Longevity News 2007

December

Happy New Year!
An Old Acquaintance
Extreme Longevity Objections
Tomorrow’s Extreme Life Extension Technologies
Life Extension Opinions

November

Wild Eyed Optimist
Longevity Workshop
Recent Age-Breaker Research

September

New Calorie Restriction Research
The Prospects for Enhancing Autophagy
Business Building and Development Conference
The Cost of Aging Illustrated
“The Choice of Living a Healthy, Youthful Life of Centuries and More is Inevitable"
Aubrey de Grey’s SENS Conference
Ending Aging

August

Longevity Mutations Keep Rolling In

July

Fat to Inflammation to Age-Related Disease
A Deliberately Provocative Question
Core Human Ideal
Repairing Mitochondria to Help Thwart Aging

June

Striking Back at CYTOMEGALOVIRUS

May

Ray Kurzweil Article
Commentary From Reason
Beginning Anti Aging
Milken Global Conference

Happy New Year!

posted on December 31, 2007

A friend of mine celebrates his 69th birthday New Year’s Eve. So this will be his 69th New Year. For all practical purposes, it might as well be his last.

Several years ago, he gave up on life. He doesn’t know he gave up, but he did. This guy lives completely in the past. “Those were the good old days.” “What’s this world coming to?” Etc, etc. And he tells the same old stories over and over instead of experiencing new ones. He’s also drinking his way into an early grave

We have gone in opposite directions with our lives and have almost nothing in common outside of our history. Where I try to be present and future focused, he dwells on the past. Where I look forward to a long glorious future, he sees no hope. I’m long term optimistic. He’s not. Discussions with him are often painful, so I try to keep my distance and still remain friends.

Being his friend can be agonizing for two reasons. First, it’s sad to see someone you love give up and self destruct. I see little hope for his longevity… or happiness. But mainly, spending time with him is torturous. Everything you and I do, think about or say moves us towards our goals or away from them. Spending time with him is counter productive and even destructive. So why are we still friends? Well it’s a long story. But he was there 29 years ago when I really needed support. He’s the kind of person who would take a bullet for you. So it’s tough to discard him.

If there’s a lesson here, it’s this: Hang out with people who share your values and aspirations. Doing so is energizing. The opposite sucks your energy. And if we want to conquer the destructive effects of aging, we need all the energy we can muster. It’s a daunting task, and your survival may just depend on being at concert pitch as much as possible. I have pretty well insulated myself from most energy sucks, but not completely. It’s tough (at least for me) to sever relationships. But your happiness, productivity and longevity may depend on your willingness and ability to jettison your negative baggage. Unfortunately, that sometimes includes your relatives and even your spouse.

So you might consider at least scaling back negative relationships, thoughts and tasks in 2008 and replacing them with ones that will move you toward your aspirations. You only have 24 hours in each day. How you use them determines who you are and where you end up.

ON INEXORABLE TECHNOLOGICAL PROGRESS

A subtle and unresolved debate often rears its head within the healthy life extension community:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001378.php

"Many people see activism in support of longevity science to be of limited necessity because they believe, I think, that general advances in technological capabilities drive entrepreneurial development cycles that drive public support for new uses. In effect, this is a belief in the robustness of a free market to explore every possible economically viable avenue for human betterment, and to leap upon newly viable avenues as soon as they arise.

"My position is that this is probably the case in the long term. However, as always, it is easy to point out many economically viable and technologically possible projects that have not been started, in medicine or other fields, in the decades since they became viable. In addition to the economy of the free market, there exist economies of regulation, attention, understanding and philanthropic support - just because something is viable does not mean it will happen within your lifetime.

"There of course is the crux of the matter. If we are to benefit from healthy life extension therapies, from medical technologies capable of repairing the damage of aging, progress must be rapid. Healthy life extension through scientific advancement is inevitable - but not for us, unless we get our act together."

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001314.php

What you have in common with naked mole-rats if you're lucky, that is: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001382.php

"You might recall that different fatty acid or lipid composition in cell membranes was floated as a reason for the nine-fold longevity of naked mole-rats over related rodent species. Plenty of oxidative stress in the older mole-rats, but little sign of biochemical damage resulting from it - in comparison to those other rodents long since aged to death, that is.
Better, more damage-resistant building blocks down at the molecular level might be the cause. A forthcoming Rejuvenation Research paper discusses the results of a similar consideration of cell membrane differences and longevity within the human species."

