Vitamin E has been shown to improve liver function for those with fatty liver disease. This is a serious issue that impacts approximately 5% of Americans and can actually be fatal in some cases.

One of the most common liver diseases related to obesity is called fatty liver disease.  Unfortunately, doctors currently believe that this issue has no form of treatment.  However, researchers from the Virginia Commonwealth University have discovered that Vitamin E can help patients with fatty liver disease.  Researchers were surprised at these findings, as typically vitamin supplements are only thought by medical professionals to treat problems caused by nutritional deficiencies.

When people have fatty liver disease, fat can build up in the liver and cause inflammation as well as scarring.  Eventually this can cause a liver to fail in some extreme cases.  Fatty liver disease is common in middle-aged people who are overweight.  Up to 5% of Americans are reported to have this issue.

In this new study, 247 people with advanced fatty liver disease were assigned to one of three groups.  One group took vitamin E in a high dosage, one group took a placebo and one took a diabetes drug called Actos. Biopsies showed that those who took Vitamin E saw a 43% increase in liver function.  While participants who took Actos also saw improvement in their livers, the percentage of increased liver function was not as high as in the group taking Vitamin E.  Also these people who took Actos gained weight during the experiment.

Other treatments for fatty liver disease include losing weight by eating right and exercising.

Aside from treating fatty liver disease, Vitamin E also has a number of other health applications.  As an antioxidant, it can fight cell damage that is caused by free radicals.  It can also protect against prostate cancer and Alzheimer’s disease.  As Vitamin E taken in large doses can be toxic, be sure to follow the recommendation on the label.  Also, consult with your physician prior to supplementing with Vitamin E if you’re taking a blood thinner.

Last but not least, synthetic vitamin E doesn’t work the same as natural Vitamin E.  Therefore, be sure to take the natural form, which is D-alpha tocopherol.

Sources:
news.yahoo.com
whfoods.com

Discuss this post in Frank Mangano’s forum!

LONGEVITY MEME NEWSLETTER
May 10 2010

The Longevity Meme Newsletter is a weekly email containing news, opinions, and happenings for people interested in aging science and engineered longevity: making use of diet, lifestyle choices, technology, and proven medical advances to live healthy, longer lives. This newsletter is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In short, this means that you are encouraged to republish and rewrite it in any way you see fit, the only requirements being that you provide attribution and a link to the Longevity Meme.

To subscribe or unsubscribe from the Longevity Meme Newsletter, please visit http://www.longevitymeme.org/newsletter/

______________________________

CONTENTS

- Aubrey de Grey at the Lift10 Conference
- SENS Foundation is Looking for an Academic Coordinator
- Grow Fat and Suffer the Consequences
- A Conservative View of Exercise and Alzheimer’s
- Discussion
- Latest Healthy Life Extension Headlines

AUBREY DE GREY AT THE LIFT10 CONFERENCE

Biomedical gerontologist and engineered longevity advocate Aubrey de Grey spoke at the Lift10 conference in Geneva this past weekend:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/aubrey-de-grey-at-the-lift10-conference-in-geneva.php

“The questions people invariably ask de Gray focus on such mundane matters as where all these extra people will live, how pension plans will pay for them and what they’ll do with their time, but he says the questions are not the right ones. We should balance out these against the problems caused right now by ‘100,000 people a day getting very sick and staying that way a long time and then dying.’”

SENS FOUNDATION IS LOOKING FOR AN ACADEMIC COORDINATOR

Amongst its other projects, the SENS Foundation runs an academic outreach initiative which allows life science students to work on projects important to the repair of aging, such as isolating bacterial enzymes capable of breaking down damaging aggregates that build up in the body with aging. The most recent program coordinator has moved on to work at a cancer immunotherapy startup, and so the Foundation is looking for a new hire:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/sens-foundation-is-looking-for-an-academic-coordinator.php

GROW FAT AND SUFFER THE CONSEQUENCES

Excess fat tissue and the lifestyle required to obtain it have long-term and significant consequences in terms of your health and life expectancy:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/grow-fat-and-suffer-the-consequences.php

“Increasing urbanization, aging populations, obesity, and falling levels of physical activity are all contributing to the rise of type 2 diabetes worldwide. The main cause is the growing prevalence of obesity, in Europe and in Latin America. In North America obesity is considered to be responsible for 90% of type 2 diabetes in females. Male obesity is associated with type 2 diabetes slightly less, at 70-80% in the European Union and in the US. … Thin, healthy people aren’t thin and healthy because they have magic genes. They’re thin and healthy because they are eating less and exercising more than the fat folk. This isn’t rocket science, and it does have an impact on the bottom line of your life expectancy.”

A CONSERVATIVE VIEW OF EXERCISE AND ALZHEIMER’S

Regular exercise makes everything better:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/a-conservative-view-of-exercise-and-alzheimers-disease.php

“The benefits [of exercise] tend to be on the order of a 20 to 30 percent reduction in being diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease and other such diseases. And again, this isn’t universal but this is found in an increasing number of studies. … There are improvements in the chemistry of the brain in terms of the molecules that protect the brain, increases in the number of connections between neurons, which allows us to encode new learning and memory, and even the birth of new neurons in one region of the brain that supports memory.”

Bear in mind that Alzheimer’s has many similarities with type 2 diabetes, in terms of its risk factors and even aspects of its biochemistry:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2005/11/alzheimers-as-a-1.php

DISCUSSION

The highlights and headlines from the past week follow below. If you have comments for us, please do send e-mail to newsletter@longevitymeme.org

Remember – if you like this newsletter, the chances are that your friends will find it useful too. Forward it on, or post a copy to your favorite online communities. Encourage the people you know to pitch in and make a difference to the future of health and longevity!

Reason
reason@longevitymeme.org

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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

STEM CELLS VERSUS PARKINSON’S DISEASE AGAIN (May 07 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4715
A number of past studies have shown improvement in Parkinson’s disease with stem cell transplants. Here is another: “Endometrial stem cells injected into the brains of mice with a laboratory-induced form of Parkinson’s disease appeared to take over the functioning of brain cells eradicated by the disease. The finding raises the possibility that women with Parkinson’s disease could serve as their own stem cell donors. Similarly, because endometrial stem cells are readily available and easy to collect, banks of endometrial stem cells could be stored for men and women with Parkinson’s disease. … In the current study, the researchers generated stem cells using endometrial tissue obtained from nine women who did not have Parkinson’s disease and verified that, in laboratory cultures, the unspecialized endometrial stem cells could be transformed into dopamine-producing nerve cells like those in the brain. The researchers also demonstrated that, when injected directly into the brains of mice with a Parkinson’s-like condition, endometrial stem cells would develop into dopamine-producing cells. … stem cells derived from endometrial tissue appear to be less likely to be rejected than are stem cells from other sources.”

