Kekich’s Credo

Dear Future Centenarian,

About 21 years ago, I was reflecting on some really dumb mistakes I made in my life and what I could do to keep from repeating them. So I drew on almost all the positive lessons I learned and on all the wisdom of people and mentors whose paths I crossed. The result was personal rules of life encapsulated in 100 credos. I named it Kekich’s Credo” and studied it religiously.

A friend of mine got a copy and published it in his newsletter. Then it spread to another newsletter and so on, and in some circles I became known as “The Credo Guy”.

Last October, Pete Hilgartner, a very bright and fascinating chiropractor, called me to ask permission to publish some of my credos in his newsletter. He went on the say he wanted to write a little essay on each as they pertain to health and well-being. Since then, he did about twenty. From time-to-time, I will share some of Dr. Pete’s gems with you, starting with this one:


1. People will do almost anything to stay in their comfort zones. If you want to accomplish anything, get out of your comfort zone. Strive to increase order and discipline in your life. Discipline usually means doing the opposite of what you feel like doing. The easy roads to discipline are 1) setting deadlines, 2) discovering and doing what you do best and what's important and enjoyable to you and 3) focusing on habits by replacing your bad habits and thought patterns, one-by-one, over time, with good habits and thought patterns.

What health habits (or lack thereof) are you holding on to that are keeping you from your goals?

Are you trying to lose weight? Get strong? Get rid of back pain? Maybe you're ignoring your high blood pressure or triglycerides. "Yumm! that pizza just looks too good! I'll be more disciplined tomorrow..."

Here's a wake up call... NO YOU WON'T!

If you want a different outcome in your life, on any dynamic, you have to DO something different, NOW! The same-ol', same-ol 'is gonna get you the same-ol', same-ol'.

Yes, new habits are tough. They take you out of your comfort zone.

Getting up in the morning to stretch before you do anything else (OK, you can go pee first) is going to be new... but what will you gain? Is the pleasure of what you will gain worth the short term discomfort of doing what you haven't done before? What about giving up the donuts and replacing it with an egg? How about taking a walk instead of watching TV?

Change is actually easy once you decide what it is that you really want and don't let anything stand in the way of making that decision a reality. Excuses are simply a way for you to stay in your comfort zone.

When you hear that little voice in your head start to make excuses or rationalize, shout "STOP! Thank you for sharing...now go away...I choose to _______ (fill in the blank.) I'm DONE with my comfort zone!"

You can certainly stay in that warm bed and not go for that walk you planned. After all you can start tomorrow...

The choice is yours... but so are the results.

How are your choices working for you?


This guy is something else, isn’t he? How’d you like to have someone like Dr. Pete as your personal chiropractor? You can find more about him at www.drshilgartner.com.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

The Age of the Cyborg (January 09 2009) http://www.publicaffairs.ubc.ca/ubcreports/2009/09jan08/cyborg.html
The cyborg age is sneaking up on us by way of the tools of tissue engineering and improvements in nanoscale manufacture. Sooner or later most of us will have artificial structures in our bodies - though perhaps not the ones we imagined having when we were young: "With age, the human body wears out. And engineered materials - metals, polymers and ceramics - increasingly help repair or replace injured or destroyed body parts. As we become more sophisticated in our ability to design materials, particularly at the nanoscale, we open all kinds of opportunities for repairing damaged body parts. The potential is really unlimited. Considering the great strides materials engineers are making in developing materials that are readily accepted by the body and that accelerate the process of recovery and healing, the age of the Cyborg seems not so much science fiction as it does science fact - a good thing given the increasing life expectancy and enduring desire to lead active lives."

Most Likely Not Programmed Aging (January 08 2009) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/sumc-sru010509.php
From EurekAlert!: "Two previously identified pathways associated with aging in mice are connected. The finding reinforces what researchers have recently begun to suspect: that the age-related degeneration of tissues [is] an active, deliberate process rather than a gradual failure of tired cells. Derailing or slowing this molecular betrayal, although still far in the future, may enable us to one day tack years onto our lives ... There is a genetic process that has to be on, and enforced, in order for aging to happen. It's possible that those rare individuals who live beyond 100 years have a less-efficient version of this master pathway." I suspect that one reason that theories of programmed aging remain somewhat popular is that the reactions of our cells to a slow stochastic accumulation of biochemical wear and tear do look something like the unfolding of a program. Gene expression steadily changes as the damage mounts. So you see research like this, said to support programmed aging but which could just as well support aging as an accumulation of damage. Researchers are linking changes in gene expression previously noted to be important to aging and longevity, but without evidence of the root cause of these changes, it's premature to declare aging programmed.

Provoking Regeneration (January 08 2009) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/icl-scu010709.php
From EurekAlert!: "When a person has a disease or an injury, the bone marrow mobilizes different types of stem cells to help repair and regenerate tissue. New research [shows] that it may be possible to boost the body's ability to repair itself and speed up repair, by using different new drug combinations to put the bone marrow into a state of 'red alert' and send specific kinds of stem cells into action. In the new study, researchers tricked the bone marrow of healthy mice into releasing two types of adult stem cells - mesenchymal stem cells, which can turn into bone and cartilage and that can also suppress the immune system, and endothelial progenitor cells, which can make blood vessels and therefore have the potential to repair damage in the heart. The researchers were able to choose which groups of stem cells the bone marrow released, by using two different therapies. Ultimately, the researchers hope that their new technique could be used to repair and regenerate tissue, for example when a person has heart disease or a sports injury, by mobilizing the necessary stem cells. The researchers also hope that they could tackle autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis, where the body is attacked by its own immune system, by kicking the mesenchymal stem cells into action."

More on Tissue Engineering of Bone Marrow (January 07 2009)
http://www.economist.com/science/tm/displaystory.cfm?story_id=12883495
From the Economist: "tissue engineers have mastered the arts of artificial skin and bladders, and recently they have managed to rig up a windpipe for a patient whose existing one was blocked. But more complicated organs elude them. And simpler ones, too. No one, for instance, has managed to grow bone marrow successfully. At first sight, that is surprising. The soft and squishy marrow inside bones does not look like a highly structured tissue, but apparently it is. That does not matter for transplants. If marrow cells are moved from one bone to another they quickly make themselves at home. But it matters for research. Bone marrow plays an important role in the immune system, and also in bodily rejuvenation. Stem cells that originate within the marrow generate various sorts of infection-fighting blood cells and also help to repair damaged organs. However, many anti-cancer and anti-viral drugs are toxic to marrow. That leaves patients taking them susceptible to disease and premature ageing. Experiments intended to investigate this toxicity using mice have proved unsatisfactory. Nicholas Kotov of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor and his colleagues have therefore been trying to grow human marrow artificially."

Continued Improvement in iPS Cells (January 07 2009) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2009-01/bu-cas010709.php
Researchers continue to rapidly improve the technology of production for induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells: a "research team has discovered a more efficient way to create [iPS] cells, derived from mouse fibroblasts, by using a single virus vector instead of multiple viruses in the reprogramming process. The result is a powerful laboratory tool and a significant step toward the application of embryonic stem cell-like cells for clinical purposes such as the regeneration of organs damaged by inherited or degenerative diseases. Prior research studies have required multiple retroviral vectors for reprogramming - steps that depended on four different viruses to transfer genes into the cells' DNA - essentially a separate virus for each reprogramming gene. Upon activation these genes convert the cells from their adult, differentiated status to what amounts to an embryonic-like state. However, the high number of genomic integrations - 15 to 20 - that typically occurs when multiple viruses are used for reprogramming, poses a safety risk in humans, as some of these genes [can] cause cancer. The major milestone [was] combining the four vectors into a single 'stem cell cassette' containing all four genes. The cassette (named STEMCCA) [was] able to generate iPS cells more efficiently - 10 times higher than previously reported studies."

More on Skulachev's Research and SkQ1 (January 06 2009) http://pmid.us/19120018
One of the items I'd like to see reasonably settled soon is whether longevity can be reliably engineered by targeting antioxidant compounds to the mitochondria and thereby slowing the accumulation of damaged mitochondria and their contribution to aging. We have good demonstrations that it can, and good demonstrations that it can't. Something interesting is clearly going on (as indicated by mice living significantly longer than they ordinarily would), but the details are still fuzzy. One of the lines of this research I've been following for a while is the work of Skulachev and colleagues in Russia, who seem to have developed an ingested compound called SkQ1 that can perform the mitochondrial targeting trick without the need for gene engineering of the sort employed by Rabinovitch. Here's the latest paper from that group: "Very low (nano- and subnanomolar) concentrations of 10-(6'-plastoquinonyl) decyltriphenylphosphonium (SkQ1) were found to prolong lifespan of [an] insect (Drosophila melanogaster) and a mammal (mouse). The lifespan increase is accompanied by rectangularization of the survival curves (an increase in survival is much larger at early than at late ages) and disappearance of typical traits of senescence or retardation of their development. Data summarized here and in the preceding papers of this series suggest that mitochondria-targeted antioxidant SkQ1 is competent in slowing down execution of an aging program responsible for development of age-related senescence."

Enthusiasm for Regenerating Teeth (January 06 2009) http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2008593860_teeth06.html
From the Seattle Times: "the real news about the future of dentures is that there isn't much of one. It turns out wisdom teeth are prolific sources of adult stem cells needed to grow new teeth for you. From scratch. In your adult life, as you need them. In the near future. Regenerating a whole tooth is no less complicated than rebuilding a whole heart. Not only do you have to create smart tissue (nerves), strong tissue (ligaments) and soft tissue (pulp), you've got to build enamel - by far the hardest structural element in the body. And you have to have openings for blood vessels and nerves. And you have to make the whole thing stick together. And you have to anchor it in bone. And then you have to make the entire arrangement last a lifetime in the juicy stew of bacteria that is your mouth. It's a nuisance, but researchers are closing in on it. They think the tooth probably will be the first complex organ to be completely regenerated from stem cells. In part, this is because teeth are easily accessible. Nobody is predicting when the first whole tooth will be grown in a human, although five to 10 years is a common guess."

An Interview with Jason Silva (January 05 2009) http://www.bravenewtraveler.com/2009/01/05/interview-jason-silva-on-how-science-will-make-you-live-forever/An interesting interview: "I believe humans have always overcome their biological limitations. It is what has brought us out of the caves and onto the moon. We have cured ourselves of diseases, we fly remarkable machines through the air at 500 miles per hour. We communicate instantly and wirelessly across the world. Why is it such a stretch to imagine us re-programming our biochemistry (much like computer software) so that we may alleviate suffering, decay, and death? Death is a profound tragedy. Human consciousness is basically a profound (and valuable) pattern of information residing in a complex biological machine. This machine can repair itself for a certain period, but over time it wears out and decays at a faster rate than it can fix itself. This is why we die. Today, however, we are at the verge of correcting this. Death is the loss of everything that matters - It is our memories, our loves, the images and dreams that define us - the songs that moved us and the films that shaped us. Death takes this all away. I argue that in the same way we feel compelled to preserve the works of Shakespeare and other great works of art, why shouldn't we extend this into our physicality?"

A Valuable Lesson

As promised, I’m going to pass on a valuable lesson from Dr. Pete Hilgartner.

What is your first reaction to a crisis? Let’s say you get diagnosed with a serious illness. First your heart skips a beat and then thunders like a jackhammer. Maybe you break out in a cold sweat. Then when reality sets in, do you retreat? Do you roll up in a fetal position, pull the covers over your head and hope your problems disappear? Do you tend to sleep more, head for the liquor cabinet or pray harder than you had in years?

How about when you life’s savings gets wiped out overnight due to mismanagement, theft, the economy or just by hard luck?

Or what do you do when the economy slows down, and your customers’ orders slow to a trickle, or you get laid off?

What about when all the real estate equity you built over the years vanishes overnight?

Time to retreat, right? Batten down the hatches. Cut expenses. Downsize. Deprive yourself until things get better. That’s what most people do, and that’s one reason the press tells you our economy sucks.

What if there was a better way to handle crises? Well there is. In fact there are two. The first is offered up by Dr. Pete. The second by yours truly.

Dr. Pete is a fascinating guy and a successful student of life. He was very sickly as a child, way sicker than most people could tolerate. But his illnesses motivated him to set lofty goals. He decided to win an Olympic gold metal, to become an officer in the Marine Corps and to become a physician. He was well on his way to a shot at the gold when his aching back tripped him up. So he joined the Marines and later became a successful physician.

The Marines taught him one of life’s great lessons. They taught him how to survive an ambush.

Capt. Pete survived six ambushes in fact. He realized he survived them the same way he survived his childhood injuries and the same way he’s surviving today’s economic climate. When you’re ambushed, the Marines teach you to head for an escape route. But what is there is none? What do you do when the enemy closes off all escape? Then you make yourself as small a target as possible, right? Wrong!

If you want to escape, to survive, you do the counter-intuitive. You do the unexpected. You expand… and attack. But don’t just sort of expand. Expand with decisiveness, purpose, order and with a plan. Play offense instead of defense. Overcome your fear and take the fight to the enemy. Dr. Pete and most of the company he commanded live today because of that one critical lesson.