It looks like some of the biochemical differences that may help naked mole-rats live so much longer than other rodents can also be seen in human biochemistry. According to this study, the descendants of people who lived to 90 and beyond tend to have cells that look more mole-rattish in their membrane construction than people of more short-lived families. It is fascinating to see real, structural differences down at the lowest level start to appear as a result of the search for the roots of human longevity.

An Old Acquaintance

posted on December 24, 2007

Last Monday I visited an old acquaintance. He is fairly famous… and very wealthy. He also has a passion for living a very long time. You might even call him an “immortalist”. I use that term loosely and prefer “indefinite youthful lifespan”

Discussions, negotiations and debates often break down simply because opposing parties have different definitions of many words. If we’d pause to make sure we understand each other’s definitions of key words, life would be sooo much easier. We assume we communicate because we speak the same language. But that assumption has cost many deals, friendships and marriages to go awry.

For example, one might call him or herself an immortalist, simply meaning they want to keep from dying from aging while realizing they would be susceptible to death from trauma. But their audience might interpret the term to mean living forever or eternally. Here again are two different words with similar nuances, both not representing what the speaker is trying to convey. Therefore the audience might dismiss them as a crackpot and miss the message that may extend their lives indefinitely.

On the other hand, the speaker might actually mean living eternally or forever. And maybe they might think they have a credible plan to achieve that. But that message would be much different, and their audience would be much smaller. Most people would dismiss them as a loon. So be careful with how you use words and with the words you use.

Now back to my acquaintance.

He is up in years and was pretty much resigned to not getting much benefit from tomorrow’s life extending technologies. But once he saw the illustration showing how a healthy 75 year old could potentially enjoy an indefinite youthful lifespan – and a description of the technologies that could deliver it to him – he seemed to grasp the implications of doing whatever it takes to stay alive long enough to benefit.

That was a great experience for me, not only because his particular life is worth saving, but because of his attitude shift. I learned how easily others could be convinced if approached the right way and educated. It also reinforced my belief that marketing these ideas to raise research funds is just as critical as the underlying science.

“Cryofeast”

posted on December 17, 2007

Saturday was full of life extension activities. In other words, it was stimulating and lots of fun.

Around noon, I had the opportunity to speak about extreme life extension to a new group of free market, health conscious “immortality” seekers. We had a lively Q&A afterwards and learned a lot about each other.

Then, I attended the S. Calif. “Cryofeast” at Peter Voss’ and Louise Gold’s home. Cryofeasts are annual gatherings of members of the cryonics community, other life extensionists, techies as well as a mix of other interested parties. As always, the food and drinks were great, and the conversations and catch ups with old friends were fascinating.

Generally speaking, life extensionists are my favorite people. They are typically intelligent, high achieving optimists. The key word is “optimists”. It’s just plain fun and energizing being around people with great attitudes, and especially those who love life and want as much of it as they can get.

The more time I spend on these activities, the more convinced I am we will obsolete death and deterioration from aging. And in your lifetime and in mine. It will take more than wishful thinking and positive attitudes though. It means lots of old fashioned brain sweating work. Just ask Aubrey de Grey.

On a similar vein, here is a collection of links and excerpts from the recent Cato Unbound debate on radical life extension:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001371.php

You'll find intelligent commentary on the Cato Unbound essays and reaction pieces out in the blogosphere too; Reason and I are always pleased to see growing discussion of the path to healthy life extension. Ongoing conversation, the broader the better, is a necessary foundation to raising support and building a better platform for research and fundraising.

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001372.php

"If a technology existed to eliminate the physical effects of aging, it would be a boon to mankind, and it would be atrocious to forbid it. People should be allowed to experience aging if they wish, of course, but if science could make it optional, then the option should be available. And yes, I would take it. I would definitely want to live a thousand years or more. I would want all of my loved ones with me, and my only regret would be that some of them are already gone and cannot be. You and I are among the first of our species for whom physical immortality is even an outside possibility, but if the choice ever came up, I assure you that I would go for it."

PROGRESS REPORTS FROM THE METHUSELAH FOUNDATION

The Methuselah Foundation kicks off a newsletter series with an update on progress in Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) research and development of the Mprize competition for rejuvenation science:

http://blog.methuselahfoundation.org/2007/12/methuselah_foundation_newslett_1.html

Tomorrow’s Extreme Life Extension Technologies

posted on December 9, 2007

These “bridges” could be the difference between you suffering and dying according to actuarial predictions… or enjoying an indefinite youthful lifespan.

