Particulate Air Pollution Correlates with Risk of Alzheimer's Disease
Researchers here use data on air pollution from a single US metropolitan area to show a correlation with Alzheimer's disease risk. Air pollution is shown to increase chronic inflammation via the interaction of particulates with lung tissue, and inflammation is an important component of the onset and progression of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. That said, the researchers were primarily interested in traffic as a source of particulate air pollution, and one might think that this introduces a correlation with wealth, given the usual distribution of cost of living versus proximity to major flows of ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 29, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Mitochondrial Uncoupler BAM15 Modestly Extends Life in Flies
In conclusion, BAM15-mediated restriction of bioenergetic efficiency prolongs life span and health span in Drosophila fed a ND or HFD. Improvements in life span and health span in ND were supported by synergistic enhancement of muscular redox capacity. Link: https://doi.org/10.1111/acel.14107 (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - February 29, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Why Don't Biotech Investors Run Replication Studies Before Investing?
Ichor Life Sciences is one of the earliest longevity industry companies, an interesting mix of contract research organization (CRO), biotech working on several different therapeutics, and investor in very early stage biotech startups. One of the Ichor co-founders here offers an interesting, though possibly biased perspective on how investors should behave in the biotech space. Inside companies, every new development program in the biotech industry starts with an attempt to replicate the research results that form the basis for the program, even given the existence of detailed, published papers and a coven of accessible res...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 28, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs

Amie Fornah Sankoh Achieves a Scientific Dream
Credit: LinkedIn. “I wanted to give up so many times. Although I tried to remain positive, I never thought I’d be able to finish my Ph.D. But I made it, and I’m extremely proud of myself,” says Amie Fornah Sankoh, Ph.D., a research scientist with Dow Chemical Company who received NIGMS support as a graduate student. Human and Plant Communication Dr. Sankoh has loved science and mathematics since she was just a child growing up in Sierra Leone. When she was 3 years old, Dr. Sankoh became deaf from a childhood disease. Math, unlike other subjects, is very visual, which played a part in her interest in it. “...
Source: Biomedical Beat Blog - National Institute of General Medical Sciences - February 28, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Chrissa Chverchko Tags: Being a Scientist Chemistry, Biochemistry and Pharmacology Profiles Training Source Type: blogs

Aged Pancreatic Fibroblasts Secrete GDF-15, Encouraging Tumor Growth
Researchers here note one of a broad range of examples in which age-related changes in the state and behavior of non-cancerous cells results in a more hospitable environment for the growth of neighboring cancerous tissue. Cancer is an age-related condition not just because of increased damage to cells in older tissues, nor just because the immune system falters in its surveillance of potentially cancerous cells, but also due to other maladaptive changes that favor the metabolism and growth of some forms of cancerous cells. A new study provides clues as to why pancreatic cancer is more common and aggressive in olde...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 28, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

MDM2 Inhibition Reduces Loss of Synapses in a Cell Culture Model
Loss of synaptic connections between neurons is one of the harmful outcomes of neurodegenerative conditions such as Alzheimer's disease. In mouse models of Alzheimer's disease engineered to produce amyloid-β, excessive pruning of synapses is thought to be a maladaptive response to the presence of misfolded amyloid-β. Investigating the details of this excessive pruning in cell cultures, researchers have found a way to interfere in the signaling involved. At least in vitro there are positive results, but it remains to be seen as to how well this approach will work in the animal models of Alzheimer's disease. Resea...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 28, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

An Update on Progress Towards Treating Atherosclerosis at Cyclarity
Today I'll point out an interview with one of the Cyclarity Therapeutics founders, illustrative of the degree to which biotech companies are at the mercy of regulators once they arrive at the clinical stage of development. Cyclarity, formerly Underdog Pharmaceuticals, is a spin-out from the SENS Research Foundation, an organization that aims to clear roadblocks in the translational research needed for the production of rejuvenation therapies. The program that led to Cyclarity was focused on finding a way to clear 7-ketocholesterol from the body. 7-ketocholesterol is a form of oxidized cholesterol, created as a result of ox...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 27, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs

The Gut Microbiome and Alzheimer's Disease
The balance of microbial populations making up the gut microbiome changes with age, both a loss of microbes generating beneficial metabolites and an increase in the number of inflammatory microbes. Separately from this harmful process, a number of studies have shown that that aged gut microbiome is distinctly different in patients with Alzheimer's disease, suggesting that there may be a meaningful contribution to disease onset and progression arising from the gut. The precise mechanisms involved have yet to be identified. While inflammation has an important role in Alzheimer's disease, the contribution of an Alzheimer's-li...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 27, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Repeated Cycles of a Fasting-Mimicking Diet Reduce Measures of Biological Age
We report on the secondary outcome measures of the FMD-trial (NCT02158897) which are biomarkers associated with aging or age-related diseases, and metabolic syndrome, including visceral and hepatic fat, lymphoid/myeloid ratios, and blood markers, which were not investigated in the original report. We show that 3 FMD cycles in adult study participants are associated with reduced insulin resistance and other pre-diabetes markers, lower hepatic fat (as determined by magnetic resonance imaging), and increased lymphoid to myeloid ratio, an indicator of immune system age. Based on the Klemera-Doubal measure of biological a...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 27, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Telomere Length as a Target for Therapy
Average telomere length in a tissue is some reflection of (a) stem cell activity and (b) pace of cell division. Telomeres, repeated DNA sequences at the ends of chromosomes, lose some of their length with each cell division, and cells self-destruct or become senescent when telomeres become too short. This limits the ability of somatic cells to replicate, reducing the odds that a given cell will mutate to become cancerous by imposing a limit on cell activity and cell life span, enforcing turnover of cells in tissues. Stem cells, in comparison, are a small, well protected, privileged set of cell populations that use telomera...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 26, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs

Increased Dietary Leucine Activates mTOR Signaling in Macrophages, Accelerating Atherosclerosis
Leucine is an essential amino acid, only obtained from the diet rather than synthesized by our cells. Leucine supplementation has been proposed as a way to slow the loss of muscle mass with age, as leucine processing becomes dysregulated with aging in a way that can be compensated for by adding more leucine to the diet. Whether this actually works is a matter for debate; the evidence is mixed. The question is never whether the mechanism exists, the question is whether it has a large enough effect size to matter. Given this impetus for a greater intake of dietary leucine in later life, it is interesting to see the re...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 26, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Herpes Simplex Infection Doubles the Later Risk of Dementia
In conclusion, HSV (but not CMV) infection may be indicative of doubled dementia risk. Link: https://doi.org/10.3233/JAD-230718 (Source: Fight Aging!)
Source: Fight Aging! - February 26, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, February 26th 2024
In conclusion, mTORC1 signaling contributes to the ISC fate decision, enabling regional control of intestinal cell differentiation in response to nutrition. « Back to Top Reviewing the Development of Senotherapeutics to Treat Aging https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/02/reviewing-the-development-of-senotherapeutics-to-treat-aging/ Senescent cells accumulate with age and contribute meaningfully to chronic inflammation and degenerative aging. Destroying these cells produces rapid and sizable reversal of age-related diseases in mice, demonstrating that the presence of senescence cells ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 25, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

An Update on Kimer Med, Improving on the DRACO Antiviral Technology and Moving Towards the Clinic
The state of anti-viral therapies isn't that great, all things considered. Technology has not yet advanced to the point at which a viral infection can be simply shut down, as is the case for near all bacterial infections. The present anti-viral drugs are either vaccines (useful!) or merely shift the odds somewhat by interfering in some part of the viral life cycle, but nowhere near as effectively as desired. Many persistent viral infections are thought to contribute meaningfully to forms of age-related dysfunction, and there is too little that can be done about that at the present time. This landscape is one of the ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 23, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs

Correlations with Mortality in Levels of Proteins Secreted by Senescent Cells
Here, researchers investigate correlations between late life mortality and levels of specific proteins produced by senescent cells as a part of the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP). While looking over the paper, it is worth bearing in mind that circulating levels of many of the molecules thought to be important components of the SASP do not appear to correlate well with senescent cell burden. Why this is the case remains to be understood on a molecule by molecule basis, but note that many of the SASP molecules are widely used for signaling by other cell types and in other circumstances. A robust an...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 23, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs