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How the world got lost on
the road to an anti-aging pill
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October 7, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Las Vegas, NV (October 7, 2010) – Longevinex® is the first resveratrol-based nutriceutical to demonstrate it abolishes the earliest sign of blood vessel aging and significantly inhibits a marker of inflammation, in humans.
In a 3-month study conducted among patients with metabolic syndrome (obesity, elevated blood sugar) in Japan, researchers report that 1-capsule of Longevinex® taken daily strongly inhibits loss of “flow mediated dilatation,” which is described as impaired ability of arteries to widen (dilate) with increased heart rate induced by physical exertion or stress. If the arteries do not dilate when a human goes from a resting heart rate to a faster heart rate, then the artery remains abnormally narrow, blood pressure rises abnormally, and the threat of a stroke becomes real.
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October 1, 2010: by Bill Sardi
“Resveratrol this and resveratrol that, it cures most everything in the laboratory rat.”
Main points:
Resveratrol — the red wine molecule heralded for its potential to reverse biological time, to erase the ravages of human aging, to do what only could be previously imagined in science-fiction books. But the rush to commercialize resveratrol is trivializing its future. A cobweb of false advertising, pseudoscience (even in published scientific journals), misleading labeling and potential side effects posed by overdosing could provoke regulatory agencies to step in and declare this molecule a drug, robbing the public of direct access to this miracle of our time.
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September 22, 2010: by Bill Sardi
For unexplained reasons biologists working in the field of aging fail to explain what causes aging genes to switch on or off, and why genes that accelerate aging begin to progressively exert their influence with advancing age, beginning after full childhood growth is achieved.
There are electrifying studies which assay the gene activation (called gene expression) profiles of animals and humans subjected to calorie-restricted (CR) diets, which is a known practice that prolongs the life of all living organisms.
Also, molecular CR mimetics, or so-called anti-aging pills, comprised of small molecules like resveratrol that can influence genetic machinery inside living cells, have been analyzed for their influence over the human genome.
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: by Bill Sardi
The Telegraph, a British online news source, announces Viagra (Sildenafil) will soon be sold in supermarkets without the need for a doctor’s prescription. The focus of the Telegraph report is not that Viagra will be sold over-the-counter, but rather that it could be a “bad idea… according to pension experts.” Viagra would be a bad idea — not because it may have side effects or cause men to use it indiscriminately, but for another reason.
The Telegraph says it all has to do with the law of unintended consequences. The gap between male and female life expectancy is narrowing. Typically women live 5-8 years longer than men. That gap is shrinking to about 4 years, according to the British Office of National Statistics. A pension consultant quoted in the Telegraph report says this is because men are seeking medical care and visiting their doctor more than in past years, not for reasons to check up on their health, bur rather to obtain a prescription for Viagra.
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September 21, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Niacinamide (form of vitamin B3) is also known as nicotinamide. You read in the following abstract that depletion of nicotinamide is sufficient to activate the SIR2 gene (which is akin to the SIRTUIN1 gene in humans) and therefore regulate longevity. Since vitamin B3 is ubiquitous in food, starvation (calorie restriction) would deplete this essential vitamin and send a survival signal by upregulating SIRTUIN1 (SIR2 in lower life forms). [see Ref. #1 below] Of course, niacin is essential for life, a frank deficiency resulting in the vitamin deficiency disease called pellagra. So it would not be desirable to deplete niacin, nor starve oneself, to achieve longevity, though limited-calorie (CR) diets that border on starvation are employed by a few longevity seekers (Calorie Restriction Society). The idea of employing resveratrol is to create the same survival signal without having to deprive oneself of food. Biologists face a roadblock here because CR produces lean bodies, whereas resveratrol has only been shown to do this in animals at extreme doses (14,000 mg human equivalent dose in rodents, which is a potentially toxic dose). [Ref. #2 below] However, it has become apparent that low doses of resveratrol work better than high doses [Ref. #3], and when combined with other small molecules such as those provided in red wine (quercetin, ferulic acid, etc.), exerts even greater biological activity and influence over the genome. More important, when resveratrol is combined with other small molecules such as quercetin, the two molecules inhibit fat cell (adipocyte) activity. [See Refs #4 & #5 below] Longevinex was compared to a CR diet and plain resveratrol in a head-to-head study. Whereas it takes life-long adherence to a CR diet to significantly differentiate 832 genes, Longevinex differentiated nearly twice as many longevity genes (1711) in the short-term. For comparison, short-term CR only exerted influence over 198 genes and plain resveratrol 225 genes. This suggests that short-term supplementation with plain resveratrol would have to continue for decades to achieve the same effect as a CR diet, whereas Longevinex produced a similar gene expression profile as CR in the short-term. Since many people don’t have decades of life ahead of them, the full benefits of resveratrol supplementation may not be achieved. This is not to say resveratrol is not beneficial, but it may not mimic the longevity of CR with short-term use.
