Monthly Archives: April 2017

by: Shelby Lin Erdman, Cox Media Group National Content Desk Updated: Apr 23, 2017 - 8:45 AM

Violet Mosse-Brown of Jamaica is officially the oldest living person in the world, at 117 years of age.

Mosse-Brown earned the title after the death of Emma Morano of Italy, who died earlier this week at 117 years, 137 days old.

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Mosse-Brown has a simple secret to her longevity.

Really and truly, when people ask what me eat and drink to live so long, I say to them that I eat everything, except pork and chicken, and I dont drink rum and them things, Mosse-Brown told the Jamaica Gleaner in a 2010 interview in honor of her 110th birthday.

Mosse-Brown was born in 1900 and still lives in the same house with family members. The home has been in their family for the past 200 years.

According to a biography posted by the Violet Mosse-Brown Foundation, started by her family, she was a sugarcane farmer for much of her life.

According to CNN, she is the last living subject of Queen Victoria from when many of the Caribbean islands were ruled by the British.

2017 Cox Media Group.

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New 'oldest person in world' is 117, explains secret to longevity - KIRO - KIRO Seattle

Aside from finding a cure for cancer, one of the most elusive battles that numerous scientists all over the world have been trying to win is the fight against aging.

So far, with mice as test subjects, anti-aging techniques include the use of blood plasma, protein adjustment, stem cells, gene manipulation and senescent cell removal. The objectives are also diverse. Some scientists are working on slowing down the process, while others want to reverse it. There are also those who want to stop the process altogether so human life can be extended indefinitely.

Dr. Alex Zhavoronkov director of the International Aging Research Portfolio (IARP) and U.K.-based charity group Biogerontology Research Foundation, also co-founder and CEO of bioinformatics firm Insilico Medicine is among those who believe that while aging happens naturally and is experienced by all living organisms, it doesnt necessarily have to mean that it should result in a degraded quality of life. In other words, Zhavoronkov is one of those who are advocating to classify aging as a disease an unnatural condition that can be treated and cured; a problem that can be solved. He is likewise a longevity enthusiast Zhavoronkov believes it is possible to extend the current longevity record beyond 122 years.

Insilico Medicine is one of the avenues through which Dr. Zhavoronkov intends to prove what he believes about aging and life span. As he told LEAF (Life Extension Advocacy Foundation) in an interview, the companys long-term goals are continuous improvement of human performance, and the prevention and cure of age-related diseases. And he believes the way to do it is by using A.I. to discover new drugs and develop biomarkers for aging.

Among Insilico Medicines more noteworthy projects is OncoFinder an algorithm thats used to analyze the activities of molecular pathways involved in growth, development, aging and cancer. In normal conditions, the algorithm can be used to determine which pathways lead to the development of conditions associated with aging. In pathological conditions, it can be used to predict which drugs will be most effective in treating diseases like cancer.

Theres also iPANDA algorithm which can be used to monitor changes in tissues and identify molecules that can target these changes. Together, these two algorithms help provide a better understanding on the changes that take place from a young state to an old state, as well as from a healthy state to a cancerous state.

Dr. Zhavoronkov is confident that in five years, they will be able to make breakthroughs in personalized medicine by being able to build comprehensive models that can be used as reference to predict, recommend and treat deviations from ideal healthy conditions. In other words, initiate interventions before disease has a chance to progress. And AI will play a major role in bringing this into fruition.

As he explained to LEAF: I think that applying AI to aging is the only way to bring it under the comprehensive medical control. Our AI ecosystem is comprised of multiple pipelines. With our drug discovery and biomarker development pipelines we can go after almost every disease and we even have several projects in ALS And since we are considering aging as a form of disease, many of the same algorithms are used to develop biomarkers and drugs to prevent and possibly even restore aging-associated damage.

Renowned futurist Peter Diamandis envisions that in the next one to two decades, AI will bring in demonetization of our major everyday expenses and therefore considerably bring down the cost of living, including health care. But before that happens, Dr. Zhavoronkov believes that AI can help bring about the cure for aging and maybe other notorious diseases like cancer.

If both scientists are proven correct, and we are certainly rooting for them and the field they represent, then we logically should start believing in the idea that AI really promises to progressively improve our lives. So instead of fantasizing how the development of this striking technology could bring the end of the world, maybe we should focus more on the scale that AI promises, and how it will help usher in the beginning of a new world.

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How AI Will Help Us Defeat Aging - Wall Street Pit

April 24, 2017 Credit: CC0 Public Domain

Researchers have discovered that a protein implicated in human longevity may also play a role in restoring hearing after noise exposure. The findings, where were published in the journal Scientific Reports, could one day provide researchers with new tools to prevent hearing loss.

The study reveals that a gene called Forkhead Box O3 (Foxo3) appears to play a role in protecting outer hair cells in the inner ear from damage. The outer hair cells act as a biological sound amplifier and are critical to hearing. When exposed to loud noises, these cells undergo stress. In some individuals, these cells are able to recover, but in others the outer hair cells die, permanently impairing hearing. While hearing aids and other treatments can help recovered some range of hearing, there is currently no biological cure for hearing loss.

"While more than a hundred genes have been identified as being involved in childhood hearing loss, little is known about the genes that regulate hearing recovery after noise exposure," said Patricia White, Ph.D., a research associate professor in the University of Rochester Medical Center (URMC) Department of Neuroscience and lead author of the study. "Our study shows that Foxo3 could play an important role in determining which individuals might be more susceptible to noise-induced hearing loss."

Approximately one-third of people who reach retirement age have some degree of hearing loss, primarily due to noise exposure over their lifetimes. The problem is even more acute in the military, with upwards of 60 percent of individuals who have been deployed in forward areas experiencing hearing loss, making it the most common disability for combat veterans.

Foxo3 is known to play an important role in cell's stress response. For example, in the cardiovascular system, Foxo3 helps heart cells stay healthy by clearing away debris when the cells are damaged. Additionally, people with a genetic mutation that confers higher levels of Foxo3 protein have been shown to live longer.

White and her team carried out a series of experiments involving knock-out mice who were genetically engineered to lack the Foxo3 gene. The researchers found that, compared to normal mice, these animals were unable to recover hearing after being exposed to loud noises. The team also observed that during the experiment the Foxo3 knock-out mice lost most of their outer hair cells. In the normal mice, outer hair cell loss was not significant.

"Discovering that Foxo3 was important for the survival of outer hair cells is a significant advance," says senior author Patricia White. "We are also excited about the results because Foxo3 is a transcription factor, which regulates the expression of many target genes. We are currently investigating what its targets might be in the inner ear, and how they could act to protect the ear from damage."

Explore further: Success of sensory cell regeneration raises hope for hearing restoration

More information: Felicia Gilels et al, Severe hearing loss and outer hair cell death in homozygous Foxo3 knockout mice after moderate noise exposure, Scientific Reports (2017). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-01142-3

In an apparent first, St. Jude Children's Research Hospital investigators have used genetic manipulation to regenerate auditory hair cells in adult mice. The research marks a possible advance in treatment of hearing loss ...

(HealthDay)The noise of modern life causes permanent hearing damage to many U.S. adults who don't even suspect they've experienced a loss, federal researchers reported Tuesday.

Patients who complain they can't hear their friends at a noisy restaurant, but pass a hearing test in their doctor's office, may be describing hidden hearing loss.

The loss of tiny, sound-sensing cells in the inner ear, known as "hair cells," is a leading cause of hearing loss, a public health problem affecting at least 5 percent of the world population. Hair cells, which do not regenerate ...

Researchers from the Eaton-Peabody Laboratories of the Massachusetts Eye and Ear and Harvard Medical School have created a new mouse model in which by expressing a gene in the inner ear hair cellsthe sensory cells that ...