I’ve often described how you can widen your window of opportunity to take advantage of tomorrow’s extreme life extension technologies. These “bridges” could be the difference between you suffering and dying according to actuarial predictions… or enjoying an indefinite youthful lifespan. Much is out of your control, but you have a choice to dramatically improve your odds.

The latest weapon in your arsenal is reading your genomic profile. Doing so could give you insights into what your particular genetic hazards are. Then you might be able to take steps today to reduce your risks. And get this. Experts in the field believe we could increase our healthy lifespans by at least 10 years with this tool.

Now here’s some really interesting news. Two companies provide this personal genotyping service for about $1000, 23andMe and Navigenics. See www.23andme.com and www.navigenics.com. There’s also a fascinating article in this month’s issue of Wired Magazine.

Do you remember my mentioning Ray Kurzweil’s Law of Accelerating Returns? That’s the law which illustrates the exponential rate of growth in technology as well as the decreasing cost of technology. Here’s a perfect current example of how powerful that concept is:

The Human Genome Project was completed in April, 2003 (two years ahead of schedule) for roughly $3 billion. Then in May, 2007, Dr. James Watson’s genome was sequenced for appx. $1 million. Then a mere four months later, Craig Venter’s genome was sequenced for $300,000. The X Prize will be awarded to the first to sequence 100 individual’s genomes for $10,000 each with an Oct., 2013 deadline. I’m betting someone cashes that prize in way before then!

This illustration dramatizes the impact the Law of Accelerating Returns will have on you, me and everyone else on this planet who decide to take care of themselves long enough to let radical life extending technologies to catch up to you.

SHORT VIDEOS BY AUBREY DE GREY EXPLAINING LONGEVITY SCIENCE

You may not have seen these short introductory videos before. Each briefly explains a single concept in longevity science, starting with some of the basic basics. They are the first in a new series of videos aimed at further bridging the gap between an overview for the layman and scientific publications:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001363.php
http://www.mfoundation.org/index.php?pagename=video_faq

Online video has been a tremendously success in broadening awareness and education for healthy life extension research, and the present state of science. This will continue to be the case, so pick out a few from the video FAQ page above, and forward them on to your friends.

Life Extension Opinions

posted on December 2, 2007

When will the future of healthy life extension medicine arrive? What is the likely shape of the near future of medical science? How do we usefully think about these things? Here are some opinions from Reason:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001362.php

"My view of the biotech and medical research field suggests that the development cycle for new products medians out at around a decade - a far cry from the rate of advance possible in less regulated industries, such as the development of computing devices. Calorie restriction mimetics look to come in under that median, while gene therapy is lagging far behind. Applications of autologous stem cell therapies look to fall somewhere in between. There are plenty of other examples if you care to go digging. The conservative late adopter waits for the second business cycle for any product he can afford to wait for. The second round is always better than the first, more effective, cheaper and more widely available."

From that viewpoint, there's plenty going on now that, if supported and encouraged, will blossom into highly effective technologies in the 2020s and 2030s. For example, the early 2030s will be likely be an age of routine mitochondrial DNA replacement. It will start in what is presently late middle age, an outpatient procedure that your physician will badger you into doing every couple of years. It'll be a pain to schedule, like the biopsies and exams, but skipping it will be like not checking for cancer - just dumb.

NOTE: In my opinion, we will have full age reversal capability by the early ‘30’s for those who can afford it and shortly thereafter for most with modest means. Also, due to the recent skin cell breakthrough coupled with at least one emerging atologous stem cell technology and one small molecule technology, I believe we will have impressive therapies which won’t require excessive regulation within five years

Wild Eyed Optimist Over Indefinite Youthful Lifespans

posted on November 25, 2007

Admittedly, I’m a wild eyed optimist, especially regarding the prospects of indefinite youthful lifespans for you and me. But since I KNOW I’m an optimist, I try to take special efforts to see and understand pessimists’ points of view. Ten I try to balance the input and come to my own conclusions. In other words, I try to be objective about what our chances really are. I sent you my timeline and budgetary estimates several issues ago and stand by them.

So here’s an opinion from one who may be the most pessimistic of all well known gerontologists, followed by Reason’s commentary:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001354.php

"'We're all going to croak,' says Richard Sprott, the Ellison Medical Foundation's director, who expects that humans may eventually live as much as 30 years longer, but only in the distant future."

