Discussing the State of the TAME Clinical Trial, Metformin to Slow Aging
The TAME clinical trial, still not started, intends to assess the ability of metformin to marginally slow aging in humans. Back at the start of this initiative, it required a long process of negotiation on the part of the trial organizers with the FDA to produce an endpoint that was agreed upon to sufficiently represent aging. To my mind, the TAME trial initiative has already achieved what needs to be achieved: to get the FDA to agree that there is a way to run trials to treat aging. One doesn't actually need to run the trial, and there is in fact little point in running the trial. Metformin is almost certainly a marginal ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 16, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 8th 2022
In conclusion, aging research will benefit from a better definition of how specific regulators map onto age-dependent change, considered on a phenotype-by-phenotype basis. Resolving some of these key questions will shed more light on how tractable (or intractable) the biology of aging is. Does Acarbose Extend Life in Short Lived Species via Gut Microbiome Changes? https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/08/does-acarbose-extend-life-in-short-lived-species-via-gut-microbiome-changes/ Acarbose is one of a few diabetes medications shown to modestly slow aging in short-lived species. Researchers here take a...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 7, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Are Pharmacological Approaches to Slow Aging in Fact Promising?
Today's open access review paper looks over a selection of what I would consider to be largely unpromising small molecules, each with evidence for their ability to slow aging, but very modestly and unreliably in most cases. Looking at the bigger picture, for much of the public it is still surprising to hear that the pace of aging can be adjusted via any form of therapy, so there is probably a role for simple, low-cost small molecule drugs in the process of education that leads to more serious efforts aimed at producing the means of human rejuvenation. Still, entirely too much effort is devoted towards small molecules that ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 3, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 20th 2022
This study showed a negative relationship between the gaps and the number of senescence cells. Moreover, we found a similar reduction in 30-month-old naturally and 7-month-old D-gal-induced aging rats. Given these consistent data from different eukaryotic organisms, it suggests that the Youth-DNA-GAP is a marker of phenotype-related aging degree Towards Scaffold-Based Regeneration of Dental Pulp https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/06/towards-scaffold-based-regeneration-of-dental-pulp/ Researchers are working towards the ability to regenerate the dental pulp inside teeth. Full regeneration of teeth ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 19, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

On the Large Scale Plans of the Hevolution Foundation
This article is a decent high level summary of what may or may not come to pass via the Hevolution Foundation as a vehicle for the deployment of sovereign wealth into geroscience. The present accelerating trajectory for increased funding of translational aging research is clearly heading in this direction. Consider the few billion in funding devoted to reprogramming in just the last year or two. If not Saudi Arabia, then other countries will sooner or later devote large-scale funding towards the treatment of aging, in the hopes that it will prevent the collapse of entitlement systems due to the rising average age of the po...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 14, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 13th 2022
In conclusion, long-term cumulative BP was associated with subsequent cognitive decline, dementia risk, and all-cause mortality in cognitively healthy adults aged ≥50 years. Efforts are required to control long-term systolic BP and pulse pressure and to maintain adequate diastolic BP. Longer-Lived Mammals Tend to Have Lower Expression of Inflammation-Related Genes https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/06/longer-lived-mammals-tend-to-have-lower-expression-of-inflammation-related-genes/ Researchers here make a few interesting observations on gene expression data from a range of mammalian species with...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 12, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

