Big Pharma Senolytics Programs are Getting Underway
Biotech startups working in a new and credible field of clinical development only have a few years before large pharmaceutical companies take notice and begin to enter the arena. This shift in the competitive landscape is a good thing for patients, as a great deal more funding will be deployed to expand the space of possible therapies. Further, small companies with viable approaches are more likely to be acquired, increasing the odds that specific programs will continue through to clinical trials. It doesn't solve the problem of the burdensome regulatory system that slows all progress, but it does improve the odds of pushi...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 15, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs
Stopping osteoarthritis: Could recent heart research provide a clue?
Here’s a recent headline that I found confusing: Could the first drug that slows arthritis be here?
It’s confusing because it depends on which of the more than 100 types of arthritis we’re discussing. We’ve had drugs that slow rheumatoid arthritis for decades. In fact, more than a dozen FDA-approved drugs can reduce, or even halt, joint damage in people with rheumatoid arthritis. We also have effective medications to slow or stop gout, another common type of arthritis.
But the headline refers to osteoarthritis, the most common type of arthritis. And currently, no medications can safely and reliably slow the pace of...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - October 15, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Robert H. Shmerling, MD Tags: Arthritis Health Inflammation Source Type: blogs
A Conservative View on Osteoarthritis, Failing to Mention Senescent Cells
This open access paper provides a conservative view on the state of research and development of osteoarthritis treatments. Some time is spent on the puzzling nature of inflammation in osteoarthritis, and the failure of immunosuppressive therapies used for other conditions to produce meaningful benefits in this case. Yet senescent cells - and their inflammatory signaling, shown in a number of animal studies to contribute to and even directly cause osteoarthritis - are not mentioned at all. This gives some idea of the mindset in evidence here: lines of research arising in the past five to ten years, and that have not yet pro...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 14, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, October 5th 2020
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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! - October 4, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Research Agenda for Aging in China
Today's review paper is a look at views on aging on the other side of the world, a counterpoint to commentaries from US and European sources. It is interesting to compare the intersection between science and policy in different regions of the world, when it comes to perspectives on degenerative aging, the enormous costs of age-related disease, and what is to be done about it. It is only comparatively recently that scientific advances have offered the potential for aging to become anything other than an inevitable, enormous cost to be suffered. Governments with entrenched and growing entitlement programs (such as the US Soc...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 30, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs
General examination – hands and feet
General examination – hands and feet
Cyanosis and pallor can be noted in the tips of the digits in both central and peripheral cyanosis. Severe jaundice may be visible in the palms and soles, especially in small infants.
Clubbing of digits may be noted in cyanotic heart diseases as well many other non cardiac conditions. In clubbing, initially there is fluctuation of nail bed (Grade 1) followed by obliteration of angle between nail and adjacent skin fold (Lovibond angle – Grade 2). Later there is curvature of the nails (parrot beaking – Grade 3). Grade 4 or hypertrophic osteoarthropathy is not common in cardiova...
Source: Cardiophile MD - September 22, 2020 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis Tags: HBC Heberden’s nodes Janeway lesions Lovibond angle Osler’s nodes Pitting edema Polydactyly Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, September 14th 2020
This study is the first to provide a direct link between this inflammation and plaque development - by way of IFITM3.
Scientists know that the production of IFITM3 starts in response to activation of the immune system by invading viruses and bacteria. These observations, combined with the new findings that IFITM3 directly contributes to plaque formation, suggest that viral and bacterial infections could increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease development. Indeed, researchers found that the level of IFITM3 in human brain samples correlated with levels of certain viral infections as well as with gamma-secretase activ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 13, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
A Meta-Analysis of the Ability of Exercise to Reduce Age-Related Mortality
The objective of this study was to conduct a systematic review and dose-response meta-analysis of physical activity and mortality in people with selected non-communicable diseases (NCDs). We aimed to define the dose-response relationship between post-diagnosis physical activity and mortality rates for nine NCDs with a high global burden of disease, including low back pain, type 2 diabetes (T2D), osteoarthritis, depressive disorder, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), breast cancer, lung cancer, stroke, and ischemic heart disease (IHD).
