Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 28th 2022
This study explored whether determining the gain or loss of specific taxa represent a more precise metric of healthy/unhealthy aging than summary microbiome statistics, such as diversity and uniqueness. We analyzed microbiome diversity and four measures of microbiome uniqueness in 21,000 gut microbiomes for their relationship with aging and health. We show that diversity and uniqueness measures are not synonymous; uniqueness is not a uniformly desirable feature of the aging microbiome, nor is it an accurate biomarker of healthy aging. Different measures of uniqueness show different associations with diversity and with mark...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 27, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Prodrugs As a Useful Approach to Targeting Distinctive Aspects of Cancer Metabolism
The goal of cancer research should be to produce a robust, highly effective universal cancer therapy, or as close to universal as possible. One treatment that can be deployed for every type of cancer, with a very good chance of inducing remission. Attempting to tackle cancer subtypes one by one based on their genetic peculiarities is simply not efficient enough to produce meaningful progress in our lifetimes. Further, most cancers are subject to high mutation rates, and in a sizable fraction of patients will prove to be quite capable of evolving immunity to any therapy that targets a non-essential aspect of cancer biochemi...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 23, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 21st 2022
In this study researchers added new insight, showing that high-intensity aerobic exercise, which derives its energy from sugar, can reduce the risk of metastatic cancer by as much as 72%. If so far the general message to the public has been 'be active, be healthy', now researchers can explain how aerobic activity can maximize the prevention of the most aggressive and metastatic types of cancer.
The study combined an animal model in which mice were trained under a strict exercise regimen, with data from healthy human volunteers examined before and after running. The human data, obtained from an epidemiological study ...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 20, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Does the Gut Microbiome Contribute to Frailty via Oxidative Stress?
The challenge in understanding degenerative aging is at this point less a matter of identifying mechanisms, and more a matter of establishing which of the many mechanisms involved in every specific aspect of aging are actually important. Cellular biochemistry is a complex interconnected web, and it is very hard to make changes to just one mechanism in isolation, so as to establish exactly its contribution. Now that biotechnology has advanced to the point at which near every biological mechanism is a viable target for intervention, it matters whether or not the research and development communities focus on the right targets...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 16, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Science Snippet: ATP ’s Amazing Power
ATP (yellow) powering a protein (blue) that moves material within cells and helps them divide. Credit: Charles Sindelar, Yale University.
Just as electricity powers almost every modern gadget, the tiny molecule adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the major source of energy for organisms’ biochemical reactions. ATP stores energy in the chemical bonds that hold its three phosphate groups together—the triphosphate part of its name. In the human body, ATP powers processes such as cell signaling, muscle contraction, nerve firing, and DNA and RNA synthesis. Because our cells are constantly using and producing ATP, each of us t...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - November 16, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Cells Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Molecular Structures Cellular Processes Science Snippet Source Type: blogs
Klotho Promotes Autophagy to Slow Vascular Calcification
Klotho is one of the few robustly determined longevity genes capable of altering life span in both directions in mice. A reduced expression of klotho shortens life span, while increased klotho levels lengthen life. Klotho has been shown to improve cognitive function, but investigation to date has suggested that it primarily functions in the kidney, and that kidney function mediates effects elsewhere in the body.
Today's open access paper is focused instead on the relationship between klotho and vascular calcification. Prior research on this topic has focused on the relationship between klotho and FGF23, but here the...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 15, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 14th 2022
In this study, we show that TXNIP is vital for the cell fate choice when cells are challenged by various stress signals. Furthermore, prolonged IGF1 treatment leads to the establishment of a premature senescence phenotype characterized by a unique senescence network signature. Combined IGF1/TXNIP-induced premature senescence can be associated with a typical secretory inflammatory phenotype that is mediated by STAT3/IL-1A signaling. Finally, these mechanistic insights might help with the understanding of basic aspects of IGF1-related pathologies in the clinical setting.
Investigating the Ability of Type 2 Diabetes...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 13, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Soluble Phosphorylated Tau as a Target in Alzheimer's Disease and other Tauopathies
The primary thrust of Alzheimer's research and clinical development of therapies remains the targeting of amyloid-β and tau aggregates. The failure to produce meaningful benefits in patients, even given reductions in amyloid-β and tau, is not shifting the focus of most research groups to other entirely different approaches, but rather to question whether the complexity of amyloid-β and tau biochemistry means that the wrong locations or types of these molecules were targeted by the immunotherapies used to date in human trials.
