68 posts · 17,619 views
Reports from the front line in the fight against aging. The science of healthy life extension. Activism and advocacy for longer, healthier lives.
Reason
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- March 15, 2010
- 07:59 PM
- 27 views
Regeneration in Mice Through a Single Gene Deletion
by Reason in Fight Aging!
You might recall the accidental discovery of unusually potent regeneration in MRL mice by Ellen Heber-Katz's team some years ago: Our laboratory has determined that the MRL mouse strain is unique in its capacity for regenerative wound healing, as shown by the closure of ear punches with normal tissue architecture and cartilage replacement reminiscent of amphibian regeneration as opposed to scarring. One line of research into regenerative medicine is based on understanding and then recreating in ........ Read more »
Khamilia Bedelbaeva, Andrew Snyder, Dmitri Gourevitch, Lise Clark, Xiang-Ming Zhang, John Leferovich, James M. Cheverud, Paul Lieberman, & Ellen Heber-Katz. (2010) Lack of p21 expression links cell cycle control and appendage regeneration in mice. PNAS. info:/10.1073/pnas.1000830107
- March 12, 2010
- 06:45 PM
- 41 views
Thymus Transplant Extends Life in Old Mice
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Amidst the preprint list of the Rejuvenation Research journal, I see an interesting paper I'd somehow missed: life span can be extended in old mice by transplant of a young thymus. Noninvasive Neonatal Thymus Graft into the Axillary Cavity Extends the Lifespan of Old Mice: Neonatal thymus grafts exert a rejuvenating action on various immunological and nonimmunological functions found altered in old mice. Commonly, half of a thymus is grafted under the kidney capsule. The invasiveness of the surg........ Read more »
Basso, A., Malavolta, M., Piacenza, F., Santarelli, L., Marcellini, F., Papa, R., & Mocchegiani, E. (2009) Noninvasive Neonatal Thymus Graft into the Axillary Cavity Extends the Lifespan of Old Mice. Rejuvenation Research, 2147483647. DOI: 10.1089/rej.2009.0936
- March 11, 2010
- 09:43 PM
- 46 views
The Conservative View of Progress in Applied Cancer Research
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Via FuturePundit, I see that a recent open access paper outlines the results of applied cancer research over the past four decades. Declining Death Rates Reflect Progress against Cancer The success of the "war on cancer" initiated in 1971 continues to be debated, with trends in cancer mortality variably presented as evidence of progress or failure. We examined temporal trends in death rates from all-cancer and the 19 most common cancers in the United States from 1970-2006. ... Progress in reduci........ Read more »
Jemal, A., Ward, E., & Thun, M. (2010) Declining Death Rates Reflect Progress against Cancer. PLoS ONE, 5(3). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0009584
- March 9, 2010
- 07:39 PM
- 49 views
Resting Metabolic Rate and Aging, Another of Metabolism's Complexities
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Metabolism, which might be broadly defined as the biochemical process of living, is absurdly complex. The way in which metabolism varies between individuals, and then changes over time with aging? Even more complex. This is one of the reasons why slowing aging by changing metabolic machinery - in effect creating a new human metabolism - looks very much like an inferior, harder path in comparison to attempts to restore the metabolism we have to the way it operates in youthful bodies. Complexity i........ Read more »
Luhrmann PM, Edelmann Schafer B, & Neuhauser Berthold M. (2010) Changes in resting metabolic rate in an elderly german population: cross-sectional and longitudinal data. The journal of nutrition, health , 14(3), 232-6. PMID: 20191259
- March 2, 2010
- 11:10 PM
- 53 views
Manipulating Fat in the Context of Slowing Aging
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Researchers have established to a more than reasonable degree that fat is important in longevity and aging. A compelling experiment in mice, for example, demonstrates that less visceral fat means a longer life. Then we have the link between fat and chronic inflammation, and the strong correlations between excess fat tissue and all of the common age-related conditions. Given all of this evidence, it shouldn't be surprising that at least some of those researchers interested in slowing down the agi........ Read more »
