that in long-lived mutants of the worm C. elegans, somatic tissues start acting like germ line cells. Does the soma-to-germ line transition occur in other long-lived mutants, or in calorie restricted animals?" That would be an interesting discovery if it is the case.

The Humble Axolotl (June 18 2009) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4253
From MSNBC: "Scientists are genetically modifying a bizarre looking Mexican salamander [in] the hope its ability to regenerate body parts will one day help human amputees. It is a darling of researchers since it can regrow injured limbs, jaws, skin, organs and parts of its brain and spinal cord. Humans do repair tissue but they don't repair it perfectly whereas the axolotl under certain injury conditions can go into kind of a mode where they repeat the process of the embryo. After amputation in salamanders, unlike in humans, blood vessels contract quickly and limit bleeding, skin cells work fast to cover the wound site and form what is called a 'blastema,' a collection of stem like cells that will eventually become the new body part. "Now, as we watch a salamander grow back an arm, we are no longer quite as mystified by how it happens. Soon humans might be able to harness this truly awesome ability ourselves. [Researchers] speculated it may be only be a decade or two until human parts can be regenerated, salamander-like."

The Spread of Ideas on Engineered Longevity (June 18 2009) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4252
It is pleasant to see the ideas of engineered longevity springing up in diverse places, from folk far removed from the core of the present advocacy community. There's a little garbling of concepts in this piece, but overall the fact that it was written and published at all is a promising sign: "Aging is still a fatal disease. Can we prevent it, or even cure it? The aging process is a highly complex biogenetic phenomenon. Some pieces of this process we already know today: with increasing age we accumulate metabolic byproducts, which progressively damage the cell, especially the cell nucleus where all our genetic material resides in the chromosomes' DNA. But aging is no longer considered an immutable fundamental process for which 'nothing can be done.' Any process that hastens age-related decline in health and performance is a component of the aging process that deserves our attention and possible intervention. Today, the primary aim of a life extension strategy is the application of currently available anti-aging methods in the hope that one lives long enough to benefit from advances in biogenetic sciences when the prevention and cure of aging becomes possible. Research bio-gerontologists project this to happen in about 20-25 years. We are only at the very beginning of performing cellular hygiene, which might potentially lead to the cure of aging."

The End of The Biotech Priesthood (June 17 2009) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4250
Just as happened for the business of writing software, falling costs will turn biotechnology from a select priesthood into an endeavour undertaken by at all levels by all sorts of people. If we want rapid progress, then the broadest possible research community is what we'd like to see. Here's an h+ Magazine interview with one of the early adopters: "while one might envision dozens of isolated home biologists homebrewing genes in their basements and garages, there is a social aspect to this movement that goes beyond the online. Some people who lack the space to store large amounts of equipment have formed co-op labs where they work together. Meetings, arranged over the net, generally happen at people's homes and have a party vibe. Why has this field suddenly exploded? The answer goes far beyond falling costs and the rise of the garage tinkerer, although these are factors. One big factor seems to be a desire to solve some of today's major problems. Discussions seem to frequently drift towards two particular topics: creating fuel-generating microbes and finding remedies for disease. Indeed, the DIYbio community owes much of its increase in size to do-gooders, concerned citizens who see DIYbio as a method of confronting problems in a novel way. And while this is heartening, many members simply want to pursue science for the love of it. They're DIY simply because they wish to conduct research into relatively unprofitable fields."

Soon, the (Welcome) End of Chemotherapy (June 16 2009) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4249
Even were there no further advances in cell-killing methods, the use of targeting nanoparticles to deliver existing cell-killing drugs would result in a great improvement in cancer therapies. Here, researchers "used a drug called Taxol for their cell culture studies [because] it is one of the most widely used chemotherapeutic drugs. Taxol normally causes many negative side effects because it travels throughout the body and damages healthy tissue as well as cancer cells. Taxol-carrying nanoparticles [are] modified so they carry the drug only to the cancer cells, allowing targeted cancer treatment without harming healthy cells. This is achieved by attaching a vitamin (folic acid) derivative that cancer cells like to consume in high amounts. Because the nanoparticles also carry a fluorescent dye and an iron oxide magnetic core, their locations within the cells and the body can be seen by optical imaging and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). That allows a physician to see how the tumor is responding to the treatment. The nanoparticles also can be engineered without the drug and used as imaging (contrast) agents for cancer. If there is no cancer, the biodegradable nanoparticles will not bind to the tissue and will be eliminated by the liver. The iron oxide core will be utilized as regular iron in the body."

p16INK4a as a Biomarker of Aging (June 16 2009) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4248
How do you determine if a supposed longevity therapy is working in humans short of waiting for decades? This is why we need reliable biomarkers for biological rather than chronological age: measures of how much your body's systems have changed and degenerated from youth. From EurekAlert!: Researchers have "found that as cells and tissues age, the expression of a key protein, called p16INK4a, dramatically increases in most mammalian organs. Because p16INK4a is a tumor suppressor protein, cancer researchers are interested in its role in cellular aging and cancer prevention. Now the team has proven that the same biomarker is present in human blood and is strongly correlated both with chronological age and with certain behaviors such as tobacco use and physical inactivity, which are known to accelerate the aging process. We found a very weak correlation between the biomarker and obesity - as measured by body mass index (BMI) - despite other data suggesting that caloric restriction slows aging. The data suggest the possibility that reduced exercise may actually be worse with regard to molecular age than a higher BMI." Bear in mind that there will be no one biomarker that gives an unbiased view of aging: a mammal is a very complex collection of interacting and very different system.

June Newsletter from the Methuselah Foundation (June 15 2009) http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4246

From the Methuselah Foundation Blog: "In the future we'll be able to harness nature's ability to form organs and build our own. ... Dr. Gabor Forgacs made that prediction.  Now, he is making it a reality.  Gabor is a University of Missouri researcher doing groundbreaking work in regenerative medicine. He is also the Scientific Founder and Chief Scientific Officer of Organovo, the latest company to receive support from you, the donors of the Methuselah Foundation. As we work to identify breakthrough technology that will help us reach our shared goal of extending healthy human life, Organovo stands out.  Thanks to your contributions we are able to assist them as they apply their proprietary technology to 'print' new organs. Organ printing allows new tissue to replace diseased tissue. Since new tissue can be developed from cell sources from your own body, rejection of transplanted tissue is not an issue. The cells can be taken from youthful progenitor cells in your bone marrow to replace the older diseased cells. The cells ability to self-assemble means they will organize themselves into a functional tissue after being positioned."

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