A High Level Tour of the Landscape of Alzheimer's Drug Development
The brain is a very complex organ, and thus the age-related failures of brain function also tend to be very complex. Alzheimer's disease receives the greatest attention from the research community, but is still only partially understood. The major focus of efforts over the past two decades has been on the clearance of amyloid-β aggregates from the brain, largely via immunotherapies, but a few other approaches have surfaced as well. Only in the past few years has this effort achieved success and resulted in large reductions in amyloid-β in patient brains, but unfortunately this did not result in a reversal of symptoms. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 9, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, June 6th 2022
This study examines evidence suggesting that mitochondrial dysfunction plays a significant early impact on AD pathology. Although mitochondrial dysfunction is a typical indication of Alzheimer's disease, it is unclear whether the cellular systems that maintain mitochondrial integrity malfunction, aggravating mitochondrial pathology. Different levels of vigilance and preventive methods are used to reduce mitochondrial damage and efficiently destroy faulty mitochondria to maintain the mitochondrial equilibrium. The form and function of mitochondria are regulated by mitochondrial fusion and fission. In contrast, mitoch...
Source: Fight Aging! - June 5, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Navitoclax is Better than Dasatinib and Quercetin at Clearing Senescent Cells Produced by Radiotherapy
It is now well known that many of the negative consequences resulting from chemotherapy and radiotherapy are mediated by a raised burden of senescent cells. One of the goals of cancer therapy is to drive cancerous cells into senescence: better to have senescent cells than cancerous cells! Nonetheless, gaining a greater burden of senescent cells is literally accelerated aging, as these additional senescent cells actively degrade tissue function and create chronic inflammation via their secretions. Thus senolytic therapies should be of great benefit to cancer survivors, removing this harmful side-effect of cancer therapy. ...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 30, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Enhancing Mitochondrial Function in the Context of Age-Related Macular Degeneration
Retinal degeneration is a prevalent issue in later life, and age-related macular degeneration is the poster child for this class of conditions. It is irreversible at present, setting aside a few technology demonstrations of gene therapies and cell therapies, but researchers are seeking cost-effective ways to at least slow it down. Mitochondria are the power plants of the cell, responsible for packaging energy store molecules to power cellular processes. They also generate potentially harmful free radicals while doing so. Mitochondrial function declines with age, less packaging and more free radicals, and this contributes t...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 30, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 11th 2022
In conclusion, plasma levels of IGHA2, APOA and HPT are associated with subclinical atherosclerosis independently of traditional risk factors and offers potential to predict this disease. The panel could improve primary prevention strategies in areas where imaging is not available. A Lesser Diversity of Circulating Antibodies in the Aging Killifish Immune System https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2022/04/a-lesser-diversity-of-circulating-antibodies-in-the-aging-killifish-immune-system/ Short-lived killifish are one of the more recently adopted animal models of aging. All such models are a trade-off bet...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 10, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Arguing for More, and More Rigorous, Drug Repurposing Efforts to Slow Aging
The authors of today's open access paper argue for much greater effort to be directed towards the repurposing of existing drugs with the goal of slowing aging. I have mixed feelings about the prevalence of drug repurposing in the pharmaceutical industry. The FDA makes it so very expensive to introduce any new drug that industry of course responds to the incentives and spends a great deal of time digging through the existing library of approved drugs in search of those that can be used in different circumstances. It is a great deal easier to take a drug with established safety data and seek approval for a new use than it is...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 7, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Collecting Data on People Using Rapamycin Off-Label in the Context of Aging
There are, it is thought, enough people out there using rapamycin in the belief that it will meaningful slow aging to start a survey. The Impetus Grants project funded such a survey, to be conducted by academics already involved in the Dog Aging Project, also focused in part on the effects of rapamycin. As an mTOR inhibitor, rapamycin produces some of the same beneficial effects on metabolism and health as result from the practice of calorie restriction, meaning upregulated cell stress responses, particularly autophagy, and slowed aging - at least in mice, where this has been robustly studies. It remains an open question a...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 5, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 4th 2022
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! - April 3, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

A Taxonomy of Degree of Effort in Undertaking Interventions to Slow or Reverse Aging
The urge to create taxonomies is very human, almost reflexive. We make lists, divide things up into buckets and categories. I'm not entirely convinced that there is yet the need to do this when it comes to personal efforts to slow or reverse aging, but that opinion certainly isn't going to stop people from publishing their thoughts on the matter. Today's open access paper is an example, in which a few arbitrary lines in the sand are drawn, and the spectrum of present day efforts to live longer is divided into five broad categories. The one point that makes it, I think, hard to take any given taxonomy seriously is th...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 1, 2022 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs