Healthy Life Extension

Happy-Go-Lucky Types Die Younger

posted on April 19, 2011

Before I tell you why, I’d like to tell you about a rare afternoon off.

The movie, Atlas Shrugged, was released last Friday. I hardly ever go out to see a movie unless it’s a special Imax show, and preferably in 3D. I also rarely take days off. I made exceptions for Atlas Shrugged, and am I glad I did! What an uplifting way to spend part of an afternoon in these times of political and economic uncertainty. The only negative part was, the movie ended. I can’t remember time ever going by more quickly.

If you haven’t seen Atlas Shrugged yet, click here to see where it is playing near you: www.AtlasShruggedPart1.com/theaters.

Now for the longevity part:

I just finishing a book about personality types and their relationship to life extension. I was about to write a review for you when I found someone already did that. Please read the following article courtesy of UC Riverside and World Science staff. The bullets in this article give you some great longevity information and tips.

Here is the article:

Cheer up. Stop wor­ry­ing. Don’t work so hard. That may be some of the worst ad­vice you could give some­one who in­tends to live a long life, a new study sug­gests.

“It’s sur­pris­ing just how of­ten com­mon as­sump­tions – by both sci­en­tists and the me­dia – are wrong,” said psy­chol­o­gist How­ard S. Fried­man of the Uni­vers­ity of Cal­i­for­nia, who led the 20-year stu­dy. He and co-re­search­ers pub­lished the find­ings in a book en­ti­tled The Longe­vity Proj­ect: Sur­pris­ing Dis­cov­er­ies for Health and Long Life from the Land­mark Eight-Decade Study (Hud­son Street Press, March 2011).

“Probably our most amaz­ing find­ing was that per­son­al­ity char­ac­ter­is­tics and so­cial rela­t­ions from child­hood can pre­dict one’s risk of dy­ing dec­ades lat­er,” Fried­man said.

The team an­a­lyzed da­ta gath­ered by the late psy­chol­o­gist Lou­is Ter­man of Stan­ford Uni­vers­ity in Cal­i­for­nia and sub­se­quent re­search­ers on more than 1,500 bright chil­dren who were about 10 years old when they were first stud­ied in 1921. The Longevity Proj­ect, as the study be­came known, fol­lowed the chil­dren through their lives, col­lect­ing in­forma­t­ion that in­clud­ed family his­to­ries and rela­t­ion­ships, teach­er and par­ent rat­ings of per­son­al­ity, hob­bies, pet own­er­ship, job suc­cess, educa­t­ion levels, military serv­ice and more.

“We came to a new un­der­stand­ing about hap­pi­ness and health,” said psy­chol­o­gist Les­lie R. Mar­tin, a study col­la­bo­ra­tor who is now at La Si­er­ra Uni­vers­ity in Riv­er­side, Ca­lif. “One of the find­ings that really as­tounds peo­ple, in­clud­ing us, is that the Longevity Proj­ect par­ti­ci­pants who were the most cheer­ful and had the best sense of hu­mor as kids lived shorter lives, on av­er­age, than those who were less cheer­ful and jok­ing. It was the most pru­dent and per­sist­ent in­di­vid­u­als who stayed health­i­est and lived the longest.”

The cheer­ful, hap­py-go-lucky kids tended to take more risks with their health across the years, Fried­man not­ed. While an op­ti­mis­tic ap­proach can be help­ful in a cri­sis, “we found that as a gen­er­al life-orienta­t­ion, too much of a sense that ‘ev­ery­thing will be just fine’ can be dan­ger­ous be­cause it can lead one to be care­less about things that are im­por­tant to health and long life. Pru­dence and per­sis­tence, how­ev­er, led to a lot of im­por­tant ben­e­fits for many years. It turns out that hap­pi­ness is not a root cause of good health. In­stead, hap­pi­ness and health go to­geth­er be­cause they have com­mon roots.”

