31. January 2009 by admin.

More research progress on telomerase

Telomerase is the wonderful enzyme that offers the possibility of stopping and reversing the aging clock in cells.  Astragaloside IV, one of the key firewall substances in the anti-aging regimen, is intended to activate telomerase. The central known action of telomerase is to lengthen telomeres, the end-segments of chromosomes.  Telomeres naturally shorten ever time a cell divides.  When telomeres get too short cell-senescense sets in resulting in cancers and other bad stuff like organ degeneration.  Through activated telomerase expression, cell and possibly organ immortality and much longer lives might be achieved.  At least that is the hope.  However the protein structure and exact mode of action of telomerase is still only partially understood, even after being the subject of intense study for over a dozen years now.

Telomerase is a very complex enzyme containing many proteins which serve various functions.  See the discussions about it in the Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise.  This week, discovery of a new protein called TCAB1 was reported by researchers at Stanford University. The protein seems essential for the complex process of binding new ends to telomeres to take place.  Roughly speaking, TCAB1 is required for transportation of the telomere proteins to chromosome ends.  While the research is motivated by a desire to inhibit telomerase expression as a means of controlling cancers rather than promote it, the knowledge is equally applicable to understanding of cell aging.   This is another small piece in the immense puzzle that is slowly revealing the detailed mechanisms of aging and the possible interventions against it.

Mating with a female and male sexual longevity

There seems to be no end to the things that can contribute to aspects of “normal” longevity.  One of the latest reported this week is a study done at the University of Pennsylvania School of Veterinary Medicine that shows for mice at least, living and mating with a female adds up to 20% in the longevity of fertility of males – up to 6 months longer which is a very long time in the life of a mouse.  Apparently, co-habiting with a female generates signals that upregulate genes and hormones to make this possible.  Whether the same phenomenon applies to humans is not known.  I personally suspect it does, and if so several years of increased male human fertility could be involved.  As my readers know, I am concerned both with normal human longevity and longevity that could possible double or triple our normal life spans.

Aging and Testosterone in men

One of the theories of aging covered in my Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise is decline of hormone levels with age.  Testosterone level declines in men with age as do levels of other hormones.  I ran across a blog entry this week that provides a short but concise description of this phenomenon and its varied negative consequences.  As readers of my treatise will recall, the central elements of my firewall against age-related declines in hormone levels is supplementation with “mother” hormones which the body converts into various “daughter” hormones including testosterone.  The two central “mother” hormone supplements I suggest taking are pregnenalone and DHEA. Many of the other lifestyle and supplement suggestions in the treatise also impact on hormone and testosterone expression.  Regular exercise is an example.  If we are like mice, regular sex may help too.

Getting to living really long

I have Google report to me all news items  on “longevity” on a daily basis.  Each day produces around a dozen new items.  There seems no end to me to things that are reported to increase normal longevity: prayer, clean air, pure water, kindness to others, good friends, good mental attitude, Ayruvadic herbs, meditation, red wine, gogi berries, acai berries, walking, running, pomegranate juice, living on top of a mountain, avoiding prescription drugs and radiation, lots of fish, living in Okinawa, telling jokes, intellectual activities, regular sex, etc. etc.   All of these things might help you and I get to 115 if we also have luck of the genetic draw – but that is about it.  To get to where we can live up to 200, 300 or more years, we need to turn to the unknown, the emerging.  That is, we have to look to the stream of new discoveries in molecular biology and that is where my mind is going.  For example, I want to develop a deeper understanding of the various longevity genes and actions of proteins like AKT which seem to play a role in both stem cell proliferation and programmed cell death.  So, updates to my Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise will likely become more and more technical.  I will report on what I am discovering in the treatise and will occasionally highlight items here in this blog.  Meanwhile as to the conventional wisdom of aging, I have constantly to remind myself that since I want to live to 230 I have to live to 115 first.  That requires I pay a lot of attention during the next 20 years (through age 99 for me) to the conventional wisdom of longevity as well as to the newer longevity regimens I am continuing to evolve.

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22. January 2009 by admin.

Looks line our old friends telomeres, caps at the ends of chromosomes, are showing up in new contexts all over the place.  Theory 12 in the Anti-Aging Firewalls treatise, you will recall, is that aging is measured if not caused by shortening of the telomere caps due to progressive cell divisions throughout life.  When the caps get too short with age the cell can no longer reliably reproduce so it dies or settles into grumpy senescence or does evil stuff like causing cancers.  This week,  it is reported that defects in a single gene related to telomere length and stability leads to susceptibility to at least five different kinds of cancers.  The cancers involved include basal cell carcinoma, melanoma and cancers of the lung, bladder, prostate and cervix.

Perhaps the greatest historical strides in population longevity have been related to public health -  sewage systems, cleaner water, sanitation measures and the like.  A recent study by Harvard School of Public Health and Brigham Young University researchers points to the importance of good air quality. It appears that improvements in air quality in the US, particularly in cities, added about five months to life expectancy in the U.S. over twenty years.  I speculate a lot more average life expectancy can be achieved through assuring availability of pure air and pure water to all.

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