Read the full post; I find it incredible that anyone with Sprott's background can stand in the midst of the present outright revolution, of wild, foaming progress in bioscience, and say that things just aren't going to change all that much. It's an outlandish position - and an outlandish position held by someone who directs a fair amount of funding for aging research:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001331.php

It's a sad state of affairs we're in, wherein so much of the research establishment has declared defeat and stasis before even setting goals for aging science. How is it that we have an establishment community disbursing so much in the way of funds to exactly the people who are not going to make significant progress - those who say that progress is impossible or far distant in advance of any initiative?

The advance of science and technology is change itself, is the growth of opportunity and choice, and is the opening of new doors in the halls of the human condition. The hidebound and defeatist are not really contributing - if you want things done, if you want bold new progress, fund the people willing to set goals and shake trees.

NOTE: Sprott’s stance makes we want to toss my cookies. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. In his case though, I believe it will cost lives. Lots of lives. I say that not only because he may control more of the scarce “life extension” funding than almost all the administrators and researchers in the free market combined… but also because he is influential. With 100,000 people dying every day from aging, the last thing we need is anyone standing in the way of those who refuse to “go silently into the night”.

If someone were drowning and a lifeguard stood in the way of a would-be rescuer, what would you call the lifeguard? Multiply that my millions.

Longevity Workshop

posted on November 19, 2007

Last Friday energized me for almost three days… and counting.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey was in Los Angeles, and we cosponsored a Longevity Workshop. Of course Aubrey spoke brilliantly about the Methuselah Foundation and SENS and how it will reverse aging. www.sens.org

Dr. Stephen Coles opened the workshop with a Gerontology Research Group presentation. See www.grg.org for some fascinating life extension info.

The eminent evolutionary biologist Dr. Michael Rose followed Aubrey with a broad overview of how his 30 years of research is finally paying off in diagnostic tools and nutraceuticals that promise to have a huge impact on aging in the very near future. www.biology.ucr.edu/irpee/index

Then I chipped in by describing Maximum Life Foundation’s strategy to reverse aging in 21 years.

Finally, we had a lively panel discussion which included Peter Voss. Peter founded and manages Adaptive AI. See www.adaptiveai.com. Adaptive AI is aggressively pursuing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI). Once developed. Imagine the positive impact AGI, or machines with human level thinking abilities would have on life extension research!

So why am I so pumped up over info that you would think is old hat to me? Simply because just being around committed positive life extensionists supercharges me. And I don’t just mean the presenters. I mean people like Bruce Klein, founder of the Immortality Institute www.imminst.org and his wife Susan who spent so much time organizing this event. Bruce now works with Ben Goertzel in another AGI company called Novamente www.novamente.net. And I especially mean the enthusiastic audience, nearly 100% devoted to the prospect of indefinite youthful lifespans.

Afterwards, the speakers and organizers met for a dinner/social function hosted by super nice guy Elon Musk. Elon co-founded PayPal. His former partner, Peter Thiel, donated $500,000 to the Methuselah Foundation and ledged $3 million.

Actually, I’ve been energized for over two weeks. You almost always get positive feedback when you preach to the choir. No endless questions regarding what we’re going to do with all the people or how unnatural this is, etc. But a couple of weeks ago, I spoke to about 700 small business owners at a marketing conference. My topic was supposed to be the philosophy of certain success principals, but I spent about as much time on extreme life extension. Five years ago, an uninitiated audience like this would have thought I was a fruitcake. But of the 150 or so people who approached me afterwards, over half were as interested in the prospect of open ended lifespans as they were about marketing and business success.

Exhilarating!

There’s more good stuff, but I’ll save it for later. Here’s this week’s longevity info from the Longevity Meme:

REPORTS FROM THE 2007 HILLBLOM FOUNDATION MEETING

Aging researcher and science blogger Chris Patil has been on the meeting trail of late. The past week, he has posted reports from the 2007 Hillblom Foundation scientific meeting. The Larry L. Hillblom Foundation funds mainstream aging research taking place in California, including the lab of Cynthia Kenyon. You'll find links and quotes in this Fight Aging! post:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001350.php

Along the way, Patil provides an excellent summary of the viewpoint and status of the presently dominant approach to longevity research - engineering greater longevity through genetic and metabolic manipulation:

"Given that genetic manipulations have revealed significant plasticity in the rate of aging, shouldn't we be able to discover drugs that phenocopy, simulate or even outstrip the effects of longevity-extending mutations?
Thus far, early screens for both stress resistance and lifespan extension per se have generated several lead compounds that delay aging in yeast, worms and flies (and in at least one case, both species). Studies from multiple labs are beginning to converge, with the ultimate goal of testing multi-species hits in mouse models of aging and age-related diseases. In closing, Lithgow acknowledged that understanding of the mechanism of action of these compounds is lagging behind their discovery, in part because some of the most promising molecules have mystifyingly large numbers of candidate targets."

