Cancer-Like Proliferation of Smooth Muscle Cells in Atherosclerosis
As an atherosclerotic plaque grows into a hotspot of inflammation and cell dysfunction in a blood vessel wall, it starts to draw in the nearby vascular smooth muscle cells that wrap the outside of the vessel. As researchers here note, these smooth muscle cells are altered by the plaque environment in ways that are analogous to the behavior of cancerous cells. They change, multiply, and accelerate the growth of a fatty plaque that will eventually rupture to cause a stroke or heart attack by blocking a downstream blood vessel. Atherosclerosis is the major cause of heart attacks and stroke around the world and occurs...
Source: Fight Aging! - May 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 22nd 2024
This study reveals a potential treatment for human mitochondrial diseases. « Back to Top A Population Study Correlates Air Pollution with Faster Cognitive Aging https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/04/a-population-study-correlates-air-pollution-with-faster-cognitive-aging/ A number of large epidemiological studies provide evidence for long-term exposure to greater levels of air pollution to accelerate the onset and progression of age-related disease. A few of these manage to control for the tendency for wealthier people to avoid living in areas with higher particulate air pollution, ...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 21, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

An Interview with Reason of Repair Biotechnologies on Reversal of Atherosclerosis
As some of you may know, I co-founded Repair Biotechnologies with Bill Cherman. The company is presently on the development of a gene therapy approach now demonstrated to rapidly reverse atherosclerosis in mice, the condition in which fatty plaques grow to narrow blood vessels and weaken blood vessel walls. One of the possible approaches to treating aging as a medical condition is to take the list of causes of human mortality, start at the top, and work down. Atherosclerosis is the single largest cause of death in our species, through the rupture of unstable atherosclerotic plaque leading to heart attack or stroke. The bur...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 18, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Daily News Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, April 15th 2024
In conclusion, although several clinical trials targeting SnCs are ongoing, various questions about the biology of SnCs remain open, resulting in a gap between molecular and cellular data. Concerning the need, initiatives such as SenNet aiming to create openly accessible atlases of SnCs should contribute enormously to the area. Advances in understanding the subcellular structure, the heterogeneity, and the dynamics of SnCs require the integration of molecular and cellular techniques with data analysis packages to evaluate high throughput evidence from microscopy and flow cytometry. It is also necessary to develop new equip...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 14, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

An Update on Reversal of Atherosclerosis at Repair Biotechnologies
As some of you know, Repair Biotechnologies is the company I co-founded with Bill Cherman back in 2018. We've been working on an approach to reverse atherosclerosis for much of that time, and matters have progressed through the stage of great data in mice to present preparations for a pre-IND meeting with the FDA. While excess cholesterol has long been understood to be important to the development of atherosclerosis, it turns out that circulating cholesterol bound to LDL particles is less important than the amount of localized excess cholesterol in the liver and blood vessel walls. Any localized excess of cholestero...
Source: Fight Aging! - April 11, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Longevity Industry Source Type: blogs

Why is the angiogram normal?
Written byWilly FrickA man in his 50s with a 15 pack-year smoking history presented to his primary care physician ' s office complaining of intermittent headache. He also complained of intermittent mild chest pain radiating into into both shoulders and his back, as well as occasional unexplained sweating. (Although radiation into the left arm is most classic for coronary ischemia, radiation into both arms is actually modestly more predictive). The primary care physician ' s note indicates low suspicion for cardiac ischemia, but " for completion, check troponin and ECG. " If an ECG was obtained in the office,...
Source: Dr. Smith's ECG Blog - March 17, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: Willy Frick Source Type: blogs

From passion to burnout: When a doctor ’ s love hurts
If only I had managed Mrs. Smith’s blood pressure better, she wouldn’t have had that car accident. If I had made the case for a statin better, Mr. Wu would not have had the diverticulitis episode. These types of thoughts have been with me for all of my decades of practicing medicine. Somehow, I’m supposed Read more… From passion to burnout: When a doctor’s love hurts originally appeared in KevinMD.com. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - March 14, 2024 Category: General Medicine Authors: Tags: Physician Primary Care Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 11th 2024
In conclusion, this Mendelian randomization study found that Streptococcus was causally associated with Bioage acceleration. Further randomized controlled trials are needed to investigate its role in the aging process. « Back to Top Considering the Mechanisms of Vascular Calcification https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/03/considering-the-mechanisms-of-vascular-calcification/ Harmful calcification of structures in the cardiovascular system proceeds alongside the development of the fatty lesions of atherosclerosis. Both disease processes are accelerated by chronic inflammation, but d...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 10, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters Source Type: blogs