Have you noticed that when people are filled with fear, they tend to withdraw? They stop communicating. If they do communicate, it’s usually to complain about how bad things are. When you’re down, be a beacon of optimism. Take charge of your situation. Every cell in your body will react and rally you to your recovery.

Can you force yourself to expand, when every fiber of your existence wants to do what everyone else is doing; succumbing and contracting to fear? Yes, you can!

I have another way to not only survive, but to prosper as well. It’s your surest path to sound health and longevity. In a word, it’s “prevention”. Expand now, and avoid your ambushes. Head off disease and illness by taking precautionary measures now and forever.

It’s a well-known fact that people will go to the ends of the earth searching for cures but will ignore preventative measures. Terminal diseases and what is happening now are concretes. The threat of disease and the future are abstracts. So we live for the moment while internal time bombs tick away. Sooner or later, one catches up with you. And more often than not, it’s too late. If you catch it early enough and/or expand and attack, you have a chance to beat it back. But not all of Capt. Pete’s soldiers got out alive.

Will tomorrow’s technologies obsolete death from aging and other diseases? I’m certain of it. Will we all live to see the day? Unfortunately, no. And most of those who miss the extreme longevity boat will miss it because of inattention to prevention. Some will make it because they will expand when their crisis catches up with them. But with so much at stake, why roll the dice? Play to win, not to not lose. Expand right now, before it’s too late.

Now getting back to reacting to a health crisis. I’m afraid I have some terrible news for you. You have a terminal disease that no one has ever survived. You were born with it, and you too will die from it – unless you improve your odds by expanding and by preventing. It’s called aging. Instead of complaining about it, or even joking about it, for the first time in history, you can actually do something about it. One contribution many of us can make is supporting the research that will conquer the effects of aging while you are still alive. The other is simply taking a proactive approach to your health to keep yourself alive until emerging medical miracles will give you a new lease on life.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

The Most Important Research (November 07 2008) http://www.exchangemagazine.com/morningpost/2008/week45/Friday/1107018.htm
From the Exchange Morning Post, a statist, public funding viewpoint on longevity science: "Learning how to turn back time - or at least how to slow the aging process - may be more important for improving our overall health than the discovery of a cure for cancer. There are real, tangible benefits, for society as well as individuals, to slowing down the aging process. 'By extending the life span, people would remain in the workforce longer, personal income and savings would increase, age entitlement programs would face less pressure from shifting demographics, and national economies would flourish'. Almost half of the current population over 75 years old is limited in their activity by chronic conditions, with costs to society set to rise dramatically. Given the current predicament we face, we can't ignore the call to tackle aging more aggressively. To those who ask: 'Can we really afford to invest more in such research?' we can reply: 'Can we really afford not to tackle aging?' The greatest obstacle will be convincing the general public that slowing the aging process is both feasible and deserving of a larger share of the funds available for scientific research."

An Overview of Cryonics (November 07 2008) http://kn.theiet.org/magazine/issues/0819/science-without-deadline.cfm
A good article on cryonics from Engineering and Technology: "The field of cryonics, which made its debut in the 1960s, continues to push the envelope and search for a solution to death. The process consists of preserving legally dead humans or pets at very low temperature (below -130C) in the hope that future science can restore them to life, youth, and health. The advancement of medicine and science is so much faster than it used to be. Science fiction is becoming science fact on a daily basis. All of a sudden, cryonics doesn't look quite so far-fetched. Most cryonicists believe reanimations will occur within 50 to 100 years for those currently being cryopreserved. Within that time frame, virtually all current diseases should be curable and elderly people can probably be rejuvenated to a youthful condition. With full disclosures and signed consent, [cryonics] is highly ethical. When you think about the grand scheme of things, cryonics is a lot more conservative than burial or conventional cremation. Tissue preserved at the temperature of liquid nitrogen does not deteriorate, even after centuries of storage. Therefore, if current medical technology can’t keep us alive, we can instead choose to be preserved in liquid nitrogen, with the expectation that future medical technology should be able to reverse any cryopreservation injury and restore good health.

Cells as Vectors for Targeted Therapies (November 06 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/miot-mct110508.php
The possibilities of bioengineering are endless, and one of the most energetic branches of the research community is involved in developing methods of precisely targeting therapies: "MIT engineers have outfitted cells with tiny 'backpacks' that could allow them to deliver chemotherapy agents, diagnose tumors or become building blocks for tissue engineering. The polymer backpacks allow researchers to use cells to ferry tiny cargoes and manipulate their movements using magnetic fields. Since each patch covers only a small portion of the cell surface, it does not interfere with the cell's normal functions or prevent it from interacting with the external environment. Researchers worked with B and T cells, two types of immune cells that can home to various tissues in the body, including tumors, infection sites, and lymphoid tissues - a trait that could be exploited to achieve targeted drug or vaccine delivery. The researchers found that T cells with backpacks were able to perform their normal functions, including migrating across a surface, just as they would without anything attached. By loading the backpacks with magnetic nanoparticles, the researchers can control the cells' movement with a magnetic field."

Towards a Rejuvenated Thymus (November 06 2008) http://www.uga.edu/news/artman/publish/081106_Manley_Research.shtml
One approach to the issue of declining naive T-cells with age - and consequence failure of the immune system - is to boost production by manipulating the thymus: "a key gene may be crucial to maintaining the production of the thymus and its disease-fighting T-cells after an animal's birth. The discovery could help scientists find out how to turn the thymus back on so it could produce T-cells long after it normally shuts down most of its function, which, for humans, occurs by early adulthood. If the finding leads to further ways to manipulate the gene, the result could be a new avenue for the body to fight disease more effectively as the body ages. Such things as infectious diseases, inflammation and heart problems are all related to immune response. You don't have to think far to see how understanding the effect of this gene could affect the quality of life for older people and others as well. If [physicians] were able selectively to turn T-cell production back on, then many diseases that currently afflict older people could become manageable if not, in cases, entirely absent."

Boosting the Aging Immune System (November 05 2008) http://pmid.us/18981163
Many research groups are working on ways to boost the effectiveness of an exhausted immune system - due to either chronic viral infection or aging - without necessarily aiming to address the root causes: "In contrast to most normal somatic cells, which show little or no telomerase activity, immune cells up-regulate telomerase in concert with activation. Nevertheless, during aging and chronic HIV-1 infection, there are high proportions of dysfunctional [immune cells] with short telomeres. Exposure of CD8(+) T lymphocytes from HIV-infected human donors to a small molecule telomerase activator (TAT2) modestly retards telomere shortening, increases proliferative potential, and, importantly, enhances cytokine/chemokine production and antiviral activity. The enhanced antiviral effects were abrogated in the presence of a potent and specific telomerase inhibitor, suggesting that TAT2 acts primarily through telomerase activation. Our study is the first to use a pharmacological telomerase-based approach to enhance immune function."

Incremental Improvements in Scaffolding (November 03 2008) http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=21625&channel=biomedicine&section=
From the MIT Technology Review: "Engineering heart tissue presents particularly tough problems for researchers, since the heart is an active organ. Scaffolds designed for other kinds of tissues did not have the right mechanical properties for heart tissue. Heart tissue must be flexible enough to change shape as the heart contracts, but also strong enough to withstand the intense forces generated by these contractions. The researchers designed the scaffold to encourage cells to align themselves in the same direction to better mimic this property of natural heart muscle tissue. Using a laser cutting technique, they created a pattern of oblong holes in the polymer; the result is a flexible, honeycomb-like structure that is stiffer in one direction than another. Just as rowers line up in one direction to propel a boat forward, 'all the heart muscle cells in a given region have to be lined up and contracting in the same direction' in order for the heart to beat efficiently. The honeycomb-like scaffold [represents] a 'substantial jump' toward that goal. If we had a biodegradable biomaterial, which had beating heart cells, we might be able to return function to [damaged parts] of the heart."

A General Interest Calorie Restriction Article (November 03 2008) http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5i8eh2v_zPiht03CZWKvVulsaPYqAAs the science advances, these articles get more positive. Recall the ridicule heaped upon the practice of calorie restriction even just a few years ago. "Some people are doing it strictly to enhance longevity. Others do it to avoid age-related disease, or because they already have diabetes, high cholesterol or clogged arteries and want to clean up their bodies by using diet. In rich countries, 90 percent of the population probably eats, on average, about 50 percent too much. Even if they were to reduce their calorie intake by half, they would still only be at baseline. A wealth of scientific evidence has confirmed that maintaining that balance helps prevent type-2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and cancer. But experiments with both animals and humans have also shown that pushing one's calorie intake 10 to 20 percent below that baseline threshold -- without lowering nutrients -- may provide additional health advantages. Will this add 10 years to your life? Nobody knows. But one thing is sure -- calorie restriction will help you reach your maximum lifespan potential, which is different for all of us depending on our genetic profile."

A Jobe Kind of Year

Dear Future Centenarian,

It’s been a Jobe kind of year so far. Let me count the ways:

We launched a market trading technology that took 12 years to develop that was designed to raise hundreds of millions of dollars for life extension research. Good news, right? Wrong! We launched it on the exact day the markets fell apart. A bunch of money vanished, and critical life extending projects are on hold..
I hired a contractor to build a real estate project. He promised a 10 month delivery date. Here it is, over three years later, and still not quite done. Meanwhile, the bottom fell out of the market this year, and poof, a couple of million plus – up in smoke.
The same contractor got into a dispute with a sub contractor, who put a lien on the property since the contractor won’t pay. Legal fees and headaches all last week. He cost me hundreds of hours wasted on a project that was supposed to be turnkey.
Father Time stole another year from me.
A borrower defaulted on a big loan.
Verizon inadvertently disconnected my Internet service 17 days ago… and it took 15 of those days to get me back online. When I checked to see why, they inactivated my account instead of reconnecting it. Almost four hours spent on phone calls with about a dozen different representatives. Sound familiar?
There is a situation as bad as #2 that I don’t even want to talk about.
There’s another as bad as #7.
A funder for a key longevity technology was not able to perform on his commitment. Meanwhile, the markets hit the skids, and now it will be 10 times harder to get funding. I believe thousands of lives may ultimately terminate as a result, and a small fortune is jeopardized.
My electric bed took on a mind of its own. From time-to-time, without any warning, the head and foot rise in unison, trapping me in a wedge. The last time it happened, the head inclined just fast enough to barely keep me from reaching the remote. The more I stretched, the farther out-of-reach it got. I had to get rescued. A little joke on Dave.
The final straw. My Vita-Mix (my most important health drink tool) gave out yesterday J.

You might be wondering why I’m sharing my tales of woe with you. Sure, I know, you have your own challenges to cope with. Once again, all this has something to do with your health and longevity.

I’m one of those guys you might hate running into when you are troubled. Instead of getting sympathy, you’ll get an irritating dose of sunshine and a pep talk, just when you wanted someone to share your misery with. Well, I should say, I’m usually that optimistic guy. I have to admit that numbers 1-11 above started consuming my thoughts. And that’s bad. It’s bad because it’s extremely unhealthy, life-shortening and counterproductive… and because I know better.

Do you know your thoughts affect every single cell in your body? Positive, loving grateful thoughts keep you healthy and make you live longer. Negative thoughts destroy you from the inside out. What happens to you usually doesn’t matter one bit. How you react means everything. A new friend reminded me of this in a very interesting way. His name is Dr. Pete Hilgartner, and I’m going to share his words of wisdom with you next week.

I don’t care what your situation is. You have plenty to be grateful for. I know I do. I have lots of positive things and people in my life. I’ve been fortunate enough to have attracted better friends, partners and relationships than most could ever hope for. I also lucked out in the health department. And get this. Just yesterday, a close friend and associate told me a benefactor pledged enough funding to finish developing a technology which may allow you and me to actually live as long as we want someday.

Then there are the little things I tend to take for granted. I started yesterday with a nutritious, delicious breakfast and ended it with a fabulous dinner. I live in one of the best climates in the world. I have a warm comfortable bed, even though it attacks me once in a while. My shoes fit. I have shoes. I have feet! And I have a couple of pages of more things to be grateful for. Just writing this makes me feel a lot better, because when you think a grateful, happy or loving thought, there’s no room in your mind for anything else. So happiness is simply deciding what you want to dwell on. And happiness equates to healthfulness. Sure, you have to face your problems, health and otherwise. But when you do, think of solutions rather than dwelling on the negatives.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Unregulated Prices Fall, While Quality Improves (October 31 2008) http://www.lef.org/magazine/mag2008/sep2008_Would-You-Tolerate-This-Abuse_01.htm
A piece from the LEF Magazine that makes the points about modern medical research that most people don't think about: "the public today tolerates federal and state laws that enable pharmaceutical companies to conduct business as a virtual monopoly. The result is that Americans pay outlandish prices for mediocre drugs that are often laden with side effects. Unlike regulated prescription drugs, the cost of dietary supplements has plummeted over the past three decades. In a free market environment, technological breakthroughs that occurred in telecommunications will also happen in medicine. More frightening is the suffocating effect that regulation has on the discovery of life-saving therapies. Just imagine if advancement in clinical medicine progressed at the same rapid rate as telecommunications. If it did, we would probably have cures for most killer diseases today!" Heavily regulated markets are bloated, slow markets, in which the incentives are so set as to discourage progress. Present regulation is a very real threat to the future of your health and longevity.