By now you probably all know that Reason considers metabolic engineering to slow the rate of cellular and biochemical damage of aging to be a poor, second best path in comparison to developing methods to repair that damage. A good summary as to why that is the case can be found here:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001024.php

NOTE: Michael Rose may be way ahead of the curve here. Stay tune

Recent Age-Breaker Research

posted on November 5,2007

Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) are a range of metabolic byproducts that gum up the works in your biochemistry, such as by sticking vital chemical compounds together so that they can't perform their role. The more AGEs in your system, the worse the damage they cause, directly contributing to age-related degeneration and disease:

A number of groups are at the stage of animal or early human trials with designed or discovered compounds, many focused on diabetes due to the increased level of AGEs associated with that condition, and the fact that regulatory agencies do not recognize aging as a disease - and thus will not approve a therapy designed to repair a cause of aging. For example, the AGE-breaker compound C36 has been evaluated on diabetic rats:

"Unfortunately, past evidence suggests that excitement over work in rodents should be muted at best - the history of ALT-711 or alagebrium demonstrates that different types of AGEs are important in shorter-lived mammals versus humans. So far, promising work in mice and rats has translated poorly into human therapies - in most cases, through trying to address the wrong AGEs."

New Calorie Restriction Reearch

posted on Ocotber 28, 2007

You'll see a couple more articles in the news and headlines section of this newsletter: eating fewer calories while retaining essential nutrients helps to maintain the number of dopamine receptors, reduce visceral fat, reduce inflammatory cytokines, maintain muscle mass, and enhance DNA repair mechanisms.

http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/view_news_item.cfm?news_id=3389
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/view_news_item.cfm?news_id=3390
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/view_news_item.cfm?news_id=3392

As time goes on, researchers will provide more and more specific accounting of how it is that the practice of CR slows aging - slows the rate of change and damage in our fundamental biochemistry, in other words - and thus extends healthy life span. These are all small pieces of the larger puzzle, as is this item on stem cells and CR noted at Fight Aging!:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001333.php

"[Blood stem cell] numbers are highly variable in [aged mice], however, the observed loss of marrow function is due to a major loss in repopulating ability per [stem cell]. [Calorie restriction] greatly ameliorates this loss of function with age."

Our stem cells are key to the repair of damaged tissue and maintenance of function in healthy tissue. They may also be a key to cancer, via damaged cells run amok, hence evolution has produced a system of stem cells and stem cell niches that winds down its activities with age and increasing biochemical damage. It shouldn't be a surprise by now to find yet another well-known decline in our biology that is slowed by CR.

If you want to learn more about calorie restriction, a good place to start is the link below. Note the litany of other health and biochemical improvements uncovered in research over the past few years:

http://www.longevitymeme.org/topics/calorie_restriction.cfm

The Prospects for Enhancing Autophagy

posted on October 21, 2007

Casual deathists are everywhere. I'm sure you all know someone who responds to the concept of healthy life extension with "I can't see why anyone would want to live past 100." This is what they have been taught throughout their lives, implicit in the way their peers and parents plan, act and talk. Perhaps "learned deathism" is a better term. A longevity revolution is right around the corner, yet we structure our lives in the same way our grandparents did:

There's nothing wrong with choosing not to strive for more healthy life, but I believe it's our responsibility to at least point out the lazy assumptions and false information that forms the basis of most casual deathism. Kevin Perrott, organizer of the Edmonton Aging Symposium, recently did a sterling job of this in a letter to the Globe and Mail, reproduced in this Fight Aging! post:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001332.php

THE PROSPECTS FOR ENHANCING AUTOPHAGY

Autophagy is the process by which damaged cell components are broken down to be recycled - a form of maintenance in the dynamic machinery of your body. Present evidence indicates increased autophagy to be one root of the health and longevity benefits provided by calorie restriction. More active maintenance should in theory mean fewer damaged components creating lasting harm in the cellular environment:

Scientists are now beginning to manipulate levels of autophagy independently of calorie restriction to establish the prospects for therapies:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001329.php

"As an application, intensification of autophagy, by the administration of antilipolytic drug, rescued older cells from accumulation of altered [mitochondrial] DNA in less than 6 hours. It is concluded that the pharmacological intensification of autophagy [has] anti-aging effects and might prove to be a big step towards retardation of aging and prevention of age-associated diseases in humans."

