A Perspective on the Coming Regulatory Shift to Approval of Drugs to Treat Aging
At some point, regulatory bodies that oversee the development of new medicine will accept that therapies can target causative mechanisms of aging in order to slow or reverse the progression of aging, and that there are viable ways to assess new treatments that treat aging. There is growing pressure from the academic community and longevity-focused biotech industry for the ability to run clinical trials to treat aging, rather than to treat one specific age-related disease. While inevitable, this change will take some years to come to pass, and likely require greater consensus in the research community on reasonable a...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 29, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs

Alfie Health ’ s New AI-Powered ObesityRx Platform Helps Determine Sustainable Weight Loss Approach for Patients with Obesity, Using Precision Medicine and Telehealth Support
With $2.1 Million in Funding, Alfie Health Reports a Cohort of 300 Patients Lost an Average of 10-15% of Body Weight over Nine Months of Following its Holistic Approach The AI Platform Analyzes Patient Data, Recommends Medication (or Combination Meds) Precisely Prescribed, as well as Behavioral Changes, and Provides Ongoing Telehealth Support With 42 percent of Americans now struggling with obesity, doctors and their patients are looking for a sustainable approach to weight loss. Currently, prescription medications known as the GLP-1 class of anti-obesity medications (such as Ozempic®, Wegovy®, Mounjaro, etc.) are becomi...
Source: EMR and HIPAA - July 21, 2023 Category: Information Technology Authors: Healthcare IT News Tags: Health IT Company Healthcare IT Alexander Singh Alfie Health Cleveland Clinic Cleveland Clinic's Bariatric and Metabolic Institute Dr. W. Scott Butsch GLP-1 Goodwater Capital Health IT Funding Health IT Fundings Health IT Investment Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, July 3rd 2023
In this study, cultured adipose-derived stem cells (ASCs) were derived from subcutaneous white adipose tissue isolated from mice fed a normal diet. We performed senescence-associated-β-galactosidase (SA-β-gal) staining, real-time PCR, and Western blot to evaluate the levels related to cellular senescence markers. The mRNA expression levels of senescence markers were significantly increased in the later passages of ASCs. We show that light activation reduced the expression of senescent genes, and SA-β-Gal in all cells at passages. Moreover, the light-activated ASCs-derived exosomes decrease the expression of senes...
Source: Fight Aging! - July 2, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Reviewing the Role of TFEB Upregulation in Approaches Shown to Slow Aging
Most of the varied approaches shown to modestly slow the progression of aging appear to operate through a small number of common mechanisms, largely involving the cellular response to stress. Some of those mechanisms will turn out to be more influential than others, though little progress has been made towards assigning relative importance to the various layers of the exceedingly complex reactions to heat, cold, restriction of nutrients, and other forms of mild stress that can produce beneficial outcomes. The most compelling evidence to date suggests that improved autophagy is one of the more relevant portions of th...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 28, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

What to do about problematic medication taking?
Welcome to another episode of BDI Briefs! Our aim with BDI Briefs is to take a brief look at important issues about the emotional side of diabetes.In this short discussion, Scott, Bill, and Susan explore problematic medication taking and what you can do about it. You may be surprised by some insights – I know I was! Enjoy! And please let us know what you think and what you’d like to hear more about. And remember to subscribe to BDI’s YouTube channel! Detailed show notes and transcript ...
Source: Scott's Diabetes Blog - June 21, 2023 Category: Endocrinology Authors: Scott K. Johnson Tags: Blog Posts Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 12th 2023
In this study, we investigated the effect of NXP032 on neurovascular stabilization through the changes of PECAM-1, PDGFR-β, ZO-1, laminin, and glial cells involved in maintaining the integrity of the blood-brain barrier (BBB) in aged mice. NXP032 was orally administered daily for 8 weeks. Compared to young mice and NXP032-treated mice, 20-month-old mice displayed cognitive impairments in Y-maze and passive avoidance tests. NXP032 treatment contributed to reducing the BBB damage by attenuating the fragmentation of microvessels and reducing PDGFR-β, ZO-1, and laminin expression, thereby mitigating astrocytes and microglia ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 11, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Looking Back at the Growth and Maturation of the Field of Aging Research
A great deal has changed in these last few decades in the field of aging research. From the 60s onward to the 90s, aging research was increasingly characterized by a philosophy of "look but don't touch", an effort to distance academia from the growing anti-aging industry and its hype. It made itself a backwater science in which talk of intervention was aggressively discouraged by leaders in the field. Starting in the 90s, with studies showing significant life extension in lower animals following single gene mutations, it became impossible to ignore the potential to treat aging as a medical condition in humans. Nonet...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 9, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 22nd 2023
Conclusions to be Drawn A High Fat Diet Accelerates Atherosclerosis Less Directly than One Might Suspect How to Construct Measures of Biological Age A Long-Term Comparison of Metformin in Diabetics with Non-Diabetic Controls In Search of Distinctive Features of the Gut Microbiome in Long-Lived Individuals Greater Fitness in Humans Implies a Younger Epigenome and Transcriptome Intestinal Barrier Dysfunction as a Feature of Aging in Many Species NAFLD as an Age-Related Condition Towards Sensory Hair Cell Regeneration in the Inner Ear Raised Leve...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 21, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