Oth­er sur­pris­ing find­ings:

• Mar­riage may be good for men’s health, but has lit­tle if any ef­fect on wom­en’s life­spans.
• Be­ing di­vorced is much less harm­ful to wom­en’s health. Wom­en who di­vorced and did not re­mar­ry lived nearly as long as those who were steadily mar­ried.
• Study sub­jects who were the most in­volved and com­mit­ted to their jobs did the best. Con­tin­u­ally pro­duc­tive men and wom­en lived much long­er than their more laid-back com­rades.
• Start­ing for­mal school­ing too early – be­ing in first grade be­fore age 6 – is a risk fac­tor for ear­li­er mor­tal­ity. Hav­ing suf­fi­cient play­time and be­ing able to re­late to class­mates is very im­por­tant for chil­dren.
• Play­ing with pets is not as­so­ci­at­ed with long­er life. Pets may some­times im­prove well-be­ing, but they are not a sub­sti­tute for friends.
• Com­bat vet­er­ans are less likely to live long lives, but sur­pris­ingly the psy­cho­log­i­cal stress of war it­self is not nec­es­sarily a ma­jor health threat. Rath­er, it is a cas­cade of un­healthy pat­terns that some­times fol­lows. Those who find mean­ing in a traumat­ic ex­pe­ri­ence and are able to re­es­tab­lish a sense of se­cur­ity about the world are usu­ally the ones who re­turn to a healthy path­way.
• Peo­ple who feel loved and cared for re­port a bet­ter sense of well-be­ing, but it does­n’t help them live long­er. The clear­est health ben­e­fit of so­cial rela­t­ion­ships comes from be­ing in­volved with and help­ing oth­ers. The groups you as­so­ci­ate with of­ten de­ter­mine the type of per­son you be­come – healthy or un­healthy.
•  

It’s nev­er too late to choose a health­i­er path, Fried­man and Mar­tin said. The key is not to stop worry­ing, they added, but to stop worry­ing about the min­u­tiae.

“Some of the mi­nu­ti­ae of what peo­ple think will help us lead long, healthy lives, such as wor­ry­ing about the ra­tio of omega-6 to omega-3 fat­ty acids in the foods we eat, ac­tu­ally are red her­rings, dis­tract­ing us from the ma­jor path­ways,” Fried­man said. “When we rec­og­nize the long-term healthy and un­healthy pat­terns in our­selves, we can beg­in to max­im­ize the healthy pat­terns.”

“Think­ing of mak­ing changes as tak­ing ‘steps’ is a great strat­e­gy,” Mar­tin ad­vised. “You can’t change ma­jor things about your­self over­night. But mak­ing small changes, and re­peat­ing those steps, can even­tu­ally cre­ate that path to long­er life.”

Long Life,
David Kekich
____________________________

LATEST HEADLINES FROM FIGHT AGING!

CALORIE RESTRICTION AND CORE BODY TEMPERATURE IN HUMANS Friday, April 15, 2011 http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/calorie-restriction-and-core-body-temperature-in-humans.php
Another of the observed effects of calorie restriction in lower animals is shown to exist in humans as well: "Reduction of body temperature has been proposed to contribute to the increased lifespan in calorie restricted animals and mice overexpressing the uncoupling protein-2 in hypocretin neurons. However, nothing is known regarding the long-term effects of calorie restriction (CR) with adequate nutrition on body temperature in humans. In this study, 24-hour core body temperature was measured every minute by using ingested telemetric capsules in 24 men and women consuming a CR diet for an average of 6 years, 24 age- and sex-matched sedentary (WD) and 24 body fat-matched exercise-trained (EX) volunteers, who were eating Western diets. Mean 24-hour, day-time and night-time core body temperatures were all significantly lower in the CR group than in the WD and EX groups. Long-term CR with adequate nutrition in lean and weight-stable healthy humans is associated with a sustained reduction in core body temperature, similar to that found in CR rodents and monkeys. This adaptation is likely due to CR itself, rather than to leanness, and may be involved in slowing the rate of aging."