Damage to mitochondria - and their DNA, separate from that in the cell nucleus - is of particular importance. The following Fight Aging! post outlines how a comparatively small number of damaged mitochondria, your cellular power plants, could lead to widespread damage and degeneration throughout the body:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/000994.php

Safe repair of mitochondrial DNA is a big deal, however it is accomplished, as is the sight of ever more researchers writing openly about the defeat of aging

Business Building and Development Conference

posted on October 14, 2007

I wish you could have been with me last week. Please let me explain…

I attended a week-long conference for two reasons. First, my assistant went on his honeymoon then, and it was convenient for me to hole up and rest in a hotel for 5 days. Second, it gave me a good chance to spend some time with some friends who I hadn’t seen for a while. Oh and there was a third reason too… I figured I couldn’t help but pick up a nugget or two of valuable information.

Well, here’s what happened:

I didn’t get much rest. The conference started at 9 am each day and ran until almost 8 pm. And it was so captivating that I didn’t want to miss a word.
I hardly got to spend any time with my friends (See #1).
I picked up my nugget or two in the first 10 minutes. Five days and a whole tablet full of notes later, I looked back on the most insightful and valuable conference I ever attended.

Without going into detail, it was advertised as a business building and development conference. The organizer, Eben Pagan, walked nearly 200 attendees through the trials and tribulations he endured in building his business (and his incredible life) and how to shortcut them. Eben disclosed, step-by-step, how he built a business that triples every year. It already earns well over $2 million a month – and is still exploding. But there was more. Much more.

Why do I mention this in a life extension newsletter? Because solving the aging puzzle and delivering extreme life extension to you is as much a business and marketing challenge as a scientific one. Last week’s education is fast tracking that challenge for me. It could do the same for you, your project or your business.

If you’d like details, go to http://getaltitude.com

The Cost of Aging Illustrated

posted on October 8, 2007

The Milken Institute has provided another window into the staggering cost of aging with their latest work, focused on the economic cost of chronic disease:

http://www.chronicdiseaseimpact.com/
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001321.php

"Take a look a look at the major categories of chronic disease examined in the report website - almost all are age-related conditions. The greatest correlation for suffering chronic disease and associated costs is with age, with the toll of cellular and biochemical damage established across a lifetime of metabolic activity. But aging is always the elephant in the room when you're looking at the work of those close to the regulators.
Obvious, behind all the facts and figures, and absolutely unmentioned. That has to change if progress is to be made."

“The Choice of Living a Healthy, Youthful Life of Centuries and More is Inevitable"

posted on October 1, 2007

Death is NOT the natural order of things. Overcoming death is.

For conscious intelligent beings, indefinite life eventually becomes the natural order.

Every life form fights for survival. But until now, there was no hope for avoiding decay and death. In my humble opinion, the purpose of life is simply to keep on living, growing and thriving. Only with human intervention can we overcome death and achieve this. We humans, as an intelligent conscious species, finally thought our way to the threshold of open-ended life spans. Without intervention, every life form is doomed to personal oblivion. Evolved beings will always figure out how to survive.

I think about this a lot including Sunday afternoon a week ago when I attended an intimate discussion/brainstorm session. Some of my very favorite people were there. There were also some equally impressive quality people who I met for the first time. During the conference, and during discussions later with mostly new friends, I couldn’t help thinking about how they deserve to live indefinitely… and that our efforts just might insure they do. This was partly selfish of me, because I want open-ended time to develop new relationships with these fascinating people.

A common objection to living an unusually long time crossed my mind as well. It usually goes something like “I wouldn’t want to outlive all my friends”. This deathist phrase, at least to me, is the most illogical and idiotic reason for a death wish. First, if when we have a choice, and your friends choose to die, why would you let them drag you along? Second, if I can find some potentially cherished new friends in one afternoon, how many new friends do you think you could make in several more lifetimes? Granted, this was a select group that I was with a week ago. But they are certainly not the only interesting people in the world.

By the way, I didn’t hear anything but enthusiasm about the prospects for extreme longevity from this positive group.
________________________________________________

DNA DAMAGE AND TARGETING MITOCHONDRIA

"Does the accumulation of DNA damage in the cellular nucleus contribute to significantly to aging? How, if so? It is a topic for debate, with a weight of papers behind many of the consensus interpretations, but most of the community would answer 'yes' with some variety of qualifications. It isn't hard to find academic arguments for the role of DNA damage in most of the better known age-related degenerations. It's a matter of time, resources for research and scientific debate as to which pan out."