A Long-Term Comparison of Metformin in Diabetics with Non-Diabetic Controls
We examined longevity in type 2 diabetes (T2D) patients treated with metformin therapy and compared them to matched controls and T2D patients treated with sulphonylurea therapy. Looking at individuals over a period of up to twenty years we showed that T2D patients had shorter survival times after first treatment than matched controls. When the study period was artificially truncated, we found a statistically significant benefit of metformin therapy for longevity over matched non-diabetic controls within the first three years. However, this benefit disappeared when we looked over longer periods of time (after five years). ...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 15, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 15th 2023
In this study, we examined the average telomere length and telomerase activity, as well as the formation of telomere associated foci (TAFs) and the mRNA expression levels of the shelterin components in cultured primary cells of Spalax, a long-lived, hypoxia-tolerant, and cancer-resistant blind mole-rat species. We showed that with cell passages, Spalax fibroblasts demonstrated significant shortening in telomere length, similar to rat cells, and in line with the processes observed earlier in tissues. We also demonstrated that the average telomere length in Spalax fibroblasts was significantly higher than the average ...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 14, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Mitochondrial Dysfunction as a Feature of Neurodegenerative Conditions
Increasing dysfunction of mitochondria, the power plants of the cell, is a feature of aging. It is also strongly connected to neurodegenerative conditions. The brain is an energy-hungry organ, and anything that interferes with the supply of nutrients and their processing to power cellular operations is going to cause issues. In this review paper, researchers discuss the link between mitochondrial dysfunction and neurodegeneration, and go on to note a few of the efforts underway to produce pharmacological treatments capable of restoring greater mitochondrial function in aged tissues. Sadly all too few of these treatments ca...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 9, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, January 9th 2023
Fight Aging! publishes news and commentary relevant to the goal of ending all age-related disease, to be achieved by bringing the mechanisms of aging under the control of modern medicine. This weekly newsletter is sent to thousands of interested subscribers. To subscribe or unsubscribe from the newsletter, please visit: https://www.fightaging.org/newsletter/ Longevity Industry Consulting Services Reason, the founder of Fight Aging! and Repair Biotechnologies, offers strategic consulting services to investors, entrepreneurs, and others interested in the longevity industry and its complexities. To find out m...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 8, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

The Stage is Set for More Rapid Progress Towards Human Longevity in the Next Decade
Today's popular science article is a tour of a few of the higher profile lines of research and development relevant to treating aging as a medical condition. The state of the field has changed greatly over the last decade, not least of these changes being a vast increase in the funding devoted to clinical translation of age-slowing and rejuvenation therapies. Cynically, I suspect that it is the funding that ensures that the popular science press takes a more respectful tone than they did ten years ago. It is much harder to advance (in writing!) a knee-jerk dismissal of a field of science when billions of dollars of funding...
Source: Fight Aging! - January 6, 2023 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs

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

Further Discussion of the Poor Evidence For Metformin to Even Mildly Slow Aging`
The problem with metformin as a drug to slow aging is that the evidece to support that use is very poor. In animal studies, the results are very unreliable, and the Interventions Testing Program found no effect in its highly overengineered studies. Further, the existing human data is not supportive, taken as a whole. Even if we did want to cherry pick the better data and be hopeful, the effect size compares unfavorably with that achieved through regular exercise, and further appears to be only achieved in people with the abnormal metabolism associated with obesity and diabetes. All of the work that was done to convince the...
Source: Fight Aging! - November 24, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs