Starting in on the Identification of Mechanisms by which Gut Bacteria Influence Aging
It is now fairly well established that gut bacteria have a degree of influence on the pace of aging, though just how much of individual variation can be explained in this way is still a question mark. The next step in the process of investigation is to identify the most significant mechanisms involved. This will no doubt proceed in much the same way as investigations of the mechanisms of calorie restriction and exercise, with researchers seeking ways to mimic the presence of favorable gut bacteria populations via pharmaceuticals. Just like those other parts of the field, this probably isn't going to result in therapies tha...
Source: Fight Aging! - August 23, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Evidence for RNA Quality Control to be Among the Determinants of Longevity
Cellular quality control mechanisms such as autophagy are observed to be influential in determining natural variations in longevity. Increased autophagy, meaning that cells are working harder to recycle damaged structures and proteins, is a prominent feature of many of the interventions shown to modestly slow aging in laboratory species over the past twenty years. As a further example, autophagy appears to be required for the enhanced health and longevity produced by the practice of calorie restriction. There are other forms of quality control process beyond autophagy, however, and here researchers provide evidence to sugg...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 14, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Searching for Similarities in the Biochemistry of Long-Lived Mammals
Portions of the aging research community study various long-lived mammals, such as naked mole-rats, bowhead whales, elephants, and Brandt's bats. In most cases research projects compare a long-lived species with another species that is similar but short lived; consider the many papers examining the differences between naked mole-rats and mice or rats, for example. Naked mole rats and mice are about the same size, but the naked mole-rats live an order of magnitude longer. The hope is that such large differences in life span should help to illuminate those areas of cellular biochemistry most important in determining the pace...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 7, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
Coverage of the Caenorhabditis Intervention Testing Program
The objective is to pick out methods shown in the past to extend life span in mice, and rigorously rerun those studies in order to obtain gold standard data that definitively proves or disproves effects on aging. Unfortunately the budget extends no further than a couple of interventions each year, and the focus is on paths that can do no more than modestly slow aging at best. It should really be considered an adjunct effort to the primary goal of mapping metabolism, not an effort to make meaningful inroads into producing treatments for aging as a medical condition.
Motivations to one side, the need for such a gold s...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 28, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
An Interview with Aschwin de Wolf on Cryonics at LongeCity
Aschwin de Wolf of Advanced Neural Biosciences and the Institute for Evidence-Based Cryonics (IEBC) is a noted advocate for cryonics as an industry and area of research. He was recently interviewed by the folk over at LongeCity, and as usual it makes for interesting reading. You might also look at a 2013 interview for more of the same, and in addition you'll find many articles at the IEBC site covering a mix of technical and non-technical topics in the the cryonics field. This is one slice of a great deal of technical writing and advocacy for cryonics published over the course of the past few decades, a fair portion of it ...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 22, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Healthy Life Extension Community Source Type: blogs
A Different Take on a Cellular Garbage Catastrophe in Neurodegeneration
The garbage catastrophe view of aging in long-lived cell populations with little turnover, such as those of the brain, is fairly well established. Over-simplifying somewhat, it is a downward spiral in which accumulated molecular damage and metabolic waste in cells makes their maintenance processes ever less efficient, which in turn leads to a faster increase in damage and waste. That ultimately leads to cellular senescence, or programmed cell death, or other forms of dysfunction. Here, researchers present a somewhat different take on a garbage catastrophe, one in which cells sabotage one another by ejecting waste and damag...
Source: Fight Aging! - February 15, 2017 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fewer Defects in RNA Splicing Linked to Multiple Ways of Slowing Aging
Researchers have found a common underlying mechanism that appears necessary for the modest slowing of aging achieved via a variety of methods, including calorie restriction and mechanisms related to the mTOR pathway. Since most aspects of cellular biochemistry influence one another, and most methods of slowing aging have (a) a very similar range of effects and (b) don't appear to stack with one another, it shouldn't be surprising that researchers continue to find shared underlying molecular machinery.
Researchers have linked the function of a core component of cells' machinery - which cuts and rejoins RNA molecule...
Source: Fight Aging! - December 7, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Answer to Case 405
Answer: < i > Trichuris trichiura < /i > (whipworm) < br / > < br / > As pointed out by Arthur V and the other readers, the shape of the adult worms (narrow anterior end, broad posterior end) and the eggs are characteristic for this roundworm. Note that there is both a female (second image, straight posterior) and a male (image, curved posterior) in this specimen. < br / > < div class= " separator " style= " clear: both; text-align: center; " > < a href= " https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-6COdV9gs64o/V5dhRIQwUJI/AAAAAAAAGEo/Cv_DvKYBmwkQdUPyQ7gxROzGHAIksOEDQCLcB/s1600/COW%2Banswer%2B1.jpg " imageanchor= " 1 " style= " clear: l...
Source: Creepy Dreadful Wonderful Parasites - July 17, 2016 Category: Parasitology Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, May 16th 2016
In this study the authors demonstrate that, as in many other cases, the methodology of delivery matters just as much as the details of the cells used:
Retinal and macular degenerative diseases affect millions of people worldwide. Similar to other neurodegenerative diseases, there are no effective treatments that can stop retinal degeneration or restore degenerative retina. Recent advances in stem cell technology led to development of novel cell-based therapies, some are already in phase I/II clinical trials. Studies from our group and others suggest that human bone marrow-derived mesenchymal stem cells (hBM-MSC) m...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 15, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
Negligibly Senescent Species in the Context of Longevity Science
This popular science article focuses on the study of negligibly senescent species in the context of work aimed at adjusting the course of human aging. There is at least one negligibly senescent mammal, the naked mole-rat, but it seems to me that attempting to mine benefits from other species and port them to humans is just another way to say we should re-engineer human metabolism to age more slowly. The past twenty years have demonstrated that this is enormously expensive and enormously challenging. Billions have been spent on trying to safely change just a few genes and proteins, and to try to better understand the modest...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 11, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 4th 2016
This study shows for the first time that increasing arterial stiffness is detrimental to the brain, and that increasing stiffness and brain injury begin in early middle life, before we commonly think of prevalent diseases such as atherosclerosis, coronary artery disease or stroke having an impact."
The study also noted that elevated arterial stiffness is the earliest manifestation of systolic hypertension. The large study involved approximately 1,900 diverse participants in the Framingham Heart Study, who underwent brain magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), as well as arterial tonometry. The tests measured the force of art...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 3, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs
An Interesting Theoretical Paper on the Nature of Aging
Today I'll point out an open acess theory of aging paper that I found intriguing, given that it represents a fairly different viewpoint on aging, seemingly assembled from portions of other mainstream views on theories of aging. Almost every faction within the aging research community would find parts to agree with, parts to reject, and parts that will make you think things through. If you have strong opinions on theories of aging, you'll probably get a lot out of it. The contents defy short summary, but the more important points seem to be the idea of aging as an absence of process, as a lack of maintenance systems, and a ...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 29, 2016 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Medicine, Biotech, Research Source Type: blogs
On Cryonics and Preserving the Mind
As this article points out, despite the fact that much is left to be determined in neurobiology, based on the current evidence and understanding it is reasonable to expect that cryopreservation of the brain via vitrification preserves the data of the mind. When considering cryonics as an end of life option this is the critical question: the whole point of the exercise is to prevent the pattern that is you from decaying away to nothing. While that pattern continues to exist, most likely encoded in the molecular structure of synapses, a preserved individual can wait for as long as it takes for technology to advance to the po...
Source: Fight Aging! - October 20, 2015 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs
The 2015 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for the discoverer of Artemisinin: A triumph of natural product pharmacology, not traditional Chinese medicine
Earlier this week, the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine was awarded to Youyou Tu for her discovery of the anti-malaria compound Artemisinin, as well as to William C. Campbell and Satoshi Ōmura for their discovery of a novel therapy for roundworm. Artemisinin, as some of you might know, is a compound derived from traditional… (Source: Respectful Insolence)
Source: Respectful Insolence - October 7, 2015 Category: Surgery Authors: Orac Tags: Biology Clinical trials Complementary and alternative medicine Science Artemisinin five elements herbal medicine malaria medicinal chemistry Nobel Prize pharmacognosy traditional Chinese medicine Youyou Tu Source Type: blogs