RESTORING MEMORY FUNCTION IN OLD MICE (May 07 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4714
From the New Scientist: “when young mice are learning, a molecular fragment known as an acetyl group binds to a particular point on the histone protein that DNA wraps itself around – with the result that the cluster of learning and memory genes on the surrounding DNA ends up close to the acetyl group. … This acetyl “cap” was missing in the older mice that had been set the same tasks. From this, the team concludes that the cap acts as an “on” switch for the cluster of learning and memory genes: removing the cap switches off the genes. Next, by injecting an enzyme known to encourage caps to bind to any kind of histone molecule, [researchers] artificially flipped the switch to the on position in old mice. The acetyl group returned to the histone molecule and the mice’s learning and memory performance became similar to that of 3-month-old mice. … it is still not clear why the switch flips off as we get older. One possibility is that it might help us cope with other cellular assaults that come with ageing, such as oxidative stress, [which] would mean that switching it on might have damaging side effects.”

VACCINATING AGAINST ATHEROSCLEROSIS (May 06 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4713
An interesting example of how immune therapies can eliminate or reduce some of the ways in which the aging body damages itself: “Cholesterol is transported in the blood in LDL particles, which are a kind of fat drops that can accumulate in the walls of blood vessels. LDL activates the immune defence and triggers an inflammation in the blood vessels that leads to atherosclerosis (also known as arteriosclerosis). When the atherosclerotic plaque finally ruptures, a blood clot is formed that in turn can cause a heart attack or stroke. It was previously thought that the inflammation in the blood vessels arises when the T cells react to oxidised LDL particles located in the atherosclerotic plaque. Now, however, [researchers have found] that the opposite is true, namely that the T cells react to components in the normal LDL particles, and that they no longer recognise LDL once it has been oxidised. … Since reactions to LDL can be dangerous, T cells are normally held in check by inhibitory signals. The body’s own control works well as long as the LDL keeps to the blood, liver and lymph glands. But when it accumulates in the artery wall, this inhibition is no longer enough, the T cells are activated and an inflammation arises. … Vaccination against the receptor that the T cells use to recognise LDL can block the immune reaction and reduce the disease by between 60 and 70 per cent.”

A TRIAL FOR VIRUSES VERSUS BRAIN CANCER (May 06 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4712
Viruses can be used as a form of targeted anti-cancer therapy, and human trials are soon set to start: “Particular parvoviruses normally infect rodents, but they are also infectious for human cells. However, they do not cause any disease symptoms in humans. Most importantly, these viruses have an astonishing property: They kill infected tumors cells without causing any damage to healthy tissue. … Many different viruses have been tested before in cancer therapy, particularly for treating those types of cancer for which there are no effective established treatment methods. The [researchers] realized early on that parvovirus H-1 has important advantages over other viruses. Now they have been the first to prove that malignant glioblastomas regress completely as a result of treatment with these viruses. … Parvoviruses pass the blood brain barrier so that they can be administered via the blood stream. In addition, they reproduce in cancer cells, which is particularly important for successful treatment of glioblastoma with its diffuse growth. Thus, the second generation viruses reach and eliminate even those cancer cells that have already settled at some distance from the primary tumor. … researchers [expect] to be able to admit the first patients to the trial by the end of the year.”

LINKING INSULIN RESISTANCE AND MITOCHONDRIAL DAMAGE (May 05 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4711
From EurekAlert!: “The muscles of elderly people and of people with type 2 diabetes contain lower concentrations of a protein known as PARL (short for ‘presenilin-associated rhomboid-like’). PARL plays an important role within cells in remodeling power-generating mitochondria. It’s PARL’s job to oversee mitochondria’s quality control, specifically by maintaining their integrity as the cellular components undergo normal processes of fission and fusion. The findings provide yet another link between insulin resistance and the function of mitochondria. … When mitochondria aren’t functioning properly, food doesn’t get metabolized to the level that it should … Instead of getting burned, fats accumulate in cells where they impair insulin’s action. As mitochondria fail to work efficiently, they also produce more damaging free radicals. … Relative to younger people, older people showed signs of insulin resistance. They also had fewer numbers of mitochondria and lower expression of the PARL gene. … We hypothesize that impaired PARL function is an important risk factor for the development of insulin resistance in skeletal muscle by decreasing mitochondrial mass and energetics and increasing oxidative stress, thus contributing to impaired glucose metabolism. As insulin resistance continues to develop, mitochondrial function, oxidative damage, and PARL activity may decline further, leading to a vicious cycle that eventually contributes to the development of [diabetes] or other age-associated diseases, including sarcopenia.”

CALORIE RESTRICTION BOOSTS IMMUNE FUNCTION (May 05 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4710
The Seattle Times notes recent research: “A new study finds that calorie restriction may bolster the immune system in adults. Researchers [randomly] placed 46 overweight, but not obese, men and women age 20 to 40 on one of two diets for six months: one in which calories were reduced 10 percent, and another in which they were reduced 30 percent. All food was supplied to the test subjects. The participants were tested to see what effect calorie restriction had on their immune system. They were given a delayed-type hypersensitivity test, which can detect allergens, among other things, and is considered a way to check whole-body immune response. Researchers also checked T-cells, a kind of white blood cell, and another immune system marker. At the end of the six months, [delayed type hypersensitivity] response went up in both the 10 percent and the 30 percent calorie-restricted groups compared with the beginning of the study. Both groups also showed improvement in T-cell function.”

WHAT TO DO ABOUT THE FRAGILITY OF HUMAN STEM CELLS (May 04 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4709
From the SENS Foundation: “Progress toward the goal of tissue rejuvenation via stem cells and tissue engineering (“RepleniSENS”) is badly hampered by the surprising fragility of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) relative to mouse ESC (mESC). Unlike their murine counterparts, hESC undergo extensive cell death following enzymatic single-cell dissociation; as a result, researchers are forced to rely on laborious mechanical microdissection, or on narrowly-control enzymatic dissociation that ensures that hESC remain above a minimum cluster size. These requirements make their expansion extremely tedious and inefficient. The reasons for the intolerance of hESC to full dissociation – and the development of means to ameliorate it – are therefore of considerable biomedical as well as scientific interest. This month, researchers [report] that they have at once apparently provided the detailed molecular basis for this frustrating anomaly, and its abrogation using either modified culture protocols or either of two small molecules. … Injected into an area that already enjoys a high level of government and industry investment, these tools bring us closer to realizing the promise of cell therapies and tissue engineering for the treatment of a range of age-related and traumatic diseases and disorders, as well as for the rejuvenation of aging tissues.”