Incremental Improvements in Stem Cell Therapy (October 31 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-10/hms-scp102908.php
Researchers continue to find ways to alter stem cells to produce better therapies: "Adult stem cells resemble couch potatoes if they hang out and divide in a dish for too long. They get fat and lose key surface proteins, which interferes with their movement and reduces their therapeutic potential. Now, via a simple chemical procedure, researchers have found a way to get these cells off the couch and over to their therapeutic target. To do this, they simply added a molecule called SLeX to the surface of the cells. The procedure took just 45 minutes and restored an important biological function. Delivery remains one of the biggest hurdles to stem cell therapy. The blood stream offers a natural delivery vehicle, but stem cells don't move through blood vessels normally after being expanded in culture. Our procedure promises to overcome this obstacle. Karp cautions that his lab's discovery must be validated in animals, before doctors can apply it in the clinic. He's collaborating with another lab to test the homing ability of the SLeX-dotted cells in mice."

A Little More on IGF-1 and Growth Hormone (October 30 2008) http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.0060254
Following up on a recent Fight Aging! post, more on the role of IGF-1 in longevity: "Using a mouse model relevant for humans, we showed that lifespan can be significantly extended by reducing the signaling selectively of a protein called IGF-I in the central nervous system. This caused growth retardation, smaller adult size, and metabolic alterations, and led to delayed mortality and longer mean lifespan. Thus, early changes in neuroendocrine development can durably modify the life trajectory in mammals. The underlying mechanism appears to be an adaptive plasticity of somatotropic functions allowing individuals to decelerate growth and preserve resources, and thereby improve fitness in challenging environments. Continuously low IGF-I and low growth hormone levels favor extended lifespan and postpone age-related mortality. Our results further challenge the view that administration of GH can prevent, or even counteract human aging. This knowledge is important since growth hormone is often prescribed to elderly people in an attempt to compensate the unwanted effects of aging."

Ouroboros on Mitochondrial Uncouplers (October 30 2008) http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2008/10/30/mitochondrial-uncouplers-mimic-the-effects-of-calorie-restriction/
From Ouroboros: researchers "suggest that mitochondrial uncoupling is an effective mimic of [calorie restriction (CR)]. In mitochondria, the electron transport chain uses electrons from glucose and lipids to pump protons across a membrane. This proton gradient can be used to make energy in the form of ATP through oxidative phosphorylation. The process is kind of like generating hydropower. Uncouplers work by putting a leak in the dam, which lets water through without going to the generator. They 'uncouple' the electron transport chain from oxidative phosphorylation, thus reducing the efficiency of energy production. Although animals have uncoupling proteins (these proteins are important for thermogenesis, especially during hibernation), so far there are no known agonists. The researchers instead used low doses of the mitochondria uncoupler DNP.
The DNP treated mice ate the same amount of food as control mice but had lower body mass [and] showed many phenotypes observed in calorie restricted mice. Like CR mice, DNP treated mice had higher rates of respiration with lower production of ROS. Most importantly, DNP treated mice showed an extended lifespan. This study suggests that mitochondrial uncouplers are an effective mimic of calorie restriction and might be a realistic therapeutic intervention for delaying aging and extending lifespan."

Lipids and Alzheimer's (October 28 2008) http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/126012.php
The brain is complex organ, and Alzheimer's is a complex disease: a wide range of strategies produce results that look promising while not addressing the root cause. Indeed, distinguishing symptoms from root causes in Alzheimer's is still an ongoing concern. Here is a potential strategy I have not seen mentioned before: "scientists working with laboratory mice have discovered that complete or partial removal of an enzyme that regulates fatty acid levels lessened the memory and learning deficits of Alzheimer's. The most striking change we discovered in the Alzheimer mice was an increase in arachidonic acid and related metabolites in the hippocampus, a memory center that is affected early and severely by Alzheimer's disease. An enzyme called group IVA phospholipase A2 (or PLA2) released arachidonic acid [in] the brain. Removal or even partial reduction of PLA2 prevented memory and learning deficits and other behavioral abnormalities in the Alzheimer mice." It is worth noting that PLA2 is upstream in biochemical signaling processes that lead to inflammation - I suspect this has more to do with inflammation than fatty acids per se.

Hub of NanoMedicine

Dear Future Centenarian,

To continue last week’s discussion of nanomedicine, here’s why you’d be interested in living long enough to see it get fully developed:
Nanotechnology refers to the control of matter on a scale normally between 1-100 nanometers. One nanometer is a billionth of a meter or 80,000 times smaller than a human hair.
We work with the world’s recognized authorities on medical applications and implications of molecular nanotechnology, or Nanomedicine. They have launched a program aimed at developing a provable nanomedical life extension technology. This may be the ultimate technology which can cure aging and reverse its effects.
They constructed a preliminary R&D roadmap and have already achieved some of their objectives. They have even established six currently active collaborations.
The technology should have commercially useful early applications. If successful, the company will eventually own a must-have product – indefinite life extension and aging reversal. In a nutshell, nanomedicine could eventually build or repair almost every cell in your body, from the bottom up, atom by atom. When we get to the 2020s, we will ultimately have perfected the machines of nanotechnology, nanobots, which are blood cell-sized devices that can go inside your body and brain to perform therapeutic functions, as well as to advance the capabilities of our bodies and brains.
If that sounds too futuristic, I'll point out that we already have blood cell-size devices that are nano-engineered, working to perform therapeutic functions in animals. For example, one scientist cured type I diabetes in rats with this type of nanoengineered device. And some of these are now approaching human trials. The 2020s will be the "golden era" of nanotechnology.
If you want to see who is at the hub of nanomedicine, visit these two websites:
http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Nanofactory
http://www.MolecularAssembler.com/Nanofactory/Media/PressReleaseAug08.htm
Nanomedicine promises to give us complete control of matter and a very efficient way to cure aging damage, injuries and diseases. So keep fit and lean in the meantime. You don’t want to miss this boat.
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SLOW AND STEADY WINS THE RACE

Some food for thought on the way in which you approach the health basics - exercise, diet, supplementation, and relationships with physicians:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001582.php

"Following up on growing evidence that higher levels of conscientiousness are associated with greater health protection, the authors conducted a meta-analysis of the association between conscientiousness-related traits and longevity. Higher levels of conscientiousness were significantly and positively related to longevity. Associations were strongest for the achievement (persistent, industrious) and order (organized,
disciplined) facets of conscientiousness. Results strongly support the importance of conscientiousness-related traits to health across the life span."

The persistent application of good habits and good choices pays well. The basics are not rocket science, but they do make a significant difference over the years.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

More on Comparative Longevity (October 03 2008) http://www.bucknell.edu/x45446.xml
Researchers continue to try to learn from differences in longevity and metabolism between species: "Haussmann studied cacti and turtles before zeroing in on a small, marine bird that contradicts traditional assumptions about aging. Leach's storm-petrels should die young but live a long life and break the conventional rules. First of all, they're small, and there tends to be a relationship between body size and life span. Elephants live longer than humans. Humans live longer than mice. So this bird shouldn't live long, but it does. His studies of storm-petrels have shown that certain characteristics of DNA - specifically lengths of the protective telomeres at the tips of DNA - are associated with species that live longer lives and possibly with how susceptible they are to cancer-causing tumors. [Bird species] with shorter life spans, such as zebra finches, lost their protective telomere caps quickly over time. Species such as the common tern, which lives to be about 30 years old, had less shortening over time." The petrels apparently produce more antioxidants as well - which may tie into the evidence suggesting that mitochondrial damage is the cause of shortened telomeres. Antioxidants slow the rate of that damage. The question remains as to where telomere length sits in the spectrum of cause and effect.

The Novel Paradigm of Longevity Science (October 01 2008) http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people-blog/?p=2366
Over at Future Current, one of the presentations from Aging 2008: "What can each of us do to advance a new paradigm for health promotion and disease prevention in the 21st century that makes as its central tenet the slowing of aging? Recently, the board of directors of [the Alliance for Aging Research] committed to an aggressive effort to speak out for longevity science, which I think is a more elegant way of saying biogerontology, in order to hasten the social benefits extending healthy aging, a goal that we have referred to as 'pursuing the longevity dividend.' Now, the members of my board are not naive. They know very well that longevity science continues to be a tough sell. Let's face it, call it by any name, the quest for significantly extended lifespan has an image problem. Most established scientific leaders have been brought up to believe that aging is not only unchangeable, but not even very interesting. Now let's move to lay people. Most of them think there is not anything you can do about aging. They believe that even if you could, it would be a social and an economic catastrophe. Too many sick, old people sitting around, not pulling their weight. Even if people believed there could be some scientific breakthrough that would make it possible to extend the healthy years of life, many will set themselves up in opposition because it sounds unnatural or upsetting to social norms or religious beliefs. What will it take to overcome negative assumptions among the public?"

Life is the Road to Utopia, If You Can Stay on It (September 30 2008) http://jetpress.org/v19/bostrom.htm
From JET, a Nick Bostrom fiction in the spirit of the Fable of the Dragon Tyrant: "Your body is a deathtrap. This vital machine and mortal vehicle, unless it jams first or crashes, is sure to rust anon. You are lucky to get seven decades of mobility; eight if you be fortune's darling. That is not sufficient to get started in a serious way, much less to complete the journey. Maturity of the soul takes longer. Why, even a tree-life takes longer. Death is not one but a multitude of assassins. Do you not see them? They are coming at you from every angle. Take aim at the causes of early death - infection, violence, malnutrition, heart attack, cancer. Turn your biggest gun on aging, and fire. You must seize the biochemical processes in your body in order to vanquish, by and by, illness and senescence. In time, you will discover ways to move your mind to more durable media. Then continue to improve the system, so that the risk of death and disease continues to decline. Any death prior to the heat death of the universe is premature if your life is good. One day you or your children should have a secure home. Research, build, redouble your effort!" The road to Utopia is to continue to live well - which, as Bostrom notes, will require great labor devoted to new medical technologies of engineered longevity.

Axolotl Biochemistry as a Goal to Aim for (September 29 2008) http://pmid.us/18814845
It is plausible that mechanisms of unlimited tissue regeneration will be learned from lesser species and then ported to humans: "Urodele amphibians such as the axolotl are the champions of tissue regeneration amongst vertebrates. These animals have mastered the ability to repair and replace most of their tissues following damage or amputation even well into adulthood. In fact it seems that the ability of these organisms to regenerate perfectly is not affected by their age. In addition to being able to regenerate, these animals display a remarkable resistance to cancer. They therefore represent a unique model organism to study regeneration and cancer resistance in vertebrates. The need for this research is even more pressing at the dawn of the 21st century as we are faced with an ever aging world population which has to deal with an increase in organ failure and cancer incidence. Studying tissue regeneration in salamanders could yield significant knowledge to help regenerative medicine achieve the desired goal of allowing humans to repair and regenerate some of their own tissues as they age."

Mechanisms of Osteoarthritis (September 29 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/uorm-nsp092508.php
Researchers continue to learn more about the underlying biochemistry of common age-related conditions: "Until relatively recently, osteoarthritis was believed to be due solely to wear and tear, and an inevitable part of aging. Recent studies have revealed, however, that specific biochemical changes contribute to the disease, changes that might be reversed by precision-designed drugs. Our study provides the first solid proof that some of those changes are related to pain processing, and suggests the mechanisms behind the effect. The study revealed that pain signals originating in arthritic joints, and the biochemical processing of those signals as they reach the spinal cord, worsen and expand arthritis. In addition, researchers found that nerve pathways carrying pain signals transfer inflammation from arthritic joints to the spine and back again, causing disease at both ends. We believe this to be a vitally important process contributing to orthopaedic and neurological diseases in which inflammation is a factor."

Nanofactory Collaboration Colleague Awarded $3 Million

Dear Future Centenarian,

Are you plagued with information overload? It gets worse every day, doesn’t it? If it weren’t for Reason at www.longevitymeme.org, I’d never have the time to sort through all the daily longevity news that you see in this letter. He does a terrific job, I distill it down and slightly edit it, and presto, you spend a few minutes every week to pick and choose whatever hits your hot button. There’s something for almost everybody in each issue, maybe even some life-saving info for you or a loved one.

Here is an excerpt from a release that I got from another source. An article like this might not catch your attention. On the surface, it looks like just another narrow-niche, hi-tech article aimed toward a limited audience. In reality though, it could hold the key to your full age-reversal plus open-ended youth in a super-human body. I’ll tell you why in a moment.
Nanofactory Collaboration Colleague Awarded $3M to Conduct First Diamond Mechanosynthesis Experiments
Professor Philip Moriarty of the Nanoscience Group the School of Physics at the University of Nottingham (U.K.) has been awarded a five-year $3M grant by the U.K. Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to perform a series of laboratory experiments designed to investigate the possibility of diamond mechanosynthesis (DMS). DMS is a proposed method for building diamond nanostructures, atom-by-atom. Moriarty’s experiments begin in October 2008.
The Nottingham work grew out of continuing discussions on DMS between Moriarty and Robert Freitas, a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing (IMM) (Palo Alto, California, U.S.).
Freitas and Ralph Merkle, also a Senior Fellow at IMM, founded the Nanofactory Collaboration in 2001 to pursue molecular manufacturing via DMS. Moriarty is interested in testing the viability of positionally-controlled atom-by-atom fabrication of diamondoid materials as described in the Freitas-Merkle minimal toolset theory paper. Moriarty’s efforts will be the first time specific predictions of DFT in the area of mechanosynthesis will be rigorously tested by experiment.
The article goes into more detail, but the implication for your longevity is this:
DMS is the first step on the way to full-blown nanomedicine. Nanomedicine may be the holy grail of indefinite lifespans. Next week, we’ll go a little deeper and take a peek into the future that nanomedicine has in store for you.
______________________________
LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Calorie Restriction: Animals Versus People (September 25 2008) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080924151018.htm
The present scientific consensus on calorie restriction in humans is that it will do wonderful things for your health and resistance to age-related disease, but won't extend the maximum human life span to the same degree that is seen in lower animals: "In the majority of the animal models of longevity, extended lifespan involves pathways related to a growth factor called IGF-1 (insulin-like growth factor-1). In calorie-restricted animals, levels of circulating IGF-1 decline between 30 percent and 40 percent. We looked at IGF-1 in humans doing calorie restriction [and] found no difference in IGF-1 levels between people on calorie restriction and those who are not. We know there are two major influences on IGF-1 levels: calorie intake and protein intake. So we decided to look at the influence of protein. Six [human testers] agreed to lower their protein intake and after three weeks their circulating IGF-1 declined dramatically. It's much easier to restrict protein than to restrict calories. If our research is on the right track, maybe humans don't need to be so calorie restricted. Limiting protein intake to .7 or .8 grams per kilogram per day might be more effective. That's just a hypothesis. We have to confirm it in future studies."

Nitric Oxide and Aging Blood Vessels (September 24 2008) http://pmid.us/18805864
Nitric oxide is important in the operation of the endothelium - the lining of blood vessels - but diminishes with age: "The normal endothelium exerts a major vascular protecting role by secreting substances, above all nitric oxide (NO). In disease conditions (such as the presence of cardiovascular risk factors) the activation of endothelial cells can lead to the production and release of contracting factors, which counteract the beneficial effects of NO, and reactive oxygen species (ROS), which in turn cause NO breakdown. Aging has been demonstrated to be associated to a progressive impairment in endothelial function both in conduit arteries and resistance vessels, mainly because of an increased production of ROS.

Therefore, it is conceivable that endothelial dysfunction plays a major role in favoring age-related increased cardiovascular risk in the elderly. "This is an example of the way in which age-damaged cells cause problems in the normal operation of surrounding tissue: cells taken over by damaged mitochondria are exporting reactive oxygen species that breakdown NO, and senescent cells are pushing out their own cocktail of unhelpful chemical instructions as well.

Out of Context, Many Old Cells Work Just Fine (September 23 2008) http://pmid.us/18802086
It is a recurring theme in stem cell and immune system research that cells removed from the context of the aging cellular environment can do their jobs just as well as cells in a young environment: "Understanding how aging impacts the function of memory CD4 T cells is critical for designing effective vaccines. Our studies show that immunological memory generated during youth functions well into old age, whereas that generated later in life functions poorly. This is the result of declines in the function of naive CD4 T cells from aged individuals and contributes to reduced efficacy of vaccines in the elderly. To begin to identify the cause of this defect, we examined the function of memory T cells generated from bone marrow precursor cells (BMPC) from young or aged mice in young hosts. In two different models, memory cells derived from young and aged BMPC exhibit good ex vivo and in vivo function. Importantly, memory CD4 T cells generated from aged BMPC exhibit potent cognate helper function for humoral responses, which are critical for effective immunization. These results indicate that there are no apparent age-related intrinsic defects in BMPC with regards to generation of functional memory T cells." As for many aspects of aging, the problem is one of failing systems and signal controls, not failing components.

NOTE: Maybe many do work fine, but we believe most don’t, due to accumulated mutations.

A Recellurization Update (September 23 2008) http://www.popsci.com/node/24069
Via Popular Science: "Some people say they can grow a heart from scratch in 10 years, which is ridiculous. But Dr. Taylor's approach is more realistic because it's so simple and elegant. By using an existing heart, she's taken away all of the structural issues. Taylor's system involves flushing animal hearts of cells using a cleanser, at which point only the extracellular matrix remains and 'the hearts look almost clear'. The next step is to infuse the hearts with a mix of mature and progenitor cardiac cells, which can come from a patient's own body to ensure compatibility. Incredibly, for reasons the team still doesn't understand, the cells seem to know how to divide and proliferate into cardiac tissue inside the empty-shell hearts. This year, Taylor has continued to forge ahead toward her goal of creating transplantable, made-to-order human organs. Soon after she published her rat-heart results, she started working on making recellularized pig hearts - closer in size and shape to the human equivalent - that could pump blood and generate electrical impulses. Our hope is that someday we'll be able to take a cadaver or pig organ, decellularize it, and transplant your own cells into the matrix to make an organ that matches your body."

A Potential Downside to Exercise Mimetics (September 22 2008) http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2008/09/22/amp-activated-kinase-the-target-of-exercise-mimetics-may-contribute-to-photoaging-and-cell-death/
From Ouroboros: "AMP-activated kinase (AMPK) agonists mimic the effects of exercise, raising the possibility of a 'workout pill' that could simulate the effects of vigorous activity. The applications to human health are, to mildly understate the case, significant; it sounds almost too good to be true, and it leaves one looking for the catch. It turns out that AMPK is activated by certain types of genotoxic stress, and contributes to UV-induced apoptosis in the skin. Activation of AMPK could exacerbate the pro-aging effects that UV light exerts on the skin. Judging from the peroxide results, this also applies to endogenously generated reactive oxygen species (ROS) - which one can't avoid by simply staying out of the sun. Before we panic and throw the exercise mimetic baby out with its carcinogenic bathwater, I'd want to see whether AMPK agonists like AICAR do in fact synergize with stresses like UV and peroxide to increase apoptotic cell death in the skin. If they do, well, I think we found that catch."

More Multipotent Stem Cells Discovered (September 22 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/chop-pri092208.phpFrom EurekAlert!: "The scientists [identified] cells known as pericytes that are multipotent, meaning they have broad developmental potential. Pericytes are found on the walls of small blood vessels such as capillaries and microvessels throughout the body and have the potential to be extracted and grown into many types of tissues. We believe pericytes represent one of the most promising sources of multipotent stem cells that scientists have been searching for in the quest to make regenerative medicine possible. These cells can be extracted easily and painlessly from convenient sources such as fat tissue, dental pulp, umbilical cord and placental tissue, then grown in culture to large numbers and, possibly, re-injected into the patient to heal a broken bone, a failing joint or an injured muscle. Researchers were able to identify pericytes in all human tissues they analyzed, including muscle, fat, pancreas, placenta and many other samples. Through purification in the lab, these pericytes could then be coaxed into becoming whatever type of tissue the scientists desired. For instance, the researchers took pericytes from the pancreas and then reinjected them into an injured muscle. The cells immediately began regenerating muscle tissue."

Artificial General Intelligence

I wish you could have been with me Wednesday evening. I was treated to a personal demonstration of a technology that could change the world in ways we can’t even imagine. One of the changes that will affect you could lock in full age reversal and open-ended youth and health ahead of even my ambitious schedule.

The technology I’m describing is Artificial General Intelligence (AGI).

AGI is a new kind of computer application. This technology will allow computers to learn, think and respond like humans. They will exhibit REAL intelligence. Such intelligent systems do not exist yet – however, the required knowledge to build them does, and it has already led to an embryonic prototype. That’s what I experienced Wednesday.

AGI makes up one part of the MaxLife plan to accelerate extreme life extension capabilities. Research aims to create this broad human-like intelligence, rather than narrowly "smart" systems that can operate only as tools for human operators in well-defined domains such as tracking inventory or landing airplanes.

Imagine machine intelligence with the ability to think and learn on its own as well as humans do. That’s in our future. For example, if it gets an education equivalent to a biotech researcher, it could do the research. The developers estimate a sophisticated working system could take less than 10 years to complete. Two years later, we could potentially have a fully-trained PhD-equivalent AGI doing research.

Imagine a PhD lab assistant which would have total recall and tirelessly work around the clock. It would be able to download all the data it needs from the Internet almost instantaneously. It could collaborate with humans and other AGI. And then, it could be quickly copied as many times as necessary.

Imagine unleashing 100,000 AGI researchers. Imagine how much faster they would develop real anti-aging therapies.

So keep posted and hang on for a long ride Methuselah.
_________________________________________________
$1 BILLION ALREADY INVESTED IN SOMETHING YOU CAN DO FOR FREE

"Two pilot studies were undertaken to examine the effects of alternate day fasting and calorie restriction on indicators of health and longevity in humans. In this study, we used sera collected from those studies to culture human cells and assessed the effects on growth, stress resistance and gene expression. Cells cultured in serum collected at the end of the dieting period were compared to cells cultured in serum collected at baseline (before the dieting period). This resulted in increased stress resistance and an up-regulation of genes proposed to be indicators of increased longevity."

As of late 2008, I'd guesstimate that something in the order of one to two billion dollars have been invested into developing drugs that will produce some fraction of the effects of calorie restriction on mammalian biochemistry - such as increasing the expression of Sirt1. They aren't done yet, and years of trials and further development lie ahead. Most people can get these benefits today and for free, however, by simply eating a less calorie-packed diet. You should look into it: calorie restriction isn't anywhere near as hard as those who have never tried it make it out to be. You can find an introduction at the Longevity Meme website:

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

TRY NOT TO STAB YOURSELF REPEATEDLY

Words of wisdom:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001572.php

"On March 19, 2008 a Symposium on Pathophysiology of Aging and Age-Related diseases was held in Palermo, Italy. Here, the lecture of V. Nicita-Mauro on Smoking, health and ageing is summarized. Smoking represents an important ageing accelerator, both directly by triggering inflammatory responses, and indirectly by favoring the occurrence of several diseases where smoking is a recognized risk factor. Hence, non-smokers can delay the appearance of diseases and of ageing process, so attaining longevity.

"Forms of slow self-destruction are many and varied amongst us humans: Smoking, not practicing calorie restriction, failing to keep up a good relationship with a physician, piling on the visceral fat, failing to exercise, and so forth. The vast majority of people are quite comfortable engaging in habits that cause great harm to the old person they will one day be - cutting off years or even decades of health. This is all a good example of time preference at work: we are hardwired to deeply discount the value of the future, even when it's our own future. What we don't value, we squander - you can see that maxim in action everywhere."
______________________________

LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Lurking Behind the TOR Gene (September 19 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-09/uouh-lca091808.php
Researchers have known for a few years that the TOR gene is important in calorie restriction and other related ways of extending healthy life. Recent research follows the chain of biochemical cause and effect beyond TOR: "In C. elegans, the tiny roundworm that our lab studies, as well as some other animals, a loss of TOR has been shown to slow aging. Our work with C. elegans reveals that TOR depends on a second gene called pha4/FoxA to control the aging process. When there's lots of food, TOR gets active, which decreases the action of pha4/FoxA down the line, and that in turn shortens the lifespan of C. elegans. When there's little food, there'slittle TOR and more pha4/FoxA, and that results in a longer lifespan. Many organisms have a TOR gene and a gene similar to pha4/FoxA, such as single-cell yeasts, roundworms, and mammals including humans. In mammals, FoxA controls cell metabolism and there is a lot of it in breast and prostate cancers. The findings of this research establish that animals use both genes to sense the amount of food that is available and control the length of lifespan. Further research will be required to establish whether a similar relationship between these factors can control metabolism, longevity or disease in humans."

Early Experiments in Cryonics (September 18 2008) http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/09/15/early-total-body-washout-experiments-in-cryonics/
Depressed Metabolism takes another look at the early days of cryonics: "The question of whether cryonics 'works' or not is too general and hides the point that progressive breakthroughs can make the concept more plausible. During its existence as a research program, cryonics researchers have shown great interest in recovering animals from ultra-profound hypothermic temperatures (lower than 5 degrees Celsius). The ability to routinely lower the temperature of mammals to temperatures close to zero degrees Celsius and recover them without adverse effects to the brain does make the initial stages of cryonics reversible. Less known than those record setting experiments are earlier explorations in cryonics into whole body asanguineous hypothermia. The following document by cryonics researcher and Alcor patient Jerry Leaf documents a Trans Time experiment during the early days of total body washout experiments in cryonics. This account was published in the November/December 1977 issue of Long Life Magazine."

Struggling to Break Out of the Old Paradigm (September 17 2008) http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1558015/listening_to_resveratrol/
From RedOrbit, an example of someone caught halfway between paradigms: learning about the potential of longevity science, but having trouble envisaging the changes it will herald for institutions of insurance, development, and regulation. "Currently our drug development and approval systems aim at disease-specific treatments. Indeed, the Food and Drug Administration approves medications only for specific indications, and 'mortality,' a universal condition, would seem unlikely to qualify under the current system. Further, if senescence begins in one's 30s but the outcome (that is, death) can be measured only in one's 70s or 80s, how will researchers be able to perform timely clinical trials in humans? Health insurance is based on the principle of risk pooling. Because nobody can be certain that they will remain healthy, the disease-free are willing to share the cost burden with the sick. But if resveratrol-like drugs are recommended for everybody over 30 at risk for mortality (a universal condition), there would be no risk pooling." When you catch yourself asking"how will this ever fit?" then the answer is usually "it won't fit, and will never fit in the present structure, because things will change in the future so as to accommodate it."