Is It Worth Buying Dexcom CGM Sensors from Best Buy Health? The only way to know with certainty is to do the math!
Last autumn, on October 9, 2023, the electronics retailer Best Buy announced (seehttps://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20231009526652/en/Best-Buy-to-Sell-Continuous-Glucose-Monitoring-Systems/ for the press release) that it had started a mail order business called "Best Buy Health"https://wellness.bestbuyhealth.com/ which it said would sell CGM sensors among other products. Best Buy Health aims to sell more than just CGM sensors. Its LinkedIn page https://www.linkedin.com/company/best-buy-health/ describes the business this way:" Best Buy Health aims to enrich and save lives through technology and meaningful connections. ...
Source: Scott's Web Log - March 9, 2024 Category: Endocrinology Tags: 2023 2024 Best Buy Best Buy Health Costco Source Type: blogs

Request for Startups in the Rejuvenation Biotechnology Space, 2024 Edition
Investors focused on funding biotechnology startups tend to exhibit herd behavior, much like investors everywhere these days. Funding is primarily deployed towards fads and popular trends, not necessarily towards what makes the most sense, even if sometimes the sensible manages to align with the popular. These days that means drug discovery platforms with a strong computational component and partial epigenetic reprogramming. But even in this environment, the path to true success is to work on important projects that few other people are touching. Be the champion for a potential solution to a tough, high-value, comparativel...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 8, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Investment Source Type: blogs

Fight Aging! Newsletter, March 4th 2024
In conclusion, HSV (but not CMV) infection may be indicative of doubled dementia risk. « Back to Top Increased Dietary Leucine Activates mTOR Signaling in Macrophages, Accelerating Atherosclerosis https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2024/02/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...
Source: Fight Aging! - March 3, 2024 Category: Research Authors: Reason Tags: Newsletters 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

No, we can ’ t call OMT, as a re-vascularisation  procedure.
Hi, welcome Mr George, I just reviewed your records. You have three blocks in your arteries supplying the heart. Are they serious Doctor ? Not really, but one of them appear tight What should I do Doctor ? But, I am comfortable Doctor. You may be. But I am not .You need to undergo some re-vascularisation procedure . What do you mean by that Doctor ? It means either a percutaneous coronary intervention with a stent or CABG. Can I get my heart re-vascularised by drugs alone Doctor ? No we can’t . Hmmm , wait, we do have something called OMT/GDMT. Can you put on hold for some time Mr George, ...
Source: Dr.S.Venkatesan MD - February 25, 2024 Category: Cardiology Authors: dr s venkatesan Tags: Uncategorized Source Type: blogs

Whole Roasted Squash With Tomato-Ginger Chickpeas & Za ’atar
I read myself the riot act about 6 months ago, when my cholesterol level reached a new high. My doctor seemed nonplussed, perhaps because my cardiac calcium score was a perfect zero. But I was not happy. Yes, I had lost weight and was exercising, but to be honest, my heart belonged to cheese. And eggs. And ice cream. Something had to change. Breakfast was easy. The whole eggs (which I had been eating almost daily) were replaced by Starbucks Sous Vide Egg whites or oatmeal served with a side of chicken sausage. Lunches were yogurt or soup or vegan bean burritos or salad or tuna or peanut butter. I started snacking on nu...
Source: The Blog That Ate Manhattan - February 21, 2024 Category: Primary Care Authors: Margaret Polaneczky, MD Tags: Vegetables Butternut Squash Chickpeas vegetarian za'atar Source Type: blogs

Who to Blame for Health Costs: The Poisoned Chalice of “ Moral Hazard ”
By JEFF GOLDSMITH How the Search for Perfect Markets has Damaged Health Policy Sometimes ideas in healthcare are so powerful that they haunt us for generations even though their link to the real world we all live in is tenuous. The idea of “moral hazard” is one of these ideas.   In 1963, future Nobel Laureate economist Kenneth Arrow wrote an influential essay about the applicability of market principles to medicine entitled “Uncertainty and the Welfare Economics of Medical Care”.     One problem Arrow mentioned in this essay was “moral hazard”- the enhancement of demand for something people us...
Source: The Health Care Blog - February 8, 2024 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: matthew holt Tags: Health Policy Health Care Costs Jeff Goldsmith Kenneth Arrow Medicare Moral Hazard Source Type: blogs