Enns LC, & Ladiges W. (2010) Protein kinase A signaling as an anti-aging target. Ageing research reviews. PMID: 20188216
- February 24, 2010
- 09:44 PM
- 51 views
Reversing Blindness in Retinitis Pigmentosa With Stem Cells
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Retinitis pigmentosa is an inherited form of slow degenerative blindness, in which essential retinal cells accumulate defects due to one or more mutated genes. Generating replacement, properly formed retinal cells to treat this condition is one of the longer-running initiatives in the stem cell research community; if you look back in the Longevity Meme archives, you'll see it mentioned in 2004, for example. It appears that researchers have now succeeded in restoring sight in mice: An internation........ Read more »
Wang, Nan-Kai, Tosi, Joaquin, Kasanuki, Jennifer Mie, Chou, Chai Lin, Kong, Jian, Parmalee, Nancy, Wert, Katherine J., Allikmets, Rando, Lai, Chi-Chun, Chien, Chung-Liang.... (2010) Transplantation of Reprogrammed Embryonic Stem Cells Improves Visual Function in a Mouse Model for Retinitis Pigmentosa. Transplantation, 89(5). info:/10.1097/TP.0b013e3181d45a61
- February 23, 2010
- 09:40 PM
- 56 views
The Body Does Work to Break Down Damaging Aggregates
by Reason in Fight Aging!
One of the causes of age-related degeneration and disease is the buildup of amyloid clumps and other forms of aggregated metabolic byproducts. A brief outline: As we get older, many different types of errant and unwanted proteins, the chemical byproducts of metabolism, build up and accumulate between our cells. Collectively these are known as forms of amyloid, a term that might be familiar to you in connection with Alzheimer's disease, but there are many other types of amyloid beyond that implic........ Read more »
Murray AN, Solomon JP, Balch WE, & Kelly JW. (2010) Discovery and characterization of a mammalian amyloid disaggregation activity. Protein science : a publication of the Protein Society. PMID: 20162625
- February 19, 2010
- 11:25 PM
- 74 views
The Latest on Mitochondrial Uncoupling
by Reason in Fight Aging!
I have written on the topic of mitochondrial uncoupling in the past, so back into the archives we go for a quick summary: Mitochondria are the power plants of your cells: they toil to turn food into ATP, used as fuel by the cell. In recent years, the eye of the research community has turned towards the process of mitochondrial uncoupling, whereby the processing of food is uncoupled from the generation of ATP. The result is less ATP and more energy in the form of heat - this is a part of the temp........ Read more »
Andrews ZB. (2010) Uncoupling Protein-2 and the Potential Link Between Metabolism and Longevity. Current aging science. PMID: 20158496
- February 17, 2010
- 07:24 PM
- 70 views
Journalists Are the in the Business of Gathering Eyeballs, Not Truth
by Reason in Fight Aging!
One of the nice things about writing online is that if you procrastinate on a topic for long enough, someone else will write that post for you. Often it will be far better than the one you would have turned out, had you been more motivated. The topic for today, and one I've been meaning to discuss for a while, is what happens to science when it passes through the mangler of journalism; in particular, what happens to aging and longevity science. Let me point you to a well-written reminder that pr........ Read more »
Passos, J., Nelson, G., Wang, C., Richter, T., Simillion, C., Proctor, C., Miwa, S., Olijslagers, S., Hallinan, J., Wipat, A.... (2010) Feedback between p21 and reactive oxygen production is necessary for cell senescence. Molecular Systems Biology. DOI: 10.1038/msb.2010.5
- February 3, 2010
- 09:19 PM
- 89 views
Looking Ahead to Mitochondrial DNA Replacement Therapies
by Reason in Fight Aging!
If you wend your way back through the Fight Aging! archives, you'll find a lot of material on mitochondria, mitochondrial DNA, and how accumulated damage to mitochondrial DNA contributes greatly to aging. The short version is this: Mitochondria are the cell's power plants, important in the operation of metabolism, central to the mechanisms by which metabolism determines life span, and implicated as the culprit in many age-related diseases. As described in the mitochondrial free radical theory of........ Read more »
Dani MA, & Dani SU. (2010) Improving upon nature's somatic mitochondrial DNA therapies. Medical hypotheses. PMID: 20116178
- February 2, 2010
- 09:12 PM
- 84 views
Spermidine and Another Vote For Autophagy
by Reason in Fight Aging!