Learning from AIDS (September 17 2008) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/09/080916143900.htm
There are similarities between the progression of AIDS and what happens (more slowly) to our immune systems with aging. Forced overactivation and exhaustion of resources are the focus here. AIDS researchers are making steps towards understanding mechanisms that would allow the immune system to be tuned down for specific threats, to prevent it grinding itself into oblivion. "During both HIV infection in humans and SIV infection in macaques, the host immune system becomes highly activated, experiences increased destruction and decreased production of key immune effector cellsand progressively fails as a result. In contrast, natural hosts for SIV infection, like sooty mangabeys, do not exhibit aberrant immune activation and do not develop AIDS despite high levels of ongoing SIV replication. Sooty mangabeys, dendritic cells produce much less interferon alpha - an alarm signal to the rest of the immune system - in response to SIV. As a result, the dendritic cells are not activated during the initial or chronic stages of SIV infection, and mangabeys fail to mount a significant immune response to the virus." It seems reasonable to expect this knowledge to be applicable to the long-term response to CMV in humans, an important contributor to age-related immune system failure.

A Better Lifestyle Means More Telomerase? (September 16 2008) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/09/16/MNEL12UBJ5.DTL
The San Francisco Chronicle reports on an intriguing, if small, study: researchers "studied the levels of an enzyme called telomerase in the prostate tissue of the 30 cancer patients who had volunteered to follow a low-fat diet, exercise moderately and reduce their stress. After only three months, 24 patients showed a highly significant increase in their telomerase levels - an indication that the cell-protecting telomeres in their cells were being restored. The long telomere proteins protect the ends of chromosomes in the body, but they shorten naturally and ultimately die unless the telomerase enzyme acts to repair them and increase their length. Even with only 30 patients [the] association between their extremely healthy habits and the increased amount of telomerase proved highly [statistically] significant." Telomerase is apparently also involved in reducing age-related damage to mitochondria, which in turn slows the rate at which failing mitochondria cause telomeres to shorten.

Mitochondrial Function and Aging (September 16 2008) http://www.boston.com/news/health/articles/2008/09/15/power_outage/?page=fullThose of you familiar with the mitochondrial free radical theory of aging -damage to mitochondrial DNA leads to loss of function and a spreading chainof biochemical dysfunctions - will notice a subtle disconnect between this research and the popular science view of mitochondrial function and aging, as outlined in this Boston Globe article. The popular view is very much concerned with contribution to particular diseases, and in finding drugs that improve mitochondrial function as a way of slowing that contribution -without necessarily understanding why those drugs work. We know enough to do much better than that - repairing mitochondrial damage completely, for example, and thus totally removing its contribution to aging. But until thepublic at large realizes this, funding will continue to move towards the established old-school drug discovery programs. These programs focus on treating specific diseases of aging by patching over or slowing down root causes - as opposed than aiming to repair them fully

Two Kinds of Friends

I divide my close friends into two general groups.

1. The Miscellaneous Group: This includes lifelong friends as well as recent acquaintances. I share either/or history and some values with this group. I see some frequently but most infrequently. All-in-all, group is shrinking in size. That’s because many of us have grown or are growing apart. In other words, we don’t have much in common anymore. And outside of rehashing old times (which I find more-and-more boring), hanging out together is pretty much a waste of time. The few that I do enjoy spending with share common goals and typically look forward rather than backwards.

2. Life Extensionists/Futurists: This is my favorite and larger group of the two. It’s also expanding rapidly. It’s rare to hear these members talking of the past, and they are far more stimulating. They typically live actively in the present with long-term positive views of the future. And for the most part, they do their best to insure a profound future for all of us. They may take various paths and contribute in a number of ways such as doing research, volunteering for various future-focused movements, building positive value-laced enterprises, running companies and foundations, marketing positive products and services and actively participating in events, seminars and workshops that point toward noble goals such as (my favorite) radical life extension.

All too often, I get bogged down in the sea of minutia and the distractions of business and life that tends to bury us if we’re not constantly on guard. One of the challenges in my life is to evaporate that sea to a puddle. I’m gradually succeeding, but I’m not there yet. So when I have the chance to shut everything else out and spend time with Group #2, it breathes new life into me. I enjoyed that pleasure the past two weekends.

Two weeks ago, I and a couple of M.D.s got to address a group of life extensionists.

Pure rapture.

Just associating with like-minded people energizes me beyond description. It also validates and reinforces my resolve to conquer aging in our lifetimes.

This past Saturday, I took part in a life extension workshop in Las Vegas. The personal and business challenges that sometimes consume me did not enter my mind the entire weekend. How could they? Almost every minute was spent with some very close friends and with some not as close, but still enormously treasured acquaintances. Every single one of them shares most of my deepest goals and aspirations.

Most people take a two week or longer vacation to recharge. For me, it only takes a day in the company of members of Group #2. If you consider yourself a member of this group, you’re invited to a get-together at my home in Huntington Beach, CA, tentatively scheduled for Sat, Nov 22nd. If so, email me for directions and a final date and time.

Next week I’ll tell you a little about last weekend’s workshop.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Thinking About Replacing the Brain (August 29 2008) http://www.memebox.com/futureblogger/show/827-our-future-brain-damage-resistant-with-unique-new-abilities
Some thoughts on the decades following the biotechnology revolution from FutureBlogger: Once nanotechnology is as far advanced as biotechnology is today, what sorts of capabilities start to look plausible? "By the mid-2030s, we could be replacing brain cells with damage-resistant nanomaterials that process thoughts much faster than today's biological brains. The new brain would include our same consciousness, memories and personality that existed before the conversion, but it would run much faster and would increase our memory a thousand-fold. A daily pill would supply nanomaterials and instructions for nanobots to format new neurons and position them next to existing biological brain cells to be replaced. These changes would be unnoticeable to us, but within six months, we would be enjoying our new brain. Should a person with the new damage-resistant brain die in an accident, their body could be a total loss, but the brain would survive. Biological brains die within minutes after the heart stops; our new brain will simply turn itself off and wait for a new power supply. All memories and consciousness would remain intact after a fatal accident. Rescue workers would remove the brain from the deceased body and reinstall it into a newly-cloned body." A lot of work remains to be accomplished before the golden future becomes a reality - first things first.

Vote For Amex Funding For Longevity Science (August 28 2008) http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/BVVE2C
The Methuselah Foundation volunteers are looking for more signatures in the next five days to help put the "Undergrads Fighting Age Related Disease" project high in the top 25 Amex Members Projects - and thus eligible for some of the $2.5 million in funding offered by American Express. There are five days left to put your name to this project in support: 1200 signatures have been gathered in the past two weeks, putting longevity science solidly in the running. At least that many more votes are needed before voting closes - which is where you and your friends come in. Visit the Methuselah Foundation blog or the project Facebook group to find out how to sign up - or just click through to this project and follow the directions. You don't have to be an American Express member, but you do have to be a US resident. One last thing: it's important to note that of all the projects submitted to date, Undergrads Fighting Age Related Disease has by far the most comments. This counts heavily in the final selection, so jump into the project comments section and tell the world why you support longevity science and the defeat of age-related disease.

Another Advance In Reprogramming Cells (August 28 2008) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080828082819.htm
As ScienceDaily notes, researchers "report having achieved what has long been a dream and ultimate goal of developmental biologists - directly turning one type of fully formed adult cell into another type of adult cell. The team is able to turn mouse exocrine cells, which make up about 95 percent of the pancreas, into precious and rare insulin-producing beta cells. Unlike the process involved in creating induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) [this] direct reprogramming technique does not require turning adult cells into stem cells and then figuring out how to induce them to differentiate into a desired cell type. We're intrigued by the possibility that this approach, which has worked for pancreatic insulin-producing cells, could be more widely applied to many kind of cells, especially those that are lost in disease or following injury. And at the same time, we are exploring the possibility of using this general approach in a clinical context to make new beta cells for patients."

An Interview With Doug Melton (August 27 2008) http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=21307
The Technology Review interviews researcher Doug Melton: "If a patient has Parkinson's disease, their dopamine-producing cells are gone. We don't understand anything about what makes those cells go away - the field is kind of stuck because you can't watch the progression of the disease. Stem cells can make neurons in a dish. Imagine you have iPS cells from a healthy person and from a Parkinson's patient. If you make dopamine neurons from both sets of cells in separate dishes, you can look at what went wrong with the diseased stem cell. The same approach will work with different degenerative diseases, such as diabetes or ALS. I think it will change the way degenerative diseases are studied - we'll reduce the whole process of disease to a petri dish. Within a few years, researchers the world over should have access to disease-specific cells that can be turned into cell types defective in a particular disease. Science clearly works best when you have a lot of bright, motivated people working on these problems. The institute has sent thousands of human embryonic stem-cell lines to hundreds of labs all over the world. We like to think that has been helpful in encouraging basic research on embryonic stem cells."

Microglia Versus Alzheimer's (August 26 2008) http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080825194705.htm
Researchers are attempting to convince the body's defenses to attack the amyloid plaques of Alzheimer's disease (AD): "by stimulating a brain cell called a microglia the cells will partially engulf the senile plaques ... [this is] the first time that this phenomenon, believed to take place in living brain, has been duplicated in the laboratory. The plaques themselves are not sufficient microglial activators. But when the microglia were treated with inflammatory stimulants, they attacked the plaques. In AD patients, microglia are not coping with the plaque build-up. Therefore plaques accumulate faster than the microglia can digest them. If we can enhance microglial digestion of these plaques, we will have a fighting chance to eliminate AD. The next step is to find a therapeutic drug that will stimulate the microglia to devour the plaques." Time will tell whether new methods of

The Bad Trends (August 25 2008) http://www.futurepundit.com/archives/005479.html
There are plenty of good trends in medicine research and development. The trend in bioinformatics and computational power, for example. Unfortunately, some of the bad trends are blocking movement of research into the clinic. Via FuturePundit: "Why do terminally ill patients have to wait so long to get access to the only treatments that hold any promise of saving their lives? And why is it not their right to decide? The FDA approved just 16 new drugs last year, and is on pace to approve only 18 this year. That's down from a high of 53 in 1996 and 39 in 1997. This trend does not bode well for the development of rejuvenation therapies. The FDA will hold off approval of an anti-cancer drug for people who have a fatal disease. Never mind that people who have a fatal disease are going to die anyway. The FDA won't let people take a risk when they have little to lose. That makes no sense to me. Rejuvenation therapies are going to treat that fatal disease called aging. Absent those therapies we are all going to die from complications of aging. Faced with rising risks of death combined with increasing pain and disablement people should be given wider latitude to try new and unproven therapies." The FDA should turn down completely; it is a roadblock to progress, and the cause of great and ongoing suffering.

Financial Support for Aging Research

Financial Support for Aging Research

Last week, we talked about the potential (optimistic) cost to reverse aging within the next couple of decades.
Historically financial support for aging research and efforts to extend the healthy lifespan has been spotty. Venture capital firms typically aim for profitable exits from their investments within two to four years. The research and product development we support typically takes longer to mature. Governments aren’t providing much funding. Pharmaceutical and biotech companies’ support of basic aging research is hindered due to the fact that there are no generally accepted biomarkers for human aging that would allow the FDA to approve a drug designed to slow the aging process. These companies are forced to develop drugs for specific diseases. And the FDA doesn’t recognize aging as a disease.
For example, The New York Times looks at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals: "The hope is that activating sirtuins in people would, like a calorically restricted diet in mice, avert degenerative diseases of aging like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's.”

Dr. Christoph Westphal, the chief executive of Sirtris, said of the potential of the resveratrol based drugs they are developing, “I think that if we are right, this could extend life span by 5 or 10 percent.” He added that his goal was to develop drugs against specific diseases, with the extension of life being “almost a side effect of our medicine.”

There is no FDA category for longevity drugs, so if the company is to submit a drug for approval, it needs to be for a specific disease. However, longevity is what has motivated the researchers and what makes the drugs potentially so appealing.

There you have the most serious problem facing longevity science today. The FDA does not allow its direct application. Until this changes, no serious investment will be made in the US to bring longevity science to the clinic. This is a tragedy of astronomical proportions and is beyond belief.
Congress did supplement scarce aging research dollars by establishing the National Institute on Aging in 1974, but that money has primarily gone to disease specific research, such as Alzheimer's disease, or towards the behavioral aspects of aging.
Next week, we’ll look at the possibilities of significant private money finally joining the hunt.
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VOTE FOR "UNDERGRADS AGAINST AGE RELATED DISEASE"

I don't know if you're familiar with the American Express Members Project: It is an open vote to determine how that company will set up a philanthropic program. One of the suggested projects was put forward by a Methuselah Foundation volunteer, and we're looking for enough votes to move it into the next round of consideration:

"You can help by voting: it's free and won't take more than a few minutes. We just need you to go to the Members Projects website and nominate the "Undergrads Against Age Related Disease" project. You don't need to be an Amex card holder, but you do need to be a US resident."