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September 12, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Amyloid protein is now said to “poison” insulin-secreting islet cells in the pancreas and may be the triggering event in adult-onset diabetes say researchers in Dublin today. It is believed amyloid protein is a “rogue protein that sparks diabetes,” say researchers.
According to a BBC News report, “the researchers said that they hoped the finding would ‘spur new research’ to target the mechanisms of the disease,” acting as if underlying mechanisms are unknown. In fact, the accumulation and lack of control of copper has been clearly identified as the factor responsible for the accumulation of amyloid protein in the pancreas and other human tissues with advancing age.
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September 4, 2010: by Bill Sardi
So often, books about super-longevity present a scenario that proposes to deliver an anti-aging pill at some distant time in the future that one wonders if it isn’t science fiction. True, in this era of genetic engineering, biologists are on the cusp of delivering technologies that significantly extend the quality and quantity of human life. Certainly the idea of an anti-aging pill is now on the biological drawing board. But the current science appears to be running in circles. Researchers have their pet genes or organs they study. But who is consolidating all the data into a theory of aging that would be practical and economical for the masses?
Anti-aging researchers can describe age-related changes inside living cells, and in the library of 25,000 human genes, but they often fail to present a framework for what causes those changes. The current fascination with genetic switching is a distraction. Genes don’t switch themselves on or off.
We live with the knowledge that our genes are influenced by environmental factors (diet, radiation, temperature) in what is called epigenetics. Fashioning molecular cocktails to favorably influence the genome is the agenda of the day. Whatever age-defying molecular cocktail is invented must also overcome deleterious factors, such as excessive calorie diets. The building of an anti-aging pill is quite a challenge.
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August 19, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Stem cell therapy in cases of heart failure or post-heart attack has been disappointing. Heart muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) regenerate or are replaced very slowly, so stem cell therapy has been attempted. The hope therapy has been that these stem cells will differentiate into cardiac muscle cells, preventing heart failure. Here, in this ground-breaking study, researchers fed laboratory animals the red wine molecule resveratrol (rez=vair-ah-trawl) two weeks prior to an intentionally-induced heart attack. Then stem cells were injected into the heart, with increased survival of these cells noted and increased pumping action of the heart measured. There was greater survival of resveratrol-treated animals. Read the abstract below. – Bill Sardi for ResveratrolNews.com
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August 15, 2010: by Bill Sardi
A recently recognized biological mechanism that switches genes on and off may play a larger role in aging than previously thought.
That mechanism involves short stands of RNA, about 1/100th the length of a typical gene, called microRNAs, which are only 22 nucleotides in length (nucleotides comprise the rungs on the DNA ladder), which may interfere with normal messenger RNA in the production of protein.
As a brief background to readers, when genes are activated, a process called gene expression, they produce protein. When genes are switched off, called gene silencing, no protein is made. MicroRNAs interfere with this protein-making process and thus switch genes off.
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August 12, 2010: by Bill Sardi
Note: see late-breaking bulletin at bottom of story
The regulatory status of resveratrol as both an investigational drug (SRT501, Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, Cambridge, Mass.) and widely sold dietary supplement has presented a number of conjectural problems.
What would happen if the drug version of this molecule were nothing better than what is available as a dietary supplement? Furthermore, to further blur the difference between dietary supplement and pharmaceutical drug, the dietary supplement industry today is now working under FDA-prescribed Good Manufacturing Practices which, if complied with, may no longer give pharmaceuticals such a big advantage over dietary supplements in quality.
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