INDUSTRIALIZATION OF TISSUE ENGINEERING Friday, April 15, 2011 http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/industrialization-of-tissue-engineering.php
Economies of scale apply to all endeavors, including the production of human tissue: "The high-tech production lines of [a] laboratory in Germany began moving this week turning out a unique product - human skin. Nicknamed 'The Flesh Factory' by the boffins who work at the Stuttgarter Fraunhofer-Institute, it aims to produce 5,000 circles of skin as big as a one-euro cent every month. Costing around 45 pounds each, when the skin circles are perfected they will be sold to hospitals and clinics around the world for life-saving operations.

Project leader Professor Heike Walles, 48, has devoted her whole life to the goal of reproducing human skin on an industrial scale - to save human life and protect animals; it can be used for the kind of testing currently requiring the sacrifice of live creatures. Until now, methods of culturing tissue like that used for skin transplants have been very expensive. Most of the steps are carried out manually, which means that the process is not particularly efficient. The new production line is entirely mechanical and controlled by computers. The process works like this; a biopsy - a sample of human tissue - is checked for sterility. A gripper arm then transports the biopsy into an automated cutting device. The machine snips the biopsy into small pieces, isolates the different cell types, stimulates their growth, and mixes the skin cells with collagen. A three-dimensional reconstruction of the different skin layers is produced with the aid of a special gel matrix - and the skin is ready. In the final step, the machine packages the cells for shipment. Alternatively, the tissue can be cryopreserved - that is, deep-frozen and stored for later use."

VEGETARIANISM, OR LESS BODY FAT? Thursday, April 14, 2011 http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/vegetarianism-or-less-body-fat.php
Here is an example of a research commentary that misses the forest for the trees: "Vegetarians experience a 36 percent lower prevalence of metabolic syndrome than non-vegetarians, suggests new research. Because metabolic syndrome can be a precursor to heart disease, diabetes, and stroke, the findings indicate vegetarians may be at lower risk of developing these conditions. Metabolic syndrome is defined as exhibiting at least three out of five total risk factors: high blood pressure, elevated HDL cholesterol, high glucose levels, elevated triglycerides, and an unhealthy waist circumference.

While 25 percent of vegetarians had metabolic syndrome, the number significantly rises to 37 percent for semi-vegetarians and 39 percent for non-vegetarians. The results hold up when adjusted for factors such as age, gender, race, physical activity, calories consumed, smoking, and alcohol intake. On average, the vegetarians and semi-vegetarians were three years older than non-vegetarians. Despite their slightly older age, vegetarians had lower triglycerides, glucose levels, blood pressure, waist circumference, and body mass index (BMI). Semi-vegetarians also had a significantly lower BMI and waist circumference compared to those who ate meat more regularly." Given the broader context of what is known about the effects of body fat on long-term health, the plausible mechanism here looks to be related to the amount of visceral fat rather than anything to do with diet per se.

GROWING KIDNEYS FROM STEM CELLS Thursday, April 14, 2011 http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/growing-kidneys-from-stem-cells.php
Progress in tissue engineering: "scientists have created human kidneys from stem cells. The artificial organs were created in a laboratory using human amniotic fluid and animal foetal cells. They are currently half a centimetre in length - the same size as kidneys found in an unborn baby. [Scientists] hope they will grow into full-size organs when transplanted into a human. It sounds a bit science fiction-like but it's not. The idea is to start with human stem cells and end up with a functioning organ. We have made pretty good progress with that. We can make something that has the complexity of a normal, foetal kidney. The research team hope that doctors will eventually be able to collect amniotic fluid, which surrounds the growing embryo in the womb, when a baby is born. This will then be stored by scientists in case that person develops kidney disease later in life. The fluid can then be used to create a matching kidney. Creating an organ using a patient's own stem cells solves the problem of having to use powerful immunosuppressant drugs to stop the body rejecting a another person's kidney. The technology could be ready for use on humans in around 10 years." By which time it will probably be unnecessary to collect amniotic fluid, as the signals and chemicals it provides will be understood and reproduced.