You'll find the project description at the following link:

http://www.membersproject.com/project/view/BVVE2C

"A program that utilizes college undergraduates to perform research in a variety of scientific venues surrounding fighting age related diseases such as Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, Heart Disease, [Cancer, and] overall extension of healthy human life. Hiring researchers is exceedingly expensive. By outsourcing projects to undergraduate students, laboratory use and labor costs are negligible, and the students receive college credit for their work"
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Towards Tissue Engineered Corneas (August 15 2008) http://www.hindustantimes.com/storypage/storypage.aspx?id=34901c8e-1148-44b8-ae83-395922ea0f64
From the Hindustan Times: "Half a dozen eye hospitals in India are collaborating with a research centre in Chennai to create the inner layer of the cornea, the vital window of the human eye. Nichi-In Centre for Regenerative Medicine (NCRM) hopes to make corneal endothelium (inside cell layer) available on a commercial scale. About 100,000 people are in need of eye transplant every year, yet only about 10,000 are able to get donated eyes. The wait for a donor can be endless for the other 90,000. Imagine what a boon it will be if an eye stem cell bank could provide these lab generated endothelial layer of the cornea. The eye has three main parts. The first is the cornea, which is a transparent film like structure that transmits light into the eye. The other two are the lens and retina. During eye transplant, only the cornea is taken from the donor, not the whole eye. Nichi-In is now growing the animal and human corneal inner layer cells on a nano-scaffolding. The research centre is hoping to begin phase I clinical trials on humans in six months."

Ouroboros on Open Science (August 15 2008) http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2008/08/14/opening-science-how-unconferences-changed-my-life/
Open science, analogous to open source software development, is the way of the future. It greatly increases diversity and speed of work by lowering the cost of information, and thereby allowing many more people to participate in research. In a world in which information transmission is easy, it makes no sense to lock up scientific data. Publish early, publish often should be the mantra. From Ouroboros: "The world implied by these concepts is one of radical sharing, in which credit still goes where credit is due but by dramatically different mechanisms. Open science isn’t so much 'pay it forward' (though there is a bit of that) as an effort to create a (scientific) world in which no one is paying at all, a world in which there's no incentive to withhold or protect ownership of data. The science fiction writer Iain M. Banks once wrote that 'money implies poverty' - indeed, many of the current models of data ownership and publication, and their accompanying 'currencies' of proprietorship, prestige and closed-access publication, imply a world in which data is scarce and must be hoarded. But data is not scarce anymore."

Cryonics Versus Rejuvenation Medicine (August 14 2008) http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/08/13/thomas-donaldson-on-cryonics-and-anti-aging/
Via Depressed Metabolism, arguments for a present focus on the development of cryonics over the development of rejuvenation medicine: "In his article 'Why Cryonics Will Probably Help You More Than Antiaging' (2004), cryonics activist Thomas Donaldson contrasts cryonics with antiaging as a means to life extension and argues that a major advantage of cryonics is that cryobiology research can move at a much faster pace than anti-aging research, especially as it pertains to humans. Not only that, but its progress almost totally lacks the problems of proving that an advance has happened. The state of a brain, or even a section of brain, after vitrification and rewarming to normal temperature, shows directly whether or not the method used improved on previous methods. Cryonic suspension is able at least to preserve our brains in a reversible form, allowing restoration of vital functions and looks likely to come much sooner [than rejuvenation medicine]." Which is all true - but problems left to other people to solve have a way of remaining unsolved. We should work on both cryonics and rejuvenation medicine, not leave the latter for future generations.

Removing the Worst Aspect of Chronic Infection (August 13 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-08/eu-twb_1080808.php
An important aspect of immune system aging is the lack of naive T cells resulting from long periods of chronic infection by viruses like cytomegalovirus. What if we could reconfigure the immune system to behave more rationally when presented with recurring threats, and thus not exhaust its resources? That might be a possibility: "preventing white blood cells' circulation by trapping them in the lymph nodes can help mice get rid of a chronic viral infection. Laboratory mice can fight off infection by the Armstrong strain of lymphocytic choriomeningitis virus (LCMV), but are vulnerable to chronic infection by a variant called clone 13. Infecting mice with the Armstrong strain sequesters white blood cells in the lymph nodes, while clone 13 does so less stringently. Our hypothesis was that if we could artificially induce conditions like those produced by the Armstrong strain, it would help the immune system clear an infection by clone 13. An experimental drug called FTY720 [prevents] white blood cells from leaving lymph nodes. Even if mice have a stable chronic LCMV clone 13 infection, treatment with FTY720 can still improve their immune response against LCMV enough to have them rid it from their systems. FTY720 appears to prevent 'exhaustion' in the group of white blood cells called CD8+ T cells."

Hourglass II: A Carnival of Biogerontology (August 13 2008) http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2008/08/12/hourglass-ii-a-carnival-of-biogerontology/
From Ouroboros: "Welcome to the second installation of Hourglass, a blog carnival devoted to the biology of aging. The entries are representatives of the excellent (and growing) community of bloggers who are writing about biogerontology, lifespan extension technologies, and aging in general. Anne C. shares a parable about taking care of her friend Nigel the Fish and what that led her to realize about longevity: specifically, that environment is critical, and that the combination of extrinsic factors that one might collectively term 'nurture' can make all the difference between a short unhappy life and a long fulfilled one. Old and damaged cells enter a permanent growth arrest known as senescence, which is both good (because they can’t initiate tumors) and bad (because persistent senescent cells behave in a ridiculously antisocial manner, secreting growth factors and proteases that both encourage nearby tumors to metastasize and degrade tissue function). At his new site Anti-Ageing Research, Dominick Burton discusses ways in which specifically targeted cancer therapies might be adapted to attack senescent cells instead."

Building Better Tendons (August 12 2008) http://technology.newscientist.com/article/dn14512-labgrown-tendons-gradually-fade-to-bone.html
Laboratory tissue engineering continues to improve in sophistication, as noted by the New Scientist: "only now have researchers managed to make different tissues blend into one another, as they do naturally in the body. Such gradients are necessary for some structures and organs to function properly. In the body, gradients like this strengthen the ends of tendons that attach to bones. Currently, lab-grown tendons put into the body often fail at the attachment end because they lack this property. The new technique should lead to more lifelike artificially-grown tendons, and better treatments for injuries like ruptured Achilles tendons.
The technique could also be applicable to other tissues, such as blood vessels. At the heart of the new technique is a gene that triggers the fibroblast cells that make up tendons to start forming bone. The team used viruses carrying that gene to transform a tendon made from normal fibroblasts into one with a gradient of bony properties. So far, the researchers have shown that tendons made this way are stable when implanted under the skin of rats. The next step is to graft a tendon to connect bone and muscle in a rat and see if it really does perform better."

Demonstrating the Value of Exercise (August 12 2008) http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/117929.php
Via Medical News Today, another reminder of the value of exercise: "US scientists comparing middle aged and older regular runners with healthy equivalents for more than 20 years found that vigorous regular exercise was linked to longer life and less disability in old age. Fries and his team had 538 members of a nationwide running club and 423 healthy controls from northern California fill in questionnaires every year for as long as they could, from 1984 to 2005. The mean disability score was higher for the controls than the runners at all stages of the study and went up with age in both groups, but on average, for runners the onset of disability started later. Runners' initial disability was 16 years later than nonrunners. Runners had a significantly lower risk of having a disability score of 0.5. 19 years into the study, 15 per cent of the runners and 34 per cent of the controls had died, and after adjusting for possible confounders, runners showed a greater chance of living longer. The differences in disability and longevity between the runner group and the control group continued to diverge at the end of the study, as the participants approached their 80th birthday."

Full Paper on Visceral Fat and Longevity (August 11 2008) http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/articlerender.fcgi?artid=2504027
You may recall a solid demonstration that visceral fat tissue negatively affects longevity from earlier this year. The full paper is now open access and available at PubMed Central: "Visceral fat (VF) accretion occurs in obesity and with aging, and a reduction in VF is a common phenotypic change in calorie-restricted [CR] mammals. VF has been shown to be the single most important determinant of metabolic syndrome, and its removal in rats results in improved insulin action and delays the onset of diabetes. Given the hazards associated with abdominal obesity, it seems plausible that the beneficial effects of CR on longevity may be due at least in part to an attenuation of VF. Our data clearly demonstrate that in mammals, VF removal and CR are associated with an increase in mean and maximum lifespan. The mean and maximum lifespan of CR rats was greater than that seen in VF-removed animals, suggesting that the life-prolonging benefit of CR is mediated in part by pathways other than those modulated by an attenuation of VF. By comparing median lifespans, we estimate that the contribution of CR to longevity in this model was 47 weeks, whereas VF removal was 9.5 weeks, as compared to [ad libitum]-fed rats, suggesting that VF reduction offered approximately 20% of the effect of CR on longevity."

Your perfect cure is prevention

Dear Future Centenarian,

A very close friend of mine’s father seems to have lost his will to live. Here is an aging former soldier of fortune who once had a zest for life experienced by few. Now, he lost interest in eating, in seeing a doctor and seemingly everything else, including his will to live.

This bothers me for a couple of reasons. First, someone close to me may lose her dad. And on a larger scale, didn’t I say most people go to the ends of the earth to hang on to life towards the end? Well, apparently not all. Why is this?

Several months ago, I had a relevant conversation with another close friend about how some people cling to life at the end no matter how much suffering and pain they endure, while others simply throw in the towel. We concluded it may have something to do with declining hormone levels. So I gave my anti-aging physician a call a few days ago to discuss this possibility. His response was that yes, declining hormone levels lead to depression, which usually translates to loss of appetite, and of course, a diminished will to live. He routinely reverses this phenomena with closely monitored hormone replacement therapy (HRT).

Could declining hormone levels be evolution’s way to nudge us into going quietly into the night? Could savvy docs reverse deteriorating attitudes and improve and extend millions of lives with simple HRT?

I think the answer is a resounding YES!

Saturday, I enjoyed a wonderful lunch get together with one of the most esteemed psychologists and authors in history. In fact, he has been one of my personal heroes for about 40 years. He’s now experiencing moments of forgetfulness which he calls his “senior moments”. The difference between him and my friend’s father is he is attacking his challenge head on, while maintaining his witty sense of humor. He’s getting sophisticated diagnostics, will undergo cutting edge treatment and is determined to reverse it.

And reverse it he will, according to a medical consultant who specializes in neurodegenerative conditions.

The moral to this story is, don’t wait until you see serious decline to see an anti-aging specialist. In fact, see one before you experience any decline – period. After all, once you see signs of a condition or disease, it may be too late. Heart disease and cancer are two good examples. They eat away at you for years before you show symptoms. And one symptom from heart disease is often sudden death.

Your perfect cure is prevention.
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THREE DECADES FROM NOW

Under the present weight of regulation, it looks to take about 30 years for a new medical technology to progress from first proof of concept through to widespread and cost-effective availability - for those that aren't buried young by the cost of red tape, that is. Compare that with something more like 20 years in less regulated industries. That difference adds up. But what can we expect to see in the 2030s, based on what has taken place in laboratories and trials in the past few years?

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001537.php

"Replacement organs will be grown to order from your own cells.
Stem cells will be created, manipulated, and transplanted to direct extraordinary regeneration.
Age-damaged immune systems will be wiped clean and replaced afresh.
Gene therapy will be a mature technology, and genetic disorders curable.
Everyone will know their DNA sequence, and have access to a vast database of knowledge that describes risks, therapies, and best practices.
Cancer will be detected early, and even late-stage metastasis cured with few side-effects by nanoparticle-based, viral, or other therapies.
The important mitochondrial DNA will be replaced when damaged by disease or age.
Many of the biochemical processes underlying the benefits of exercise, calorie restriction, and known human longevity-associated genes will be reproduced by cheap drugs.”

ON STEM CELLS AND AGING

While perusing PubMed Central, Reason discovered a good overview of present thinking on stem cells, stem cell niches, and their role in aging:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001536.php

"If many adult tissues and organs are continuously replenished by cells derived from stem cells, then why do they show signs of aging? One possibility is that stem cells themselves age and senesce, resulting in a decreased ability to replace worn-out progeny and/or the fact that they pass on aged phenotypes to their progeny.

NOTE: Pending modest funding, a stem cell company will soon be launched that could solve this problem within a couple of years.