It is accepted that cancer is a consequence of DNA damage, but the relationships of other aspects of degenerative aging to accumulated mutations in our nuclear DNA are much argued. Is declining stem cell capacity with age caused in part by DNA damage, for example? A good question - and one that has yet to be answered in any firm manner.

Let's move on to your other DNA, contained in mitochondria, the power plants of your cells. Originally symbiotic bacteria, and now a vital cellular component, mitochondria have retained the functional portions of the ancient DNA they brought to the party. The weight of evidence for a connection between damaged mitochondrial DNA and aging is much greater than for nuclear DNA, and researchers are far closer to being able to do something about it:

"Your mitochondria are a source of a whole lot of biochemical trouble as the years go by. Damaged mitochondria proliferate in some cells and, like damaged factories, pollute the cells with excess reactive oxygen species and free radicals produced as metabolic byproducts. Each damaged cell then tries to maintain itself by exporting more reactive oxygen species and free radicals from its cell membrane structures, spreading the damaging pollution far and wide in the body. Repairing or replacing damaged mitochondria is one way to strike at the root of this process, and a number of groups are working on that. The SENS research program identifies a different and even more fundamental way forward: create a backup in the cell nucleus for specific mitochondrial processes that cause all these problems when damaged."

"Another approach that's out there in the field is to target antioxidant chemicals to the mitochondria, where they can be effective in soaking up some fraction of the excess free radicals before they wreck havoc.
Antioxidants in general don't seem to be terribly effective when simply thrown at our biochemistry. While making a difference, targeted antioxidants are clearly only a delaying tactic - as opposed to repair strategies that can be performed indefinitely. This is what medicine looks like at the base layer these days - a lot of organic chemistry, building molecules that tweak other molecular machinery in a particular way. Manipulating mitochondria to reduce their contribution to aging and age-related disease is a growth field; you'll be seeing a lot more of it in the years ahead."

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY ON AGING

"Brain aging is gradual brain damage. Some people think aging is wonderful and natural. That's tantamount to saying that brain damage is wonderful and natural."

Aubrey de Grey’s SENS Conference

posted on September 16, 2007

We’re seeing some serious progress in life extension research. Here are two projects that were announced at Aubrey de Grey’s SENS Conference last week:

http://blog.methuselahfoundation.org/2007/09/sens3_report_towards_mitochond_1.html

"Unlike most other parts of the cell, mitochondria house many of the genes encoding their essential proteins within themselves. These genes are vulnerable to the constant assault of free radicals produced by the mitochondria as a side-effect of their role as cellular power plants. When mitochondrial DNA is damaged, it cannot make the proteins needed to carry on the essential business of generating energy for the cell; the ensuing metabolic damage is the driver of age-related rise in oxidative stress. This oxidative stress fuels free radical damage and interferes with essential signaling pathways in cells far from the original site of the damage.

"PhD candidate Mark Hamalainen of Cambridge University presented the initial success in his Methuselah Foundation-funded work on allotopic expression, showing evidence that his allotopically-expressed genes could encode the relevant proteins and that these were taken up into the mitochondria. In this case, the genes encode healthy and defective versions of the protein that is miscoded in Neuropathy, Ataxia and Retinitis Pigmentosa (NARP), a hereditary mitochondrial disease characterized by blindness and weak and uncoordinated muscles. Well done! It is good to see Foundation-funded research make such solid progress; many thanks go to the generous donors who have made this possible."

http://blog.methuselahfoundation.org/2007/09/sens3_report_the_gift_versus_c_1.html

"In 2003, Dr. Zheng Cui and his colleagues at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University reported the discovery of mice with immune cells that rendered them invulnerable to cancer. Last year, Dr. Cui electrified the world when he showed that the new strain's cancer-fighting abilities were caused by a particular subset of their immune cells -- members of a class of white blood cell known as neutrophil granulocytes. These cells are from the innate immune system, meaning that they don't have to 'learn' to identify a narrowly-defined enemy, but are constantly on the lookout for broadly-defined 'foreign' cells.

"At SENS3, Dr. Cui presented the next logical step in his research: work demonstrating the existence of, and characterizing, high-potency cancer-killing granulocytes in humans."

Ending Aging

posted on September 10, 2007

Death is NOT the natural order of things. Overcoming death is.

For conscious intelligent beings, indefinite life eventually becomes the natural order.