AN EXAMPLE OF ALCOR’S WORK (May 04 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4708
Accelerating Future notes an example of Alcor’s work in cryonics provision. We only tend to hear about the times when unusual obstructions crop up, and so it’s worth a reminder that Alcor’s staff and volunteers regularly make the difficult organization of a cryosuspension look routine: “This past month, Alcor was faced with three members who were admitted to hospice with end-stage conditions. On back-to-back days, two of our members were cryopreserved while the third member’s condition has temporarily improved. Through careful planning, we were able to have two members admitted into the same Hospice of the Valley facility, literally across the hall from each other. This allowed Alcor’s Arizona team to carefully monitor both members’ conditions simultaneously, 24 hours a day. Having three team members and Alcor’s Rescue Vehicle on site, we were able to provide immediate stabilization and cool down procedures and exceptionally quick transfer from time of pronouncement to Alcor’s surgery suite in 40 minutes and 32 minutes, respectively. These cases were very important as they tested numerous benchmarks of Alcor’s abilities … The real benefit of all of our preparations, training and planning is to our members, who reportedly received excellent perfusions.”

THE LIMITS OF THERAPY (May 03 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4707
From the SENS Foundation: “To date, the dominant therapeutic strategy for both specific age-related diseases and (to the extent that it has been contemplated) the degenerative biological aging process itself, has been based on altering metabolic pathways. Biomedical research has centered on the detailed understanding of pathways seen to be contributing to disease etiology or pathogenesis, and the identification of putatively dysfunctional components hormones, receptors, enzymes, cytokines, etc), which are then targeted for manipulation by small molecules or other means in hopes of normalizing function and thereby alleviating symptoms or slowing progression of pathology. … there is a critical flaw in the unconsciously-drawn analogy between its use in the development of therapies to manage specific diseases, and its potential for the treatment of the degenerative aging process. Unlike most non-communicative diseases, degenerative aging is not the result of the dysfunction of metabolic pathways, but of the the undesirable long-term side-effects of their normative biochemistry. Put another way: biological aging is the pathological result of perfectly-functioning, [healthy] metabolic processes. … Thus, transposing the conventional drug-development pathway onto the aging process necessarily entails interfering with the normal metabolism – and doing on an indefinite basis, from the day that a ‘patient’ first begins therapy until his or her death. But of course, those same pathways evolved to ensure survival and fitness, and their existence and the normal mode of regulation are the very basis of ordinary health and function. We interfere with the intrinsic operation of such pathways at our peril.”

THOUGHTS ON REJUVENATION AND ALZHEIMER’S VACCINES (May 03 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4706
A detailed examination of recent progress from the SENS Foundation: “Recent years have seen both substantial progress, and significant frustration, in the preferred regenerative engineering approach to the treatment and prevention of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and the eventual regeneration of genuinely youthful cognitive function: immunotherapeutic clearance of beta-amyloid (AmyloSENS). … results appear to many to commend an earlier window of opportunity for intervention, before concomitant [damage] and neuronal losses have made the removal of beta-amyloid alone insufficient for cognitive rescue. Early intervention might also maximize the therapeutic window for vaccination, preventing the burden of beta-amyloid neuropathology from ever reaching levels so high as to interact with other forms of aging damage in already frail and immunosenescent people.” Present work on immune therapies for clearing unwanted biochemical junk from the body looks promising – there is every sign that today’s advances will broaden into a general technology platform for this purpose. Researchers will be able to develop therapies that can be applied incrementally throughout life to remove the age-related gunk like beta-amyloid before it rises to dangerous levels.

______________________________

If you have comments for us, please do send email to newsletter@longevitymeme.org.

A compound in dark chocolate has been shown to protect cells after a stroke.

A study at Johns Hopkins has shown that dark chocolate contains a special compound, which can protect the brain after a stroke.  As it turns out, the dark chocolate increases cells that are designed to protect nerve cells from damage. The Journal of Cerebral Blood Flow and Metabolism recently published this study.

Researchers induced a stroke in mice 90 minutes after giving mice a compound in dark chocolate called epicatechin.  Epicatechin is a member of the compounds named plant flavonoids. Flavonoids also work to prevent blood clots and damage caused by clogged arteries.

To induce the stroke, researchers cut blood to the mice’s brains.  They found that the animals that had received the dark chocolate compounds were less likely to receive brain damage.  Also researchers learned that they could give the epicatechin to the animals 3.5 hours after the stroke.  Usually treatments for humans who have had strokes need to be given 2-3 hours later to be effective.  Therefore, this means that doctors can wait longer before administrating epicatechin treatments to patients.

The lead research on this study is Sylvain Dore, PhD.  He said that his study showed that epicatechin stimulated pathways that can shield the brain from damage.  Dore hopes that his studies on dark chocolate and epicatechins can help begin to limit the kinds of damage caused by stress.

If you are turning to chocolate for health benefits, always remember to reach for the dark chocolate.  But don’t forget that the higher the cacao content, the better.

Sources:
physorg.com
webmd.com

Discuss this post in Frank Mangano’s forum!

Announcements at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research Event included the findings that there is a connection between vitamin supplementation and breast cancer rates.

If you have been taking vitamins and calcium supplements, there is good news concerning your risk of getting breast cancer!  New findings about breast cancer prevention were announced at this year’s American Association for Cancer Research 101^st Annual Meeting. The event took place April 17-21^st in Washington DC.  The meeting attracts over 15,000 attendees each year.

This year one of the presentations included conclusive information that vitamins and calcium supplements have been shown to be effective in reducing the risk of breast cancer.  This new research involved 457-control group and 268 women with breast cancer.  The study showed that vitamins reduced breast cancer risk by about 30%.  Calcium supplements, on the other hand, actually reduced the risk by 40%.

One of the people presenting this information was Jaime Matta PhD from the Ponce School of Medicine in Puerto Rico.  Matta stated, “This process involves at least five separate pathways and is critical for maintaining genomic stability.  When the DNA is not repaired, it leads to mutation that leads to cancer.”  Apparently, calcium supplements enhance DNA repair.  If this complex repair process is interrupted it can lead to cancer.

In addition to supplements reducing the risk of breast cancer, there are also different superfoods that are effective at fighting breast cancer as well. These superfoods include fatty fish, beans, berries and tomatoes.

Sources:
sciencedaily.com
women.webmd.com

Discuss this post in Frank Mangano’s forum!

From the New Scientist: “when young mice are learning, a molecular fragment known as an acetyl group binds to a particular point on the histone protein that DNA wraps itself around – with the result that the cluster of learning and memory genes on the surrounding DNA ends up close to the acetyl group. … This acetyl “cap” was missing in the older mice that had been set the same tasks. From this, the team concludes that the cap acts as an “on” switch for the cluster of learning and memory genes: removing the cap switches off the genes. Next, by injecting an enzyme known to encourage caps to bind to any kind of histone molecule, [researchers] artificially flipped the switch to the on position in old mice. The acetyl group returned to the histone molecule and the mice’s learning and memory performance became similar to that of 3-month-old mice. … it is still not clear why the switch flips off as we get older. One possibility is that it might help us cope with other cellular assaults that come with ageing, such as oxidative stress, [which] would mean that switching it on might have damaging side effects.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18870-gene-switch-rejuvenates-failing-mouse-brains.html

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

A number of past studies have shown improvement in Parkinson’s disease with stem cell transplants. Here is another: “Endometrial stem cells injected into the brains of mice with a laboratory-induced form of Parkinson’s disease appeared to take over the functioning of brain cells eradicated by the disease. The finding raises the possibility that women with Parkinson’s disease could serve as their own stem cell donors. Similarly, because endometrial stem cells are readily available and easy to collect, banks of endometrial stem cells could be stored for men and women with Parkinson’s disease. … In the current study, the researchers generated stem cells using endometrial tissue obtained from nine women who did not have Parkinson’s disease and verified that, in laboratory cultures, the unspecialized endometrial stem cells could be transformed into dopamine-producing nerve cells like those in the brain. The researchers also demonstrated that, when injected directly into the brains of mice with a Parkinson’s-like condition, endometrial stem cells would develop into dopamine-producing cells. … stem cells derived from endometrial tissue appear to be less likely to be rejected than are stem cells from other sources.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100506141608.htm

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

For links to recent news items about CSC, visit this [Topsy] page. Examples of two news items that have received attention in the past week:?

From the SENS Foundation: “Progress toward the goal of tissue rejuvenation via stem cells and tissue engineering (“RepleniSENS”) is badly hampered by the surprising fragility of human embryonic stem cells (hESC) relative to mouse ESC (mESC). Unlike their murine counterparts, hESC undergo extensive cell death following enzymatic single-cell dissociation; as a result, researchers are forced to rely on laborious mechanical microdissection, or on narrowly-control enzymatic dissociation that ensures that hESC remain above a minimum cluster size. These requirements make their expansion extremely tedious and inefficient. The reasons for the intolerance of hESC to full dissociation – and the development of means to ameliorate it – are therefore of considerable biomedical as well as scientific interest. This month, researchers [report] that they have at once apparently provided the detailed molecular basis for this frustrating anomaly, and its abrogation using either modified culture protocols or either of two small molecules. … Injected into an area that already enjoys a high level of government and industry investment, these tools bring us closer to realizing the promise of cell therapies and tissue engineering for the treatment of a range of age-related and traumatic diseases and disorders, as well as for the rejuvenation of aging tissues.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sens.org/node/763

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Just Five Minutes of Exercise Outdoors Boosts Mental Health, Researchers Say

In a bad mood? Improve it by going outside!

Here in New York and all around the country, summer is in the air.  It may say “May” on the calendar, but the weather sure doesn’t know that, as this week’s temperatures in New York City are headed for the 70s and 80s!

I hope it’s as nice where you are as it is here.  And if it is, instead of going to the gym after work to exercise today, head outside…even if it’s for just five minutes.  Because according to a new study on the mental health effects of exercising outside, the great outdoors can heighten your mood and your self-esteem.

Researchers from the University of Essex discovered this after reviewing the health habits of over 1,200 people from 12 separate studies.  Among the information collected from these men and women of all ages was their state of mental health (i.e. were they diagnosed with any kind of mental health disorder and cognitive dysfunction) and the kind of activities they did outside, such as walking, bicycling, gardening or horseback riding.

All of the individuals who exercised regularly showed improvements in their mental health, but those who saw the most significant improvement were those who performed what the researchers call “green exercises.”  Green exercises are any of the aforementioned exercises performed outside.  Other green exercises include farming, walking, gardening, fishing or boating.

“We believe that there would be a large potential benefit to individuals, society, and to the costs of the health service if all groups of people were to self-medicate more with green exercise,” said Jo Barton in a statement.  Barton co-authored the study with her colleague, Jules Pretty.

Their complete findings can be found in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.

Oh, and if you’re someone who loves the ocean, then you’re going to love this:  the biggest mental health effects were found among those who live near the water, like the ocean, a river or lake.

So, it seems, the closer you are to blue, the less likely you are to get “blue.”

As with many studies, this probably confirms the obvious.  But this research is illuminating nonetheless because up to now, no one really knew just how long it took to be outside to reap the mental health benefits.  And according to the researchers, it takes as little as five minutes.

So you know what that means?  No more excuses.  No more saying, “I can’t go outside for a walk because I don’t have any time on my lunch break.” Everybody has at least five minutes they can spend outdoors to walk.

Now, ideally, you’ll be exercising for longer than five minutes, but as I always say, some exercise is better than no exercise.  And that’s every bit as true for the mind as it is for the body.

Sources:
newsmaxhealth.com
news.bbc.co.uk

Discuss this post in Frank Mangano’s forum!

An attendee at the Humanity+ UK 2010 conference offers thoughts on transhumanist goals: “The convergence of current technologies such as nanotechnology, biotechnology, information technology and cognitive science (NBIC) and future technologies such as artificial intelligence, mind uploading, cryonics, and simulated reality, is truly inspirational. … I think we all have a vested interest in Aubrey de Grey’s idea that aging is simply a disease, and a curable one at that. His plan is to identify all the components that cause human tissue to age, and design remedies for each of them through his approach called SENS (Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence). Once we can extend human life spans by thirty years, we’re well on our way to immortality. Aubrey de Grey claims that the first human being to live a thousand years has probably already been born. From the way he talks, the biggest challenge in the race against mortality is funding! So I highly encourage those of you with means and an interest to donate to the SENS Foundation. … Another fascinating speaker was David Pearce, advocating the abolition of suffering throughout the living world. … He argues that as we develop these technologies, it is both our moral and hedonistic imperative to rid all sentient beings of pain.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://beforeitsnews.com/news/38084/Transhumanism_and_the_Future_of_the_Human_Race.html

