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POPSPotential Alzheimer's, Parkinson's Cure Found In Century-old Drug Also impressed is one of Dr. Atamna's co-authors, Bruce Ames, PhD, a senior scientist at Children's and world-renowned expert in nutrition and aging. "What we potentially have is a wonder drug." said Dr. Ames. "To find that such a common and inexpensive drug can be used to increase and prolong the quality of life by treating such serious diseases is truly exciting." Dr. Atamna's research is the first to show that low concentrations of the drug have the ability to slow cellular aging in cultured cells in the laboratory and in live mice. He believes methylene blue has the potential to become another commonplace low-cost treatment like aspirin, prescribed as a blood thinner for people with heart disorders.
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POPSNeurogenesis and Brain Plasticity in Adult Brains Elkhonon Goldberg, neuroscientist and co-founder of SharpBrains, discussing Brain Plasticity and Cognitive Fitness, pointed out that “as we age, our expert knowledge remains strong, and our capacity for solving problems within our areas of expertise can often exceed that of those who are younger.” He further employed us to “turn neuroplasticity to your advantage” by: • welcoming novel challenges • beware of being on mental autopilot • remain cognitively active
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POPSPrevailing theory of aging challenged in Stanford worm study To see whether these signal molecules were part of a wear-and-tear aging mechanism, the researchers exposed worms to stresses thought to cause aging, such as heat (a known stressor for nematode worms), free-radical oxidation, radiation and disease. But none of the stressors affected the genes that make the worms get old. So it looked as though worm aging wasn’t a storm of chemical damage. Instead, Kim said, key regulatory pathways optimized for youth have drifted off track in older animals. Natural selection can’t fix problems that arise late in the animals’ life spans, so the genetic pathways for aging become entrenched by mistake. Kim’s team refers to this slide as “developmental drift.”
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POPSDrug for Longer Life The other drug is a small synthetic chemical that is a thousand times as potent as resveratrol in activating sirtuin and can be given at a much smaller dose. Safety tests in people have just started, with no adverse effects so far. The hope is that activating sirtuins in people would, like a calorically restricted diet in mice, avert degenerative diseases of aging like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer’s. There is no Food and Drug Administration category for longevity drugs, so if the company is to submit a drug for approval, it needs to be for a specific disease. Nonetheless, longevity is what has motivated the researchers and what makes the drugs potentially so appealing.
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POPSThe End of Aging - Still a Controvertial Vision Leon Kass and his friends are contemporary incarnations of an Orwellian nightmare. Besides "War is Peace", I hear also "Death is Life". Of course there are no known social good coming from the conquest of death, we never lived in a social system that conquered death. How could we possibly know? But Kass and his friends, seem to have some privileged knowledge we do not possess, and they already decided for us as individuals and as a society. Well, in time, I believe, they will have the choice to walk their talk. All I want is a chance to walk mine.
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POPSOur Genome Changes Over Lifetime, And May Explain Many 'Late-onset' Diseases They found that in almost one-third of individuals, methylation changed over that 11-year span, but not all in the same direction. Some individuals gained total methylation in their DNA, while others lost. "What we saw was a detectable change over time, which showed us proof of the principle that an individual's epigenetics does change with age,"
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POPSWhen Unusually Rapid Improvement Becomes Usual Given the existing pressure on such social programs as Social Security and Medicare, I believe one implication of this “unusually rapid improvement” is that these systems will need to be radically overhauled in order to survive this new demographic reality.
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POPSBecoming immortal A very interesting read! Of course, what are we going to do with eternity is not a medical question but rather philosophical and emotional. At least we will have time enough for love... For the quasi immortal humans of the future, nothing in this existence will look even remotely similar to the way we see things today.
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POPSIt's not immoral to want to be immortal the prospect of immortality raises complex ethical social and economical issues. This is exactly why we need immortality! So we will have unlimited time to resolve these very issues. If there is one thing humanity won't give up is the dream of immortality. It is as ancient as our race.
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