Somewhere at the end of this road of investigation lies the means to keep stem cell populations vital while not exaggerating the risk of cancer due to runaway failure in a stem cell - the most likely reason we have evolved mechanisms that diminish stem cell activity in response to age-related biochemical damage. At some point, the large and well-funded field of regenerative medicine is going to turn its attention to repairing the damage of aging. Many major lines of research presently address age-related disease, and it is becoming clear that the effectiveness of therapies is hindered by age-related damage in stem cells and their niches. We should encourage research in this direction.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

Towards Long Life and Happiness (August 01 2008) http://www.canada.com/components/print.aspx?id=924ef76b-5103-4aad-a596-13278777f8eb
From Canada.com: "Aging - and more specifically, the aspiration to slow human aging - is the most important neglected issue of our time. There are many things that could kill the world's current 6.5 billion plus people, but the vast majority of those currently alive today, especially in the developed world, will die from age-related causes. The diseases of aging could be the real scourge of the 21st century. That is, unless we do something to remedy the biological vulnerabilities we have inherited from our evolutionary history. The current approach to medical research is to tackle individual diseases, one at a time. So we spend large amounts of public funding on basic research into cancer, heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer's, etc. But we invest very little in understanding the biology of aging and how it impacts our health prospects. Supplementing the current medical approach with one that also tackles aging would help us take a more inclusive approach to health extension. Even if we find a cure for one of the diseases of aging - like cancer - it would only extend life by a few years, as most people will likely be afflicted by one of the other diseases of aging. But if we could modify the biological mechanisms underlying aging, we may be able to significantly increase the number of disease-free years humans can expect to live. This would reap enormous individual and societal benefits."

Exercise in a Pill? (July 31 2008)
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/si-eia072808.php
If researchers could reproduce the biochemical basis for the health and longevity-enhancing results of exercise, the resulting drug would no doubt be as popular as calorie restriction mimetics. Exercise and calorie restriction are the two gold-standard items for health: little else even comes close yet. From EurekAlert!, news of small steps on this path: Researchers "identified two signaling pathways that are activated in response to exercise and converge to dramatically increase endurance. Previous work with genetically engineered mice [had] revealed that permanently activating a genetic switch known as PPAR delta turned mice into indefatigable marathon runners. In addition to their super-endurance, the altered mice were resistant to weight gain, even when fed a high-fat diet that caused obesity in ordinary mice. On top of their lean and mean physique, their response to insulin improved, lowering levels of circulating glucose. We wanted to know whether a drug specific for PPAR delta would have the same beneficial effects."

Short Telomeres and Accelerated Aging (July 31 2008) http://newswire.rockefeller.edu/?page=engine&id=791
All of the rare accelerated aging conditions appear to be caused by one aspect of "normal" aging exaggerated and run wild to cause great biochemical damage. Researchers now think they understand what underlies another of these conditions: "Sufferers of the disease, called dyskeratosis congentia, tend to have problems in tissues in which cells multiply rapidly - skin, hair, nails, tongue, gut and bone marrow - and usually die between the ages of 16 and 50 from bone marrow failure, or the inability to replenish their blood cells. Each time a cell divides, the protective caps at the ends of chromosomes shorten - and when these caps are gone, so are we. Now, by using an unconventional strategy to shorten telomeres in mice, [researchers] have not only created the first faithful mouse model for studying [dyskeratosis congentia], but they have revealed the molecular defect behind the disease. These results suggest that in patients suffering from dyskeratosis congenita, the enzyme telomerase can't elongate telomeres as fast as the nucleases chew them away. Clearly, the next step is to understand how telomeres are degraded in human cells. We need to identify the nucleases at work and find out how they are regulated."

Reduced Protein Intake and Immune Response (July 30 2008) http://pmid.us/18656703
Scientists here demonstrate the connection between reduced dietary protein and a better immune response, already known from the practice of calorie
restriction: "Manipulation of dietary variables is one the most described events to retard the aging process and maintain immune function. The present study deals with the effect of variable dietary protein-carbohydrate ratios (without caloric restriction) on the alteration of immune response of male albino rats. These results thus suggest that diets with variable dietary protein-carbohydrate ratios act as an exogenous modulator of immune response with age and [a low protein] diet may be beneficial to slow down/reduce the impairment of immune response in aged individuals." For comparison, you might also look at studies of methionine restriction without overall calorie restriction. Greater control of diet over the years adds up, and every extra year of health gained can make a big difference when the pace of medical development is rapid.

The Tithonus Error (July 29 2008)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1038717/MAX-HASTINGS-Growing-old-Britain-happy-experience-The-longer-live-worse-quality-life-becomes.html
So many, many people still believe that the result of longevity science will be that you are older and ever more frail for more years, with no hope of death. This is absolutely false: the goals are in fact rejuvenation of the old, repair of the biochemical damage of aging, and the extension of healthy, youthful life. But still people have the fate of Tithonus in mind, sunk into the collective consciousness through a hundred similar cautionary tales. So you'll see this sort of doleful op-ed from the Daily Mail: "To some of us, [longevity] seems a ghastly prospect. I am 62, and find life terrific. I get more work done than ever before, because my children have long ago left home and I remain fit. I take pills to keep my blood pressure down and waterworks functioning. It seems to some of us terrifying to imagine that we might survive to 100. Surely, the drear misery and loneliness that accompanies such age is not worth it for a birthday party, telegram from the Queen and maybe a paragraph in the local newspaper. Once mobility is gone, once the simplest actions of daily life become dependent upon others, it is hard to sustain self-respect. If science indeed continues to lengthen our lives, I believe that we shall have to be given a choice about opting out." The work of advocacy and education must continue - this is a sign that much remains to be done.

Futurist Musings on the Leap Ahead (July 29 2008) http://www.canada.com/topics/bodyandhealth/story.html?id=fa35f402-d10e-4c1e-a8c9-cc3f1cc12f92
From Canada.com: "Genetic science, stem-cell research and extreme caloric restriction are all part of a burgeoning 'immortality industry' that could soon point the way to a fountain of youth with the potential to stretch the human life span to 125 or 150 years, says a sociologist and consultant on future studies. Advances such as nanotechnology - the emerging ability to manipulate extremely small structures - could ultimately make it possible to regenerate every cell in the body. At that point, we can throw out every idea we have about longevity and even mortality itself. The effects of human life-extension will be far-reaching, [potentially] spawning second or third careers in people's extra decades and a society of lifelong students using the gift of more time to continually reinvent themselves with new education. The extension of human life will also depend on people's lifestyle [and] the current obesity epidemic, smoking habits and other unhealthy behaviors indicate they don't always make beneficial choices. People can be 'seduced' by breakthroughs they believe will save them from themselves. I think there is going to be a tremendous chasm between average life expectancy and life potential."

Michael West at Aging 2008 (July 28 2008)
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people-blog/?p=2338
Another Aging 2008 transcript from Future Current: "I have been entranced by the immortality of the species and how it's accomplished. A simple way of putting it: we are made of cells, trillions of them, that have been proliferating backward in time all the way through hundreds of millions of years to the beginning of life on the planet, leaving no dead ancestors in their wake ever - or we would not be here. It is our somatic cells that are destined to die. All the cells in our body have this immortal legacy going backward in time millions of years and will face death for the first time ever in our lifetime. What can we learn about the immortality of the species to transport those observations and discoveries of modern technologies into something that will really do something about human aging? How could these cells be used in the next ten years? There are numerous examples I could give you, but one hopeful one - macular degeneration. This is the leading cause of blindness, due to the aging of our retina. These cells have now been made in a form that is appropriate to begin human clinical trials. When they become lost or dysfunctional in the back of the retina, they cause this cascade of pathology that is a leading cause of blindness in the elderly. It is at least one of the top targets for how we hope these cells will eventually be used in medicine."

Cryonics as an Elective Medical Procedure (July 28 2008) http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2008/07/24/cryonics-as-an-elective-medical-procedure/
From Depressed Metabolism: "The limitation that cryonics procedures can only be started after pronouncement of legal death reflects the unfortunate fact that the current medical establishment does not recognize cryonics as a credible form of advanced critical care. As a result, cryonics is currently practiced as a form of emergency medicine in which conventional resuscitation technologies such as chest compressions and ventilations are used to avoid the kinds of injury that follow after cardiac arrest. Although there will always be a place for cryonics as a form of emergency medicine to treat cases of trauma and sudden circulatory arrest, most patients who currently present for human cryopreservation would benefit from more hospital cooperation in choosing cryonics as an elective medical procedure. Although current cryonics organizations such as Alcor try to make the best of a bad situation by employing standby teams that allow rapid intervention after cardiac arrest to reduce brain injury, much improved quality of care of cryonics patients would be possible if cryonics procedures would start at a point where medical professionals (with informed consent of the patient and/or family) would determine that further treatment of the patient with contemporary technologies would be futile, or even counter-productive."
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DISCLAIMER: News summaries are reported by third parties, and there is no guarantee of accuracy. This newsletter is not meant to substitute for your personal due diligence and is not to be taken as medical advice. For originating report, please see www.longevitymeme.org/newsletter/.

If you would like to be removed from my list, I will stop sending you Longevity News Digest if you simply reply to this email with Unsubscribe in the subject line.

Aging, the New Frontier

Dear Future Centenarian,
We are finally moving from an era where nothing could be done to defeat aging into an era where advancing technology will give us the tools to overcome it. All the old attitudes are no longer relevant.
We’re so used to people dying from age related causes that we accept it as a normal part of life. And we become desensitized to this death. But let’s look at it from a different angle and see if you think about it differently.
Robert Freitas, a brilliant scientist and perhaps the world’s utmost authority on Nanomedicine, offers some interesting ways to view aging. He points out the following:
100,000 lives are lost every single day from aging related causes. They’re scattered all over the world, so we hardly notice. But what if 400 jetliners fell out of the sky in a single day? We would be astonished, outraged and sickened. Yet effectively, that’s equivalent to 400 jetliner crashes.
If 400 planes crashed every day, wouldn’t the world marshal all its powers to insure aircraft safety, especially if we had no choice but to fly?
What if we could avoid… or at least postpone most aging related deaths?
Then why isn’t treating aging a #1 priority?
After all, if you or a loved one had a major medical condition such as cancer, heart disease or suffered a stroke, wouldn’t you ask for the very best medical care?
If we had a treatment that could reverse Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, osteoporosis, arteriosclerosis or diabetes… who in their right mind would turn it down?
Now it is aging, the new frontier. Since it kills everyone who survives or dodges diseases, might not aging be considered a disease as well? MaxLife looks at it as a curable disease, in fact the mother of most diseases. And we’re determined to do something about it.
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

The Dreaded Reactive Oxygen Species (July 25 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/uorm-ruk072108.php
It's good to see more research groups looking into targeting antioxidants to the mitochondria. From EurekAlert!: "Researchers have taken a first snapshot of how a class of highly reactive molecules inflicts cellular damage as part of aging, heart disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes, kidney disease and Alzheimer's disease to name a few. Researchers have discovered a tool that can monitor related damage and determine the degree to which antioxidant drugs effectively combat disease. Our study provides a better glimpse of why a cell under assault by disease makes 10 times as many reactive oxygen species [ROS] as the same cell when healthy. We have discovered a chemical tool for investigating how diseases cause damage, mitochondrion by mitochondrion. Efforts to develop antioxidant drugs (e.g. vitamin E) to treat diseases of increased oxidative stress have met with limited success to date because they tried to eliminate ROS, rather than maintain the right amount, Sheu said. He established the Mitochondrial Research & Innovation Group (MRIG) [in] 2002 with the goal of designing therapies to deliver precise amounts of antioxidants to the mitochondria of diseased cells only. MRIG teams are, for example, screening through compounds to confirm that oxidative stress can be reversed by mitochondria-specific drugs."

On Hormesis and Longevity (July 24 2008) http://pmid.us/18648625
A nice overview of hormesis: "Aging is characterized by a stochastic accumulation of molecular damage, progressive failure of maintenance and repair, and consequent onset of age-related diseases. Applying hormesis in aging research and therapy is based on the principle of stimulation of maintenance and repair pathways by repeated exposure to mild stress. In a series of experimental studies we have shown that repetitive mild heat stress has anti-aging hormetic effects on growth and various other cellular and biochemical characteristics of human skin fibroblasts undergoing aging in vitro. These effects include the maintenance of stress protein profiles, reduction in the accumulation of oxidatively and glycoxidatively damaged proteins, stimulation of the proteasomal activities for the degradation of abnormal proteins, improved cellular resistance to ethanol, hydrogenperoxide and ultraviolet-B rays, and enhanced levels of various antioxidant enzymes. Anti-aging hormetic effects of mild heat shock appear to be facilitated by reducing protein damage and protein aggregation by activating internal antioxidant, repair and degradation processes."

Yeast and Aging Research (July 22 2008) http://ouroboros.wordpress.com/2008/07/21/biogerontology-rising-recent-progress-in-yeast-aging-research/
Ouroboros looks at the humble yeast in context: "Our understanding of aging in animals owes a great debt to a large body of careful work in a single-celled organism, the brewer's yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Indeed, as I've argued before, yeast is one of the two organisms with the strongest credible claim to have started modern biogerontology. An unusually large crop of yeast aging papers have appeared over the last few months, and I thought it would be appropriate to spend a few paragraphs describing them - in honor of this humble organism that rises our bread, ferments our beer, and has done so much to open our eyes to the fundamental mechanisms of aging. Yeast mutants in worm longevity genes are significantly more likely to be long-lived than randomly chosen mutants - suggesting [that] genes that modulate aging have been conserved not only in sequence, but also in function, over a billion years of evolution. Given this functional conservation, it is reasonable to use yeast to help answer questions about aging in general, so long as these questions as cell-biological in scope."