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

This EurekAlert! release looks at some of the challenges facing the increasing number of research groups who are attempting to destroy cancer stem cells: “Many of the colon cancer cells that form tumors can be killed by genetically short-circuiting the cells’ ability to absorb a key nutrient, a new study has found. While the findings are encouraging, the test tube study using human colon cancer cells also illustrates the difficulty of defeating these cells, known as cancer stem cells (CSCs). … It is becoming more evident that only a small number of cells in the tumor are capable of forming the tumor, namely the cancer stem cell. So the new strategy is to eliminate the cancer stem cells and thus lower the recurrence of cancer. … Because CSCs have properties similar to normal stem cells, we have to find a way to attack them while keeping the adult stem cells alive. … To do that, the research team inactivated a receptor that is found in increased amounts in colon cancer cells: the insulin-like growth factor receptor (IGF-1R). The colon cancer CSCs seem to need a fair amount of IGF to live, more than other cells, and they can’t function without the IGF receptor. … Working with human colon cancer cells, the researchers manipulated the cellular genetics using small interfering RNA (siRNA) to prevent the synthesis of IGF-1R. In this way, they reduced the number of IGF receptors by half, and reduced the number of CSCs by 35%.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2010-04/foas-ras042210.php

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Sequencing our own DNA and cross-referencing the results against the best of present scientific knowledge will soon be cheap and routine. This is an example of the sort of incremental progress in medical technology that is increasing human life expectancy year after year: a little more prevention here, a little better insight into how to cure there. From ScienceDaily: “For the first time, researchers have used a healthy person’s complete genome sequence to predict his risk for dozens of diseases and how he will respond to several common medications. The risk analysis [also] incorporates more-traditional information such as a patient’s age and gender and other clinical measurements. The resulting, easy-to-use, cumulative risk report will likely catapult the use of such data out of the lab and into the waiting room of average physicians within the next decade, say the scientists. … The $1,000 genome is coming fast. The challenge lies in knowing what to do with all that information. We’ve focused on establishing priorities that will be most helpful when a patient and a physician are sitting together looking at the computer screen. … Information like this will enable doctors to deliver personalized health care like never before. Patients at risk for certain diseases will be able to receive closer monitoring and more frequent testing, while those who are at lower risk will be spared unnecessary tests. This will have important economic benefits as well, because it improves the efficiency of medicine.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/04/100429204658.htm

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

LONGEVITY MEME NEWSLETTER
April 26 2010

The Longevity Meme Newsletter is a weekly email containing news, opinions, and happenings for people interested in aging science and engineered longevity: making use of diet, lifestyle choices, technology, and proven medical advances to live healthy, longer lives. This newsletter is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In short, this means that you are encouraged to republish and rewrite it in any way you see fit, the only requirements being that you provide attribution and a link to the Longevity Meme.

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CONTENTS

- The Revealed Slow Aging Hypothesis
- The State of Innate Immune Therapies for Cancer
- Quantifying the Harm Done by Cytomegalovirus
- Recent Longevity Study Results
- Discussion
- Latest Healthy Life Extension Headlines

THE REVEALED SLOW AGING HYPOTHESIS

An interesting idea, albeit hard to prove one way or another at this stage of our progress in biotechnology:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/04/the-revealed-slow-aging-hypothesis.php

“To what degree might we attribute the accelerating rise in human life span in recent centuries to an increased survival rate for people who bear gene variants that (a) harm the prospects for survival to adulthood in low-technology settings, but (b) lead to a longer life expectancy for those who do survive?”

THE STATE OF INNATE IMMUNE THERAPIES FOR CANCER

The transplant of leukocyte or granulocyte immune cells has shown great promise in destroying even advanced cancer, but little work is being done to bring this from the laboratory to the clinic:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/04/the-state-of-leukocyte-or-granulocyte-transplants-to-kill-cancer.php

“You might recall that people were enthused a few years back over the work of researcher Zheng Cui, who showed that (a) one breed of lab mice shug off cancer because their immune cells are different in ways that enable them to kill cancer dead, (b) transplanting those immune cells into more vulnerable mice also kills cancer dead, and (c) this same state of affairs exists in humans. Somewhere, someone has an immune system that can kill your cancer. If you could find them and undergo a transplant of leukocyte or granulocyte immune cells, the evidence to date suggests that this would be a very effective therapy. As put by the folk at Livly, a non-profit startup focused on bringing this form of therapy into the clinic: Results like this suggest to us that innate immunotherapy is the only approach that has shown the promise to permanently cure advanced cancer. Ironically, it is also one of the most neglected areas in contemporary research.”

QUANTIFYING THE HARM DONE BY CYTOMEGALOVIRUS

Nearly all of us have cytomegalovirus (CMV) lurking in our bodies by the time we are old, and it is one of the reasons why our immune systems decline dramatically with advancing age:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/04/quantifying-the-harm-done-by-cytomegalovirus.php

“Most people are exposed to this mild persistent herpesvirus over the course of their life; it causes few obvious symptoms, but over time more and more of your immune system resources become uselessly specialized to fight it. An immune cell dedicated to remembering the signature of CMV is unavailable for other uses – and eventually you run out of cells to protect you from new threats, destroy cancers, and clear out senescent cells.

“A CMV fixation should be thought of as yet another form of malfunction or misconfiguration of the immune system, to be put in the same broad category as autoimmune diseases. Some of the research efforts directed towards repairing autoimmune disease may in the future also be turned towards repairing a CMV-specialized immune system. For example, researchers have successfully rebooted the immune system in human patients in recent years: completely destroying and then recreating it in order to remove all immune cells with errant programming. Another possibility is the use of targeted cell killing technologies that can pick out and destroy CMV-specialized immune cells based on their surface markers.”

RECENT LONGEVITY STUDY RESULTS

Some examples from recent studies of genetic components of human longevity:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/04/a-few-recent-longevity-study-results.php

“More genetic and other studies of long-lived people are taking place these days, which means a faster flow of results than has been the case in past years. Part of that can no doubt be attributed to an increased interest in manipulating the aging process in the scientific community, as well as the continually falling cost of the tools needed to run such studies. … There are an unknown but almost certainly large number of small contributory factors making up the genetic component of human longevity, and they are being uncovered at an accelerating pace. What does this all mean for you and I? Probably very little. We will not gain greatly extended longevity through tinkering with our haplotypes – by the time genetic tweaks are happening in the clinic, we will be old. Changes to metabolism that make a year or two’s difference in life span across an entire lifetime will be next to worthless to someone already in late life, and already seriously damaged by aging. We should welcome the advances in practice and understanding of human biology and aging, because all such information will at some point be useful, but we must also recognize that genetic alterations to slow aging are not the path to extending our own lives. We must instead focus on the repair of age-related changes, such as that proposed by the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence.”

http://www.longevitymeme.org/topics/strategies_for_engineered_negligible_senescence.cfm

DISCUSSION

The highlights and headlines from the past week follow below. If you have comments for us, please do send e-mail to newsletter@longevitymeme.org

Remember – if you like this newsletter, the chances are that your friends will find it useful too. Forward it on, or post a copy to your favorite online communities. Encourage the people you know to pitch in and make a difference to the future of health and longevity!