In total, 28 studies were included in the meta-analysis: 12 for breast ...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 10, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
We Should Actually Try to Treat Aging for a Change
I am generally in favor of the sentiment offered in this commentary on recent clinical trial failures for the first attempts to guide anti-aging technologies through the FDA gauntlet, which is that researchers and developers should be aiming to treat aging, not specific age-related diseases. There is likely to be a greater incidence of failure on the way to the clinic, and for entirely avoidable reasons, if everyone is attempting to force a more or less square peg into a more or less round hole.
Longevity trials: time to change the approach?
Following the recent clinical trial failures by Unity Biotechnolog...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 8, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Politics and Legislation Source Type: blogs
Approaches to Optimize Growth of Muscles in Response to Resistance Training in Old People
Muscle growth in response to resistance exercise is attenuated in older individuals, the result of much the same set of processes that lead to sarcopenia, the name given to the characteristic loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs with age. Resistance exercise is clearly still beneficial in later life, judging by the reduction in mortality risk that results, but can it be made more beneficial? Undoubtedly yes, given the appropriate technology to address the underlying root causes of degenerative aging, but all too few such technologies exist at the present time. The use of senolytic therapies to destroy harmful, infl...
Source: Fight Aging! - September 7, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The hardly hidden costs
Chronic/persistent pain management is not sexy. No-one gets a magic cure. Lives are not saved – at least not in a way that mortality statistics show. Chronic pain management is under-funded.
And now: buried in a list of other proposed service cuts in the local health board’s plan to save millions of dollars, is a proposal to “save” $650,000 from the pain clinic. You’ll note also reductions in community services, GP support for vulnerable, and healthy lifestyles programmes.
https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/122558278/hundreds-of-staff-nurses-and-services-may-be-axed-at-canterbury-d...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - August 30, 2020 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Chronic pain Interdisciplinary teams News Pain conditions Research Science in practice Uncategorized Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 24th 2020
We report that electrical stimulation (ES) stimulation of post-stroke aged rats led to an improved functional recovery of spatial long-term memory (T-maze), but not on the rotating pole or the inclined plane, both tests requiring complex sensorimotor skills. Surprisingly, ES had a detrimental effect on the asymmetric sensorimotor deficit.
Histologically, there was a robust increase in the number of doublecortin-positive cells in the dentate gyrus and SVZ of the infarcted hemisphere and the presence of a considerable number of neurons expressing tubulin beta III in the infarcted area. Among the genes that were unique...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 23, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Adenosine Injected into Arthritic Joints Produces Cartilage Regrowth
Researchers here provide evidence for injections of adenosine into damaged joint tissue to provoke meaningful degrees of cartilage regrowth in an animal model of degenerative joint disease. Finding ways to force the regrowth of tissues, such as cartilage, that normally exhibit little regenerative capacity is an important goal for the research community. Many varied approaches are presently under development; this one has the merit of being comparatively simple when compared to the more logistically challenging cell therapy and tissue engineering strategies.
Previous research had shown that maintaining supplies of ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 21, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Unity Biotechnology Fails Phase II Trial of Localized Senolytics for Knee Osteoarthritis
UNITY Biotechnology is the largest of the handful of biotech startups working on senolytics, therapies capable of selectively destroying a sizable fraction of the senescent cells that accumulate in old tissues. The company entered clinical trials with a first generation senolytic drug quite early in the development of this presently small industry, with so far only the Mayo Clinic and Betterhumans also running trials in humans. This week, UNITY announced the failure of a phase II study for knee osteoarthritis, an outcome that was half expected by some observers and competitors, but which will no doubt prove to be a burden ...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 18, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, August 3rd 2020
In this study, we examined the effects of oxytocin on the Aβ-induced impairment of synaptic plasticity in mice.
To investigate the effect of oxytocin on synaptic plasticity, we prepared acute hippocampal slices for extracellular recording and assessed long-term potentiation (LTP) with perfusion of the Aβ active fragment (Aβ25-35) in the absence and presence of oxytocin. We found that oxytocin reversed the impairment of LTP induced by Aβ25-35 perfusion in the mouse hippocampus. These effects were blocked by pretreatment with the selective oxytocin receptor antagonist L-368,899. Furthermore, the treatment with the...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 2, 2020 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