For many years, up until fairly recently, life science researchers who talked in public about altering or reversing the course of aging found that this was a quick and effective way to destroy fundraising prospects. The mainstream institutions involved in grants are conservative indeed. So next to nobody said anything - in public at least. But times are changing. It has to be said that scientists involved in aging research are now becoming noticeably more comfortable about talking in public on t........ Read more »
Madeo F, Eisenberg T, Büttner S, Ruckenstuhl C, & Kroemer G. (2010) Spermidine: A novel autophagy inducer and longevity elixir. Autophagy, 6(1). PMID: 20110777
- January 28, 2010
- 07:47 PM
- 120 views
An Intriguing View of Alzheimer's Disease
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Alzheimer's research is a field in constant flux; no unifying theory of Alzheimer's biochemistry goes unchallenged, there are a great many such theories coming and going, and much remains to be discovered or proven. Conversely, so much money flows into Alzheimer's science that new results are constantly emerging to sway the picture in one direction or another. This is science at its messiest, which is usually also where it is most interesting, and most likely to soon deliver a firm, defensible t........ Read more »
Granic A, Padmanabhan J, Norden M, & Potter H. (2009) Alzheimer A{beta} Peptide Induces Chromosome Mis-Segregation and Aneuploidy, Including Trisomy 21; Requirement for Tau and APP. Molecular biology of the cell. PMID: 20032300
- January 26, 2010
- 09:42 PM
- 93 views
A Little More Heat Shock Protein Manipulation Work
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Last week, I posted on the topic of calorie restriction mimetics, with a focus on enhancement of autophagy and the operation of heat shock proteins as a path to extended longevity - or at least some repair of age-related cellular damage. Both autophagy and heat shock proteins contribute to cleaning up damage and dysfunctional molecular machinery in our cells, and are strongly implicated in the benefits to health and longevity provided by exercise and calorie restriction. As an addendum to that p........ Read more »
Neef, D., Turski, M., & Thiele, D. (2010) Modulation of Heat Shock Transcription Factor 1 as a Therapeutic Target for Small Molecule Intervention in Neurodegenerative Disease. PLoS Biology, 8(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000291
- January 22, 2010
- 09:20 PM
- 123 views
A Small Selection of Calorie Restriction Mimetic Drug Research
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Could a drug introduced in the 2010s be able to induce rejuvenation, the repair of age-related damage? To a very limited degree, yes. We would expect some types of drug, early and poor examples of which are presently undergoing investigation in the laboratory, to be able to stimulate the aged body to repair certain types of cellular damage and aggregate buildup that it would otherwise be unable to deal with - in other words to rejuvenate some aspects of cellular biology to their youthful states ........ Read more »
Onken, B., & Driscoll, M. (2010) Metformin Induces a Dietary Restriction–Like State and the Oxidative Stress Response to Extend C. elegans Healthspan via AMPK, LKB1, and SKN-1. PLoS ONE, 5(1). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0008758_id
- January 19, 2010
- 08:08 PM
- 147 views
Rapamycin Longevity May Stack With Calorie Restriction Longevity
by Reason in Fight Aging!