Reason
reason@longevitymeme.org

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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

EXERCISE AND ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE (April 23 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4695
More evidence for the benefits of exercise: “Researchers from the University of Washington conducted a six-month clinical trial with 33 participants, 17 of whom were women. All showed early signs of Alzheimer’s disease and were between the ages of 55 and 85. The experiment participants underwent a six-month intensive aerobic training program, spending 45 minutes to an hour four times each week on a stationary bicycle or treadmill. At the end of the six months, the participants saw improvement in mental agility, while the control group showed no improvement. Researchers are planning further studies to conduct larger and longer duration trials, following volunteers for years instead of months, for more conclusive data as to whether exercise can prevent full-blown cases of Alzheimer’s. … Other similar studies have been conducted, where researchers have measured the health benefits of resistance training for women between the ages of 65 and 75 who are most at risk for developing Alzheimer’s. In one study, after one year of training, women who had completed the training showed better scores on mental acuity and conflict resolution tests than those who didn’t.”

POLITICS AND HISTORICAL ASPIRATIONS TO ENGINEERED LONGEVITY (April 23 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4694
Possibly an example of overthinking the issue at the JET, but the section on Finot illustrates that our era does not enjoy a monopoly on rational thinking about extending the healthy human life span: “The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-siecle/early twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period – Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot – reveal conflicting ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement and life extension. Each author represents a particular existing social order, and his vision of human advancement may be seen as a continuation and extension of that order. Therefore, the pursuit of life extension may be considered a fundamentally conservative (or conservationist) enterprise. … First, these adaptations may question the claims of a particular ideology for supremacy in the promotion of life-extension and life-enhancement. The claims that atheism, capitalism or hedonism are more conducive to the pursuit of longevity, can be countered by historical examples where religion, socialism or asceticism were the foundations. No ideological system seems to have a monopoly, however strongly it asserts that it constitutes the rock-solid ground for this pursuit. It may be that, rather than providing such a foundation, political ideologies enlist the hope for life extension to increase their appeal.”

DECIPHERING REGENERATION (April 22 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4693
From the Telegraph, news of continuing incremental progress in understanding the mechanisms of regeneration in lower animals: “research into how Planarian worms can regrow body parts – including a whole head and brain – could one day make it possible to regenerate old or damaged human organs and tissues … We want to be able to understand how adult stem cells can work collectively in any animal to form and replace damaged or missing organs and tissues. … Any fundamental advances in understanding from other animals can become relevant to humans surprisingly quickly. If we know what is happening when tissues are regenerated under normal circumstances, we can begin to formulate how to replace damaged and diseased organs, tissues and cells in an organised and safe way following an injury caused by trauma or disease. This would be desirable for treating Alzheimer’s disease, for example. With this knowledge we can also assess the consequences of what happens when stem cells go wrong during the normal processes of renewal – for example in the blood cell system where rogue stem cells can result in Leukaemia.”

BECAUSE SOMEONE HAS TO STATE THE OBVIOUS (April 22 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4692
Life is getting better: “Human society has changed much over the last centuries and this process of ‘modernization’ has profoundly affected the lives of individuals; currently we live quite different lives from those forefathers lived only five generations ago. There is difference of opinion as to whether we live better now than before and consequently there is also disagreement as to whether we should continue modernizing or rather try to slow the process down. Quality-of-life in a society can be measured by how long and happy its inhabitants live. Using these indicators I assess whether societal modernization has made life better or worse. Firstly I examine findings of present day survey research. I start with a cross-sectional analysis of 143 nations in the years 2000-2008 and find that people live longer and happier in today’s most modern societies. Secondly I examine trends in modern nations over the last decade and find that happiness and longevity have increased in most cases. Thirdly I consider the long-term and review findings from historical anthropology, which show that we lived better in the early hunter-gatherer society than in the later agrarian society. Together these data suggest that societal evolution has worked out differently for the quality of human life, first negatively, in the change from a hunter-gatherer existence to agriculture, and next positively, in the more recent transformation from an agrarian to an industrial society. We live now longer and happier than ever before.”

TISSUE ENGINEERED SKIN PROGRESSES (April 21 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4691
Spanish scientists “have generated artificial human skin by [tissue] engineering based on agarose-fibrin biomaterial. The artificial skin was grafted onto mice, and optimal development, maturation and functionality results were obtained. This pioneering finding will allow the clinical use of human skin and its use in many laboratory tests on biological tissues – which, additionally, would avoid the use of laboratory animals. Further, this finding could be useful in developing new treatment approaches for dermatological pathologies. … The skin created in the laboratory showed adequate biocompatibility rates with the recipient and no rejection, dehiscence or infection was registered. … The experiment [is] the first to create artificial human skin with a dermis made of fibrin-agarose biomaterial. To this date, artificial skin substitutes were elaborated with other biomaterials as collagen, fibrin, polyglycolic acid, chitosan, etc. These biomaterials [added] resistance, firmness and elasticity to the skin. … Definitively, we have created a more stable skin with similar functionality to normal human skin.”

AN UPDATE ON SCENT AND LONGEVITY (April 21 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4690
A number of studies in recent years have suggested that calorie intake is not the only thing that can alter metabolism to change longevity in lower animals: “Specific odors that represent food or indicate danger are capable of altering an animal’s lifespan and physiological profile by activating a small number of highly specialized sensory neurons … Recent research in model organisms and in humans has shown that sensory experiences can impact a wide range of health-related characteristics including athletic performance, type II diabetes, and aging. Nematode worms and fruit flies that were robbed of their ability to smell or taste, for example, lived substantially longer. However, the specific odors and sensory receptors that control this effect on aging were unknown. Using molecular genetics in combination with behavioral and environmental manipulations, [researchers have identified] carbon dioxide (CO2) as the first well-defined odorant capable of altering physiology and affecting aging. Flies incapable of smelling CO2 live longer than flies with normal olfactory capabilities. They are also resistant to stress and have increased body fat. To many insects, including fruit flies, CO2 represents an ecologically important odor cue that indicates the presence of food (e.g. rotting fruit or animal blood) or neighbors in distress (it has been implicated as a stress pheromone). Indeed, this group of researchers previously showed that merely sensing one’s normal food source is capable of reversing the health and longevity benefits that are associated with a low calorie diet. They now establish that CO2 is responsible for this effect.”

