20. February 2009 by admin.

I often feel like a lucky soldier participating in a long and deadly battle, a soldier whose closest comrades and friends are constantly being wounded or killed.  The battle, of course, is against the ravages of old age and the challenge is to stay alive and healthy.  All my relatives and many of my friends in my age cohort are already dead.  One of my closest college friends is going in for heart bypass surgery Monday; another has diabetes, has experienced unexplained heart stoppages and is having a pacemaker installed Monday; a close friend is having a hip replacement also on Monday; and two more friends are being treated for deadly cancers.  And the problems are increasingly with people 10-25 years younger than I am.  A son in law has already had two knee replacements and is scheduled to have a shoulder replacement.  I, on the other hand, have had a few less-serious orthopedic problems in the last 10 years like a rotator cuff tear from heavy lifting.  But I seem to be free of the debilitating diseases of old age – cancers, dementias, diabetes, cardiovascular problems, etc.  I just had my blood lipids and C-reactive protein checked and they all came in normal.  My annual physical exams are boring.   I ask myself is this the result of blind luck, having a good initial set of genes, or following my anti-aging regimens?  I clearly can’t say for sure.  However if I am as active, alert, productive and disease-free at the age of 109 as I am now at 79, I will then know the answer.   The anti-aging firewalls will get most of the credit.  And, by that time the firewalls should be far more sophisticated and enable me to keep going for a long additional time.  I am betting on it and have to be careful not to ruin the program by getting run over by a bus.

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20. February 2009 by admin.

This news item is retro rather than forward looking, being concerned with life re-creation rather than life extension.  Life-extension may pose ethical problems, but how about bringing an extinct near-human species back to life?  German scientists have finished identifying the genome of Neanderthal Man, now extinct for 30,000 years. Further, there is discussion of creating a new live Neanderthal male (or female or both) using available technology.  A modern human genome would be modified so that its DNA matches the Neanderthal version. This DNA would be inserted into a chimpanzee cell which would then be reprogrammed to an embryonic state, and then introduced into a chimpanzee’s womb.  The chimp would give birth to a Neanderthal humanoid.

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20. February 2009 by admin.

A well-written article relating mitochondrial health to the use of antioxidants and can be found here.  Mitochondria are particularly susceptible to oxidative damage and such damage is implicated in many debilitating conditions including  cardiovascular disease, stroke, Parkinson’s disease, Alzheimer’s disease, fibromyalgia, schizophrenia, dementia, bipolar disorder, epilepsy, retinitis pigmentosa, and diabetes mellitus.  I continue to strongly believe that there is a central role for anti-oxidants in an effective longevity regimen.  Specifically, Co Q-10. Alpha-lipoic acid and acytl-l-carnitine are important antioxidants for maintaining the health of mitochondria.  An additional report came to my attention today confirming how the use of antioxidants can  support mitochondrial health, this one originated at the Stanford School of Medicine. Blood samples from 20 patients with various mitochondrial diseases uniformly showed depleted glutathione, indicating a lowering of those patients’ antioxidant defenses.  Apparently, mitochondrial disorders generate large numbers of free radicals.  On the other hand, those patients taking antioxidant supplements did not have depleted glutathione, they found, indicating stronger antioxidant defenses.

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20. February 2009 by admin.

A reported study about free radicals is radical in its conclusions.  The study was based on disabling five genes in mutant Caenorhabditis elegans worms.  The study’s authors suggest that damage due to free radicals may not be a cause of aging but rather is a consequence of aging and suggest instead that the aging process may originate in the mitochondria.  See my discussion on the Mitochondrial DNA mutation theory of aging.  It would seriously upset the anti-aging establishment’s applecart if oxidative damage turned out to be only a symptom.  However, I hesitate to accept such a broad conclusion given the preponderance of evidence that exposure to strong oxidative stress, such as massive doses of radiation, generates the overt symptoms of aging.  Most likely we are dealing with a chicken-and-egg causative process here where it is both the case that oxidative damage contributes to aging and that aging contributes to oxidative damage.  And the mitochondria play an important role in mediating the aging process.  See the previous blog post as well.

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20. February 2009 by admin.

Stress may increase the rate of progression of the most malignant form of melanoma, according to a report on a study conducted in New Zeeland of 1600 people diagnosed with that disease.  Small wonder given what we know about stress and how stress-generated cortisol suppresses the functioning of the immune system. Of course, some of the stress may come from the diagnosis itself.  This study  points again to the importance of the substances in the anti-aging firewalls that encourage regular sleep and mental calm like l-theanine and melatonin as well as a relaxed mental attitude that takes any problems in stride.

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