For optimal design of anti-amyloid-β (Aβ) and anti-tau clinical trials, we need to b...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 11, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, November 7th 2022
In conclusion, the national prevalence of dementia and MCI in 2016 found in this cross-sectional study was similar to that of other US-based studies.
Clearing Microglia Reverses Age-Related Disruption of Sleeping Patterns in Mice
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/11/clearing-microglia-reverses-age-related-disruption-of-sleeping-patterns-in-mice/
Microglia are innate immune cells of the central nervous system. They are analogous to macrophages in the rest of the body, but undertake additional duties relating to the function of neurons and in brain tissue. Microglia become overly active and inflamm...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 6, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
What Has Omics Data Taught Us About Dementia?
An enormous amount of biological data can now be obtained from any given study population, and at reasonable cost. The resulting databases have grown to become very large. The epigenome, transcriptome, proteome, metabolome, microbiome, and much more, are at the fingertips of every epidemiological researcher, at multiple time points, before and after interventions, and at different ages. It is easy enough to find differences in the data between more healthy subjects and patients suffering from one or more age-related conditions. It is a harder task to build upon that data in order to find useful therapies. Aging causes swee...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 4, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, October 31st 2022
This study used mice to evaluate how their lifestyles - eating fatty foods vs. healthy and exercising vs. not - affected the metabolites of their offspring. Metabolites are substances made or used when the body breaks down food, drugs or chemicals, or its own fat or muscle tissue. "We have previously shown that maternal and paternal exercise improve health of offspring. Tissue and serum metabolites play a fundamental role in the health of an organism, but how parental exercise affects offspring tissue and serum metabolites has not yet been investigated."
Researchers used targeted metabolomics - the study of metaboli...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 30, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Aubrey de Grey Establishes the Longevity Escape Velocity Foundation
Aubrey de Grey, co-founder of the Methuselah Foundation and later the SENS Research Foundation (SRF), funding the latter organization with $13M of his own resources to add to the donations of philanthropists, has over the past year separated from the SRF, for reasons that I intend to neither discuss nor have a public opinion on. Per his presentation at the recent Longevity Summit Dublin, he has now founded the Longevity Escape Velocity (LEV) Foundation in collaboration with the Ichor Life Sciences principals to continue to bring funding into the programs that he believes need to happen in order to unblock important lines o...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 28, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs
Back to Debating Limits to Human Life Span Again
While it is self-evident that longevity is limited in the practical sense, in that one or more degenerative processes of aging eventually make it so unlikely for survival to continue that everyone dies somewhere before age 120, that doesn't mean that longevity is limited in any other sense. If we alter the consequences of the underlying processes of aging, by repairing the damage that they cause, by changing the process, and so forth, then longevity will increase. While the authors of today's open access paper make generally sensible statements about the nature of aging, they seem far too skeptical that anything of practic...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 25, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, October 24th 2022
This study shows the uncoupling of lifespan and healthspan parameters (aerobic fitness and spontaneous activity) and provides new insights into SIRT3 function in CR adaptation, fuel utilization, and aging.
HDL Level, Age, and Smoking are the Largest Determinants of Mortality Risk in Old People
https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/10/hdl-level-age-and-smoking-are-the-largest-determinants-of-mortality-risk-in-old-people/
An interesting epidemiological study here stratifies the contributions of various metrics to mortality in later life, age 70 and older. The authors find that the largest effects arise...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 23, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
RNA Splicing Dysfunction in Alzheimer's Disease
RNA splicing is the process by which RNA is assembled from portions of a gene, joining exon sequences together while omitting intron sequences. Like all aspects of cellular biochemistry, RNA splicing runs awry with age in a variety of ways, and this is thought to lead to dysfunction in cells. Here, researchers dive into a very specific issue in RNA splicing that appears associated with Alzheimer's disease, though as always in this sort of research one has to ask whether the effect size is meaningful, and whether the animal models are decent reflections of what happens in humans. Mice do not naturally develop Alzheimer's, a...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 21, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