HUMANITY+ SUMMIT AT HARVARD (April 20 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4689
The Humanity+ Summit will be held in June at Harvard: “The H+ Summit is part of a larger cultural conversation about what it means to be human and, ultimately, more than human. This issue lies at the heart of the transhumanism movement … The H+ Summit is a two day event that explores how humanity will be radically changed by technology in the near future. Visionary speakers will explore the potential of technology to modify your body, mind, life, and world. What will it mean to be a human in this next phase of technological development? How can we prepare now for coming changes? We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition and overcoming such constraints as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, lack of resources, and our confinement to the planet earth. The possibilities are broad and exciting. The H+ Summit will provide a venue to discuss these future scenarios and to hear exciting presentations by the leaders of the ongoing H+ (r)evolution.” Amongst the confirmed speakers is biomedical gerontologist and engineered longevity advocate Aubrey de Grey, whose presentations are always well worth attending.

STOPPING METASTASIS (April 20 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4688
Cancer would be far less threatening a condition if metastasis could be reliably blocked: “Like microscopic inchworms, cancer cells slink away from tumors to travel and settle elsewhere in the body. Now, [researchers report] that new anti-cancer agents break down the looping gait these cells use to migrate, stopping them in their tracks. Mice implanted with cancer cells and treated with the small molecule macroketone lived a full life without any cancer spread, compared with control animals, which all died of metastasis. When macroketone was given a week after cancer cells were introduced, it still blocked greater than 80 percent of cancer metastasis in mice. … macroketone targets an actin cytoskeletal protein known as fascin that is critical to cell movement. In order for a cancer cell to leave a primary tumor, fascin bundles actin filaments together like a thick finger. The front edge of this finger creeps forward and pulls along the rear of the cell. Cells crawl away in the same way that an inchworm moves. Macroketone latches on to individual fascin, preventing the actin fibers from adhering to each other and forming the pushing leading edge.”

ANOTHER VIEW OF WHAT TO DO ABOUT AGING (April 19 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4687
An interesting paper: “The idea that bodies wear out with age is so ancient, so pervasive, and so deeply rooted that it affects our thought in unconscious ways. Undeniably, many aspects of aging, e.g., oxidative damage, somatic mutations, and protein cross-linkage are characterized by increased entropy in biomolecules. However, it has been a scientific consensus for more than a century that there is no physical necessity for such damage. Living systems are defined by their capacity to gather order from their environment, concentrate it, and shed entropy with their waste. Organisms in their growth phase become stronger and more robust; no physical law prohibits this progress from continuing indefinitely. Indeed, some animals and many plants are known to grow indefinitely larger and more fertile through their lives. The same conclusion is underscored by experimental findings that various insults and challenges that directly damage the body or increase the rate of wear and tear have the paradoxical effect of extending life span. Hyperactive mice live longer than controls, and worms with their antioxidant systems impaired live longer than wild type. A fundamental understanding of aging must proceed not from physics but from an evolutionary perspective: The body is being permitted to decay because systems of repair and regeneration that are perfectly adequate to build and rebuild a body of ever-increasing resilience are being held back. Regardless of the reason for this retreat, it should be more fruitful to focus on signaling to effect the ongoing activity of systems of repair and regeneration than to attempt repair of the manifold damage left in the wake of their failure.”

STEPS TOWARDS CONTROLLING REGENERATION (April 19 2010)
http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/vnl.cfm?id=4686
Spurring regeneration by use of signalling molecules is a promising field of medical development. Here is an example from the Technology Review: “scientists have identified a pair of peptides that can stimulate new cell growth and improve heart function in rodents induced to have heart attacks. [Researchers are] now testing one of the peptides, periostin, in pigs induced to have heart attacks. Because these animals have hearts similar in size to humans, they provide a good model for testing new therapies prior to human clinical trials. Preliminary results show that injecting the peptide into the pericardium, the lining around the heart, seems to help. … [This] approach is, to some degree, in competition with stem-cell therapy, which is already being tested in humans. Scientists are working on different ways of harvesting and delivering stem cells to patients with heart disease, and clinical trials have so far yielded mixed results. Transplanted cells appear to have difficulty surviving and integrating into their new environment. In fact, some scientists suggests that benefit of cell transplants comes from the cells ability to stimulate innate growth. Triggering this process with peptides [may] be a simpler method of treatment of certain conditions such as cardiomyopathy [an enlarged heart] where the problem is lack of viable, contractile heart muscle cells.”

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If you have comments for us, please do send email to newsletter@longevitymeme.org.

It has been a long-time coming. It has been hyped and scoffed, bet against and hoped for, but now none of that matters. It’s here. Dendreon has brought Provenge to market. Here, in the word’s of the FDA…

FDA NEWS RELEASE

For Immediate Release: April 29, 2010

FDA Approves a Cellular Immunotherapy for Men with Advanced Prostate Cancer

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Provenge (sipuleucel-T), a new therapy for certain men with advanced prostate cancer that uses their own immune system to fight the disease.

Provenge is indicated for the treatment of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic prostate cancer that has spread to other parts of the body and is resistant to standard hormone treatment.

Prostate cancer is the second most common type of cancer among men in the United States, behind skin cancer, and usually occurs in older men. In 2009, an estimated 192,000 new cases of prostate cancer were diagnosed and about 27,000 men died from the disease, according to the National Cancer Institute.

“The availability of Provenge provides a new treatment option for men with advanced prostate cancer, who currently have limited effective therapies available,” said Karen Midthun, M.D., acting director of the FDA’s Center for Biologics Evaluation and Research.

Provenge is an autologous cellular immunotherapy, designed to stimulate a patient’s own immune system to respond against the cancer. Each dose of Provenge is manufactured by obtaining a patient’s immune cells from the blood, using a machine in a process known as leukapheresis. To enhance their response against the cancer, the immune cells are then exposed to a protein that is found in most prostate cancers, linked to an immune stimulating substance. After this process, the patient’s own cells are returned to the patient to treat the prostate cancer. Provenge is administered intravenously in a three-dose schedule given at about two-week intervals.

The effectiveness of Provenge was studied in 512 patients with metastatic hormone treatment refractory prostate cancer in a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, multicenter trial, which showed an increase in overall survival of 4.1 months. The median survival for patients receiving Provenge treatments was 25.8 months, as compared to 21.7 months for those who did not receive the treatment.

Almost all of the patients who received Provenge had some type of adverse reaction. Common adverse reactions reported included chills, fatigue, fever, back pain, nausea, joint ache and headache. The majority of adverse reactions were mild or moderate in severity. Serious adverse reactions, reported in approximately one quarter of the patients receiving Provenge, included some acute infusion reactions and stroke. Cerebrovascular events, including hemorrhagic and ischemic strokes, were observed in 3.5 percent of patients in the Provenge group compared with 2.6 percent of patients in the control group.