By the way, I didn’t hear anything but enthusiasm about the prospects for extreme longevity from this positive group.
________________________________________________

DNA DAMAGE AND TARGETING MITOCHONDRIA

A THOUGHT FOR THE DAY ON AGING

"Brain aging is gradual brain damage. Some people think aging is wonderful and natural. That's tantamount to saying that brain damage is wonderful and natural."

Longevity Mutations Keep Rolling In

posted on August 12, 2007

Saturday evening, I enjoyed life extension and stem cell technology conversation and dinner at an incredible couple’s home. Their guests were incredible as well. Not only were they bright, well informed and enthusiastic about extreme life extension, but they were a mix of savvy and successful scientists and business people. The latter will have as much to do with your longevity as the former. Maybe more. You’ll see what I mean when you read the attached PowerPoint.

Since 2000, Maximum Life Foundation designed a scientific and financial roadmap to reverse the human aging process. The attachment illustrates an aggressive approach to solving aging in your lifetime. You’ll notice what a surprisingly small investment we think it will take. But we can back up our scientific and financial assumptions. Now it’s time to implement the plan.

LONGEVITY MUTATIONS KEEP ROLLING IN

Biomolecular researchers have been hitting their stride in recent years. At least half a dozen methodologies are now demonstrated to extend healthy life span in mice by 30-40%, all based on tweaking the operation of core components or systems of metabolism. Here's the latest, another single gene alteration.

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001282.php

"Genetic deletion in mice of pregnancy-associated plasma protein A (PAPP-A), a recently identified metalloproteinase in the insulin-like growth factor system, extends by 30-40% both mean and maximum lifespan with no reduction in food intake or secondary endocrine abnormalities. Furthermore, these mice have markedly reduced incidence of spontaneous tumors."

Where Biotech, Infotech and Nanotech
Meet to Reverse Aging by 2029

Longevity News 2007

Happy New Year!

A friend of mine celebrates his 69th birthday New Year’s Eve. So this will be his 69th New Year. For all practical purposes, it might as well be his last.

An Old Acquaintance

Last Monday I visited an old acquaintance. He is fairly famous… and very wealthy. He also has a passion for living a very long time. You might even call him an “immortalist”. I use that term loosely and prefer “indefinite youthful lifespan”

“Cryofeast”

Saturday was full of life extension activities. In other words, it was stimulating and lots of fun.

Tomorrow’s Extreme Life Extension Technologies

These “bridges” could be the difference between you suffering and dying according to actuarial predictions… or enjoying an indefinite youthful lifespan.

Life Extension Opinions

Wild Eyed Optimist Over Indefinite Youthful Lifespans

Longevity Workshop

Recent Age-Breaker Research

New Calorie Restriction Reearch

The Prospects for Enhancing Autophagy

Business Building and Development Conference

The Cost of Aging Illustrated

“The Choice of Living a Healthy, Youthful Life of Centuries and More is Inevitable"

Aubrey de Grey’s SENS Conference

Ending Aging

Longevity Mutations Keep Rolling In

Funding Anti Aging Research | Life Extension Projects |

Publications About Human Aging | Events to Reverse Aging | Longevity News

Where Biotech, Infotech and Nanotech Meet to Reverse Aging by 2029

Longevity News 2007

Happy New Year!

A friend of mine celebrates his 69th birthday New Year’s Eve. So this will be his 69th New Year. For all practical purposes, it might as well be his last.

An Old Acquaintance

Last Monday I visited an old acquaintance. He is fairly famous… and very wealthy. He also has a passion for living a very long time. You might even call him an “immortalist”. I use that term loosely and prefer “indefinite youthful lifespan”

“Cryofeast”

Saturday was full of life extension activities. In other words, it was stimulating and lots of fun.

Tomorrow’s Extreme Life Extension Technologies

These “bridges” could be the difference between you suffering and dying according to actuarial predictions… or enjoying an indefinite youthful lifespan.

Life Extension Opinions

Wild Eyed Optimist Over Indefinite Youthful Lifespans

Longevity Workshop

Recent Age-Breaker Research

New Calorie Restriction Reearch

The Prospects for Enhancing Autophagy

Business Building and Development Conference

The Cost of Aging Illustrated

“The Choice of Living a Healthy, Youthful Life of Centuries and More is Inevitable"

Aubrey de Grey’s SENS Conference

Ending Aging

Longevity Mutations Keep Rolling In

Funding Anti Aging Research | Life Extension Projects |

Publications About Human Aging | Events to Reverse Aging | Longevity News

Where Biotech, Infotech and Nanotech
Meet to Reverse Aging by 2029