One of the more interesting frontiers in research aimed at slowing aging is the search for methods that complement calorie restriction rather simply recapturing a part of its benefits to health and longevity. To date, there hasn't been much in the way results on this count, but I think that this will change: that the number of ways to extend life in laboratory animals is expanding rapidly, as is the pool of funding for the field. You might recall last year's research demonstrating rapamycin to e........ Read more »
Bjedov I, Toivonen JM, Kerr F, Slack C, Jacobson J, Foley A, & Partridge L. (2010) Mechanisms of life span extension by rapamycin in the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster. Cell metabolism, 11(1), 35-46. PMID: 20074526
- January 13, 2010
- 10:44 PM
- 133 views
Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres: ALT 101
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Telomeres are the protective caps of material at the ends of your chromosomes. As normal somatic cells divide, telomeres become shorter and shorter until the lack of telomere length halts the cell division process - in effect this limits normal cellular replication. But stem cells, the source of our tissues during growth and maintainers of adult tissue, use the enzyme telomerase to keep their telomeres long, enabling them to divide long past the point at which somatic cells would halt. In additi........ Read more »
Basenko, E., Cesare, A., Iyer, S., Griffith, J., & McEachern, M. (2009) Telomeric circles are abundant in the stn1-M1 mutant that maintains its telomeres through recombination. Nucleic Acids Research, 38(1), 182-189. DOI: 10.1093/nar/gkp814
- January 4, 2010
- 09:58 PM
- 193 views
Methionine Restriction as the Cause of Calorie Restriction Benefits
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Diet is the key to a great many evolution-driven adaptations in the machinery of our bodies; changes in dietary intake cause the controlling mechanisms of metabolism to sit up and take notice. In particular, lowering the intake of calories by 30-40% or so, and while maintaining an optimal level of micronutrients, causes metabolic processes to operate in a mode that extends life and provides numerous other health benefits. Practiced as a lifestyle, this is known as a calorie restriction diet, and........ Read more »
Caro P, Gomez J, Sanchez I, Naudi A, Ayala V, López-Torres M, Pamplona R, & Barja G. (2009) Forty percent methionine restriction decreases mitochondrial oxygen radical production and leak at complex I during forward electron flow and lowers oxidative damage to proteins and mitochondrial DNA in rat kidney and brain mitochondria. Rejuvenation research, 12(6), 421-34. PMID: 20041736
- January 1, 2010
- 02:50 PM
- 165 views
An Update on Medical Bioremediation in the Latest Rejuvenation Research
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Bioremediation is the process of using plants and microorganisms (or aspects of their biochemistry) to restore a damaged or polluted environment. Medical bioremediation applies this same philosophy to the aging body - many aspects of aging can be thought of as having roots in damage and pollution at the level of our cells and cellular machinery. For example, as we grow older, the garbage removal and recycling functions in our cells are increasingly hampered by a buildup of metabolic byproducts a........ Read more »
Schloendorn, J., Webb, T., Kemmish, K., Hamalainen, M., Jackemeyer, D., Jiang, L., Mathieu, J., Rebo, J., Sankman, J., Sherman, L.... (2009) Medical Bioremediation: A Concept Moving Toward Reality. Rejuvenation Research, 12(6), 411-419. DOI: 10.1089/rej.2009.0917
- December 28, 2009
- 05:42 PM
- 165 views
Antipodean Pharmaceuticals and their Mitochondrially Targeted Antioxidant
by Reason in Fight Aging!
You might recall the work of Skulachev's research group in producing an ingested antioxidant compound that targets the mitochondria and extends life span in mice. Similarly, mice genetically engineered to produce more naturally-occurring antioxidants in their mitochondria also live longer. By way of comparison, all other forms of antioxidant examined to date generally do nothing for life span, and may even harm your health and longevity. The plausible explanation for the effects of mitochondrial........ Read more »
Rodriguez-Cuenca S, Cochemé HM, Logan A, Abakumova I, Prime TA, Rose C, Vidal-Puig A, Smith AC, Rubinsztein DC, Fearnley IM.... (2009) Consequences of long-term oral administration of the mitochondria-targeted antioxidant MitoQ to wild-type mice. Free radical biology . PMID: 19854266_id
- December 15, 2009
- 08:52 PM
- 181 views
Methuselah's Zoo
by Reason in Fight Aging!
Is the research community doing as much as it might to extract value from the diversity in life span amongst mammals? Certainly there are those scientist who would like to be engaged in a great deal more sequencing and biochemical deciphering of long-lived animals. But on the whole, I think that less is taking place in this area of study than might be. See this paper from a noted gerontologist, for example: As impressive as the accomplishments of modern molecular biologists have been in finding ........ Read more »
Austad SN. (2009) Methusaleh's Zoo: How Nature provides us with Clues for Extending Human Health Span. Journal of comparative pathology. PMID: 19962715_id
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