Provenge is manufactured by Seattle-based Dendreon Corp.

http://www.celltherapyblog.com hosted by http://www.celltherapygroup.com

From TechNewsWorld: “During his homily this Easter, Pope Benedict argued that medical science, in trying to defeat death, is leading humanity toward likely condemnation. It’s a position at odds with the value of life, one that the Church will likely revise years from now, replaying the institution’s embarrassment over censoring Galileo. … If scientists are successful in finding techniques to rebuild cartilage, repair organs, and cure cancer, people will indeed be living longer – but they will also be healthier, more energetic and youthful. Health-extension, when it happens, will allow people to live longer, better. Consider that 60-year-olds today are not in the same shape as their counterparts were in the 1800s or 1900s. As humans discovered how to take better care of themselves, through improved nutrition, the use of antibiotics and other techniques, ‘chronological age’ became less synonymous with ‘biological age.’ That is, many of today’s 60-year-olds act and feel much younger than one might expect. The average human life expectancy today is close to 80 years but in 1850, it was 43 years, and in 1900 it was 48 years. One can imagine someone in 1850 arguing that doubling life expectancy would be terrible, because innovation might be at risk and there would be more old people around. But would anyone today say they are sorry that science made it possible to live longer and healthier lives?”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.technewsworld.com/story/Galileo-20-Here-Comes-Another-Apology-69876.html

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

The Humanity+ Summit will be held in June at Harvard: “The H+ Summit is part of a larger cultural conversation about what it means to be human and, ultimately, more than human. This issue lies at the heart of the transhumanism movement … The H+ Summit is a two day event that explores how humanity will be radically changed by technology in the near future. Visionary speakers will explore the potential of technology to modify your body, mind, life, and world. What will it mean to be a human in this next phase of technological development? How can we prepare now for coming changes? We foresee the feasibility of redesigning the human condition and overcoming such constraints as the inevitability of aging, limitations on human and artificial intellects, unchosen psychology, lack of resources, and our confinement to the planet earth. The possibilities are broad and exciting. The H+ Summit will provide a venue to discuss these future scenarios and to hear exciting presentations by the leaders of the ongoing H+ (r)evolution.” Amongst the confirmed speakers is biomedical gerontologist and engineered longevity advocate Aubrey de Grey, whose presentations are always well worth attending.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://hplussummit.com/

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Possibly an example of overthinking the issue at the JET, but the section on Finot illustrates that our era does not enjoy a monopoly on rational thinking about extending the healthy human life span: “The beginning of the modern period in the pursuit of radical human enhancement and longevity can be traced to fin-de-siecle/early twentieth-century scientific and technological optimism and therapeutic activism. The works of several authors of the period – Fedorov, Stephens, Bogdanov, Nietzsche and Finot – reveal conflicting ideological and social pathways toward the goals of human enhancement and life extension. Each author represents a particular existing social order, and his vision of human advancement may be seen as a continuation and extension of that order. Therefore, the pursuit of life extension may be considered a fundamentally conservative (or conservationist) enterprise. … First, these adaptations may question the claims of a particular ideology for supremacy in the promotion of life-extension and life-enhancement. The claims that atheism, capitalism or hedonism are more conducive to the pursuit of longevity, can be countered by historical examples where religion, socialism or asceticism were the foundations. No ideological system seems to have a monopoly, however strongly it asserts that it constitutes the rock-solid ground for this pursuit. It may be that, rather than providing such a foundation, political ideologies enlist the hope for life extension to increase their appeal.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://jetpress.org/v21/stambler.htm

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

More evidence for the benefits of exercise: “Researchers from the University of Washington conducted a six-month clinical trial with 33 participants, 17 of whom were women. All showed early signs of Alzheimer’s disease and were between the ages of 55 and 85. The experiment participants underwent a six-month intensive aerobic training program, spending 45 minutes to an hour four times each week on a stationary bicycle or treadmill. At the end of the six months, the participants saw improvement in mental agility, while the control group showed no improvement. Researchers are planning further studies to conduct larger and longer duration trials, following volunteers for years instead of months, for more conclusive data as to whether exercise can prevent full-blown cases of Alzheimer’s. … Other similar studies have been conducted, where researchers have measured the health benefits of resistance training for women between the ages of 65 and 75 who are most at risk for developing Alzheimer’s. In one study, after one year of training, women who had completed the training showed better scores on mental acuity and conflict resolution tests than those who didn’t.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.cavalierdaily.com/2010/04/21/remember-to-exercise-exercise-to-remember/

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

An interesting paper: “The idea that bodies wear out with age is so ancient, so pervasive, and so deeply rooted that it affects our thought in unconscious ways. Undeniably, many aspects of aging, e.g., oxidative damage, somatic mutations, and protein cross-linkage are characterized by increased entropy in biomolecules. However, it has been a scientific consensus for more than a century that there is no physical necessity for such damage. Living systems are defined by their capacity to gather order from their environment, concentrate it, and shed entropy with their waste. Organisms in their growth phase become stronger and more robust; no physical law prohibits this progress from continuing indefinitely. Indeed, some animals and many plants are known to grow indefinitely larger and more fertile through their lives. The same conclusion is underscored by experimental findings that various insults and challenges that directly damage the body or increase the rate of wear and tear have the paradoxical effect of extending life span. Hyperactive mice live longer than controls, and worms with their antioxidant systems impaired live longer than wild type. A fundamental understanding of aging must proceed not from physics but from an evolutionary perspective: The body is being permitted to decay because systems of repair and regeneration that are perfectly adequate to build and rebuild a body of ever-increasing resilience are being held back. Regardless of the reason for this retreat, it should be more fruitful to focus on signaling to effect the ongoing activity of systems of repair and regeneration than to attempt repair of the manifold damage left in the wake of their failure.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/rej.2009.0967

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

Cancer would be far less threatening a condition if metastasis could be reliably blocked: “Like microscopic inchworms, cancer cells slink away from tumors to travel and settle elsewhere in the body. Now, [researchers report] that new anti-cancer agents break down the looping gait these cells use to migrate, stopping them in their tracks. Mice implanted with cancer cells and treated with the small molecule macroketone lived a full life without any cancer spread, compared with control animals, which all died of metastasis. When macroketone was given a week after cancer cells were introduced, it still blocked greater than 80 percent of cancer metastasis in mice. … macroketone targets an actin cytoskeletal protein known as fascin that is critical to cell movement. In order for a cancer cell to leave a primary tumor, fascin bundles actin filaments together like a thick finger. The front edge of this finger creeps forward and pulls along the rear of the cell. Cells crawl away in the same way that an inchworm moves. Macroketone latches on to individual fascin, preventing the actin fibers from adhering to each other and forming the pushing leading edge.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/PR_display.asp?prID=1117

Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/