REVERSING B CELL AGING Tuesday, April 12, 2011 http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/reversing-b-cell-aging.php
Here are more indications that selective pruning of an aged immune system can restore at least some of its youthful potency. If researchers can understand why the pruning does this, then there is the possibility of skipping the selective destruction and directly manipulating the underlying signaling processes instead: "Age-related alterations in the cellular composition of the B lineage are a major cause of the poor antibody response to vaccination and to infectious agents among the elderly population. The mechanisms leading to these changes are poorly understood. Recently, we have shown that these changes reflect, at least in part, homeostatic pressures imposed by long-lived B cells that accumulate with aging, and that aging in the B lineage can be reversed upon alteration of B cell homeostasis by depletion. Here we discuss homeostatic causes for B lineage immunosenescence, and the potential for its rejuvenation. The major conclusion of our study is that age-related alterations in the B lineage are reversible and mediated [by] the long-lived B cells accumulating in the periphery with age. These observations are the foundations of new paradigms for enhancing immune responsiveness in aging, which may be translated in the future for clinical use. The nature of these homeostatic regulation mechanisms and the cross-talk between peripheral B cells and progenitor cell populations in the [bone marrow] are yet to be identified. This will allow direct manipulation of B cell homeostasis by targeting the regulatory factor(s) rather than by depletion of B cells, to [enhance] immune competence in the elderly."

LEARNING FROM THE SALAMANDER BRAIN
Monday, April 11, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/learning-from-the-salamander-brain.php
Salamanders can regenerate more than just limbs: "A study of the salamander brain has led [researchers] to discover a hitherto unknown function of the neurotransmitter dopamine. The study was conducted using salamanders which unlike mammals recover fully from a Parkinson's-like condition within a four week period. Parkinson's disease is a neurodegenerative disease characterised by the death of dopamine-producing cells in the mid-brain. As the salamander re-builds all lost dopamine-producing neurons, the researchers examined how the salamander brain detects the absence of these cells. What they found out was that the salamander's stem cells are automatically activated when the dopamine concentration drops as a result of the death of dopamine-producing neurons, meaning that the neurotransmitter acts as a constant handbrake on stem cell activity. As in mammals, the formation of neurons in the salamander mid-brain is virtually non-existent under normal circumstances. Therefore by studying the salamander, scientists can understand how the production of new nerve cells can be resumed once it has stopped, and how it can be stopped when no more neurons are needed. It is precisely in this regulation that dopamine seems to play a vital part. Many observations also suggest that similar mechanisms are active in other animal species too. Further comparative studies can shed light on how neurotransmitters control stem cells in the brain, knowledge that is of potential use in the development of therapies for neurodegenerative diseases."

ATHEROSCLEROSIS HAPPENS RAPIDLY AND LATE Monday, April 11, 2011 http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/04/atherosclerosis-happens-rapidly-and-late.php
Many of the characteristic signs and conditions of aging arrive in a rush in later life. The buildup to that point has been going on for a while, but there is a threshold past which matters suddenly accelerate. Here is one example: researchers "have determined the age of atherosclerotic plaques by taking advantage of Carbon-14 (14C) residues in the atmosphere, prevailing after the extensive atomic bomb tests in the 50ties and 60ties. The findings, published in the scientific online journal PLoS ONE, suggest that in most people plaque formation occurs during a relatively short and late time period in life of 3-5 years.

We suspected that the plaque would be substantially younger than the patients, who were on average were 68 years old at surgery, but we were surprised when we found that the average age of these plaques was less than 10 years. If proven true, the growth of atherosclerotic lesions may be interrupted to prevent clinical manifestation, like [stroke], even in late stages of life, at 60 years of age or possibly later. ... The age of plaques was also found to be associated to blood levels of insulin, and plaques with lower age (formed more recently) were found to be more unstable than older plaques and therefore more likely to cause clinical complications." All of which is characteristic of a suddenly runaway process.

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