Hearing loss is a natural part of the aging process. But noise-induced hearing loss is on the rise.

Researchers have discovered that a protein implicated in human longevity may also play a role in restoring hearing after noise exposure. The findings, where were published in the journal Scientific Reports, could one day ...

The largest genomic analysis of puberty timing in men and women conducted to date has identified 389 genetic signals associated with puberty timing, four times the number that were previously known.

Whole-exome DNA sequencinga technology that saves time and money by sequencing only protein-coding regions and not the entire genomemay routinely miss detecting some genetic variations associated with disease, according ...

(Medical Xpress)An international team of researchers has developed a way to use RNA sequencing to help in diagnosing patients with rare genetic muscle conditions. In their paper published in the journal Science Translational ...

Research published this week in Scientific Reports uses computer image and statistical shape analysis to shed light on which parts of the face are most likely to be inherited.

Salk scientists and collaborators have shed light on a long-standing question about what leads to variation in stem cells by comparing induced pluripotent stem cells (iPSCs) derived from identical twins. Even iPSCs made from ...

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Gene may hold key to hearing recovery - Medical Xpress - Medical Xpress

A new study suggests that there may be a simple way to help reduce the risk of liver cancer and extend lifespan: consume mushrooms, soy, whole grains, aged cheese, and other foods rich in spermidine.

Researchers found that mice fed an oral supplement of spermidine were less likely to develop liver fibrosis and hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) - the most common form of liver cancer - compared with rodents that did not receive the supplement.

Furthermore, the research team - from Texas A&M University in College Station - found that spermidine increased the lifespan of mice by as much as 25 percent.

Study co-author Leyuan Liu, Ph.D., of the Institute of Biosciences & Technology at Texas A&M, and colleagues recently reported their findings in the journal Cancer Research.

Spermidine is a polyamine - a compound that has at least two amino groups - that was originally isolated from sperm, hence its name. Spermidine is also naturally found in a variety of food products, including aged cheese, mushrooms, legumes, soy, whole grains, and corn.

Previous research has suggested that dietary spermidine may have health benefits. One study published in Nature Medicine last year, for example, associated oral supplementation of spermidine with better heart health and longevity in mice, while a more recent study linked the compound to reduced blood pressure.

For this latest study, Liu and colleagues investigated whether spermidine might have anti-cancer properties.

To reach their findings, the researchers gave an oral spermidine supplement to mice that were predisposed to develop HCC or liver fibrosis - that is, a buildup of scar tissue in the liver that can lead to liver cancer.

Not only were the mice less likely to develop HCC or liver fibrosis than rodents that were not given the spermidine supplement, but they were also found to live much longer.

"It's a dramatic increase in lifespan of animal models, as much as 25 percent," says Liu. "In human terms, that would mean that instead of living to about 81 years old, the average American could live to be over 100."

The authors note that the 25 percent increase in lifespan was only seen in mice that had lifelong spermidine supplementation; rodents that were given the supplement later in life experienced a 10 percent increase in longevity.

In previous research, Liu and team found that lack of autophagy - the process by which cells "eat" their own debris - contributed to cancer development.

In this study, the researchers found that the benefits of spermidine diminished in the absence of a protein called MAP1S, which is known to trigger autophagy. As such, the team speculates that the cancer-protective effects of the compound are down to its enhancement of MAP1S-related autophagy.

Further studies are needed to determine the safety and efficacy of spermidine supplementation in humans, but the team believes that it could offer significant health benefits.

"Just think: if we added spermidine to every bottle of beer, it might balance out the alcohol and help protect the liver," says Liu.

"It's still early, but perhaps one day this approach will provide a novel strategy to prolong lifespans, prevent or reverse liver fibrosis, and prevent, delay, or cure hepatocellular carcinoma in humans."

Leyuan Liu, Ph.D.

Learn how having children may increase lifespan.

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Compound in aged cheese may prevent liver cancer, boost longevity - Medical News Today