New York Times on Sirtris (July 22 2008) http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/health/research/22long.html?pagewanted=all
The New York Times looks at Sirtris Pharmaceuticals: "The hope is that activating sirtuins in people would, like a calorically restricted diet in mice, avert degenerative diseases of aging like diabetes, heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's. There is no Food and Drug Administration category for longevity drugs, so if the company is to submit a drug for approval, it needs to be for a specific disease. Nonetheless, longevity is what has motivated the researchers and what makes the drugs potentially so appealing. Dr. Christoph Westphal, the chief executive of Sirtris, said of the potential of the drugs, 'I think that if we are right, this could extend life span by 5 or 10 percent.' He added that his goal was to develop drugs against specific diseases, with the extension of life being 'almost a side effect of our medicine.'" There you have the most serious problem facing longevity science today: that its direct application is not permitted by the FDA. Until this changes no serious investment will be made in the US to bring longevity science to the clinic. This is a tragedy of so great a scale as to beggar belief.

Thoughts on Mortality and Its Evasion (July 21 2008) http://tacit.livejournal.com/250032.html
An interesting LiveJournal post: "A person immune to the ravages of old age would still not be immune to death; accident, violence, and other misadventure is perfectly capable of ending even a 25-year-old's life. It simply means that person no longer has a cap on the maximum time he can live, if he so chooses. And that's really what it's all about. Choice. If you go into the doctor's office, and he tells you that you have a bacterial infection, which will slowly grow progressively worse until it kills you painfully, then offers you an antibiotic pill that will completely eradicate the infection, I bet you'll take it. Even if you don't fancy the thought of living forever. There's an important point in that.

Even folks who don't much want to live forever still probably don't want to die today. Or tomorrow. Someday, perhaps, if that 'someday' is held in the abstract; some future time when things no longer seem interesting. But not today. And that's the point. A solution for aging puts the power to choose in your hands. Old age forces your hand; you don't get the choice to see your grandkids graduate from school, or to celebrate your fiftieth anniversary. The choice is made for you. And I don't see how that benefits anyone."

Growing Blood Vessels (July 21 2008) http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7514317.stm
Researchers continue to work at the blood vessel problem in tissue engineering. From the BBC: "Scientists have used human cells to grow new blood vessels in a mouse for the first time. The ability to develop swiftly a new network of tiny blood vessels - known as capillaries - would be a prize for scientists. There are dozens of potential applications in medicine, particularly in the treatment of conditions which involve damage to a tissue's blood supply, such as that to the heart muscle following a heart attack. However, the complex structure of these vessels has slowed progress. What's really significant about our study is that we are using human cells that can be obtained from blood or bone marrow rather than removing and using fully developed blood vessels. It could certainly assist in the connection of other engineered organs to the body's blood supply. Although this approach is not yet suitable for clinical use, it is interesting that they have demonstrated you have all the elements you need to create a functional network of capillaries from a small amount of blood."
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DISCLAIMER: News summaries are reported by third parties, and there is no guarantee of accuracy. This newsletter is not meant to substitute for your personal due diligence and is not to be taken as medical advice. For originating report, please see www.longevitymeme.org/newsletter/.
If you would like to be removed from my list, I will stop sending you Longevity News Digest if you simply reply to this email with Unsubscribe in the subject line.

Biological Evolution

Dear Future Centenarian,
We’ve come a long way in our lifetimes. In fact, we have accomplished as much then as we did in all of recorded history. At least technologically. As a race, we really didn’t seem to have learned many lessons. Oh sure, maybe our justice systems are a little more fair (and maybe not), we may have developed a little more tolerance and compassion, and maybe we’re not quite as barbaric. All in all though, we react to intrusions about the same as prehistoric man.
We still settle disputes and differences about the same way. We either initiate or answer with violence for the most part. But instead of clubbing each other senseless and confining our rage, jealousies, pettiness and intolerances to an area roughly equivalent to our immediate reach and to one enemy or victim at a time, we now have these wonders of science at our disposal, capable of inflicting widespread death and destruction.
Then, we had clubs and primitive minds. Now we have nukes, biological and chemical weapons, potentially devastating nanotechnology capabilities… and primitive minds.
While we have evolved in some ways at light speed, our ability to solve social problems and disputes and our tendency to hate hasn’t changed since caveman days. Look, we’re on the cusp of breaking through to indefinite lifespans and solutions for health problems, poverty and pollution. But what good does it do us when emotionally unstable individuals have abilities to wipe out millions with no more effort or forethought than swinging a club?
Fortunately, the human race is extremely resilient and resourceful. We often respond to challenges in creative and unexpected ways. A relatively new foundation recognizes this challenge and is taking it on as part of its agenda. See more information at www.InnerSpaceFoundation.org.
They recognize that biological evolution is a somewhat haphazard and non-optimizing process that has produced many undesirable artifacts. Among a large number and wide variety of such artifacts, two stand out as the underlying causes of the most pervasive and extreme human suffering: mental and lifespan limitations. Mental inabilities, including the failure to resolve conflicts non-violently, are universal. They must ultimately serve to explain our ongoing failures to end human warfare, crime, poverty, and famine, and to completely cure diseases, disabilities, aging and death. Therefore, these inabilities are fundamentally even more harmful to humanity than the categories of biomedical dysfunction we currently labor to cure.
This belief forms the core of the Bioprogressive philosophy. The overall goal of the InnerSpace Foundation (IF) is to accelerate developing biomedical technologies for transcending these limitations. IF is taking specific steps toward enhancing memory, learning and cognition. These near-term goals should ultimately help us to eliminate or transcend other unwanted artifacts of Darwinian evolution.
IF, among others, have longer-term goals aimed at preserving memories. So hang on. We have some interesting times ahead.
____________________________________
CANCER AND IMMUNE SYSTEM PROFICIENCY

Are some immune systems much better than others at destroying cancer in its earliest stages? It seems that this is the case. Can we copy that proficiency and use it as a therapy? The prospects look promising:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001525.php

"First, we had cancer-resistant mice and asked, 'What can we learn from it?' The reason it's resistant is because it has very different white cells. So then that immediately prompted the concept of therapy, because you can easily transfer white cells. You can extract them as a therapeutic agent and give them to another mouse. It's a therapy. It's much better than to find the gene. If you find the gene, then you have to understand the mechanism, and you have to find a way to put the gene into the cell, into all the cells you want to, and that would not work very easily. The technology as we speak right now is not really mature for that area. You might have to wait another 10, 20 years before that technology catches up with the concept. However, what we found is a cell as a therapeutic agent, so why not go ahead and see how it works. It worked really well in mice, so the next question, very obviously, is can we find a similar cancer resistance for humans as a donor for a therapeutic agent. And the answer is yes, we did find quite a few of them ".

From a broad assessment of cutting edge cancer research, it seems that we are well on the way to turning cancer into a controllable chronic illness. You'll have outbreaks, they'll be caught early, and the medicine of the 2020s will eliminate them. The question is whether this is good enough: is a comprehensive suite of low-risk, safe cancer cures enough to remove cancer as a threat while our lives are extended by other medical technologies?
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LATEST HEALTHY LIFE EXTENSION HEADLINES

The Broadening Search for Longevity Genes (July 17 2008)
http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=21092
The MIT Technology Review looks at continued attempts to understand the degree to which present healthy human longevity is influenced by genes: "An ambitious plan to sequence 100 genes in 1,000 healthy old people could shed light on genetic variations that insulate some people from the ailments of aging, including heart disease, cancer, and diabetes, allowing them to live a healthy life into their eighties and beyond. Rather than focusing on genetic variations that increase risk for disease, scientists plan to focus on genes that have previously been linked to health and longevity. Advances in genetic screening technologies have allowed scientists to start searching the genome for clues to healthy aging and a lengthy life span. That work has revealed that the genomes of healthy old people are not blemish free. These people have genetic susceptibility markers for many serious diseases [but] they don't get any of these diseases. What is the explanation? What might account for their insulation from these diseases?" Genes are not fate - evidence to date suggests that lifestyle choices have much more weight for all but the most genetically unlucky, and those choices are reflected in epigenetic variations, not genetic variations.

Self-Assembly in Tissue Engineering (July 16 2008) http://www.technologyreview.com/printer_friendly_article.aspx?id=21080
The MIT Technology Review looks at a promising strategy in tissue engineering: "Tissue engineers are ambitious. If they had their way, a dialysis patient could receive a new kidney made in the lab from his own cells, instead of waiting for a donor organ that his immune system might reject. Likewise, a diabetic could, with grafts of lab-made pancreatic tissue, be given the ability to make insulin again. But tissue engineering has stalled in part because bioengineers haven't been able to replicate the structural complexity of human tissues. Now researchers have taken an important first step toward building complex tissues from the bottom up by creating what they call living Legos. These building blocks, biofriendly gels of various shapes studded with cells, can self-assemble into complex structures resembling those found in tissues. This will be an effective way to put the cells where we want them to be. You can probably generate a tissue with a higher complexity [using] the new method than is possible with a scaffold that has to be seeded with cells." Compare and contrast with the use of whole-organ cell matrix templates, another recent development aimed at solving the same problem.

Stress, Cortisol, and Shortened Telomeres (July 16 2008) http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-07/uoc--usi071508.php
Chronic stress correlates with shorter telomeres, as well as with worse health. Via EurekAlert! researchers are proposing a mechanism by which telomere length is reduced by stress, leading to a worse immune response: "Short telomeres are linked to a range of human diseases, including HIV, osteoporosis, heart disease and aging. An enzyme [called telomerase] keeps immune cells young by preserving their telomere length and ability to continue dividing. The stress hormone cortisol suppresses immune cells' ability to activate their telomerase. This may explain why the cells of persons under chronic stress have shorter telomeres. When the body is under stress, it boosts production of cortisol to support a 'fight or flight' response. If the hormone remains elevated in the bloodstream for long periods of time, though, it wears down the immune system. We are testing therapeutic ways of enhancing telomerase levels to help the immune system ward off cortisol's effect. If we're successful, one day a pill may exist to strengthen the immune system's ability to weather chronic emotional stress."

Why Fight Aging? (July 15 2008)
http://www.acceleratingfuture.com/people-blog/?p=2307
A Future Current transcript of one of Aubrey de Grey's presentations at Aging 2008: "Some people say, 'I don't want to live to a thousand.' I don't want to live to a thousand, necessarily. I don't even know if I want to live to a hundred. But I do know I want to make that choice when I am 99, rather than having it gradually removed from me by declining health. This is what it comes down to. The extension of lifespan by the defeat of aging is not the point - at least it is not the main point for me, and I do not think it is the main point for most people who are engaged in this crusade. The purpose is to alleviate the suffering that goes with getting decrepit, frail and dependent. Of course, this includes not just those who are suffering that, but the suffering of their loved ones. The extension of average lifespan is essentially a side benefit. It is something that will happen because the way that we are going to do this, using regenerative medicine, will also mean that you have only the same probability you did when you were a young adult of dying peacefully in your sleep without any of these diseases. In other words, a very low probability indeed. You will indeed on average live a great deal longer, and I don't think you’ll complain if you do. However, that is not the purpose. The purpose is to alleviate suffering."

On the Way to Longevity (July 14 2008)
http://www.dailybruin.ucla.edu/news/2008/jul/14/within-20-years-you-wont-have-grow-old/
The Daily Bruin talks to some of the folk who were at Aging 2008: "Defeating the effects of time by finding a cure for aging has become the focus of multiple areas of research, bringing the possibilities of achieving immortality from fantasy into the realm of science. The new possibilities offered by regenerative medicine illustrate how advancements in therapy on the molecular and cellular level may be able to extend the healthy human life span within the next 20 years. Finding a cure for aging is no longer a theoretical target or a fantasy, but on the way to becoming a practical target. Aging is the most universal degenerative condition and is now becoming the target of regenerative medicine. The body is a really complicated machine, but it's still a machine, so its healthy lifespan can be extended indefinitely by sufficiently comprehensive repair and maintenance, just like simple man-made machines. Aging is a complex phenomenon that affects many different systems. Understanding it and fixing the damage as it comes can potentially cure the harmful effects of aging and as a result, elongate the healthy human lifespan."
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DISCLAIMER: News summaries are reported by third parties, and there is no guarantee of accuracy. This newsletter is not meant to substitute for your personal due diligence and is not to be taken as medical advice. For originating report, please see www.longevitymeme.org/newsletter/.

If you would like to be removed from my list, I will stop sending you Longevity News Digest if you simply reply to this email with Unsubscribe in the subject line.

David A. Kekich
Maximum Life Foundation
714-641-0700/Fax 714-464-4135
www.MaxLife.org

"Where Biotech, Infotech and Nanotech
Meet to Reverse Aging by 2029"

The Problem… Population Size. The Solution… SuperLongevity

Can super longevity solve, rather than create a population problem?

Consider these points edited from a paper presented several weeks ago by Herb Meyer at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Mr. Meyer is widely credited with being the first senior U.S. Government official to forecast the Soviet Union's collapse, for which he later was awarded the U.S. National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, the intelligence community's highest honor. Formerly an associate editor of FORTUNE, he is also the author of several books.

Some of His Conclusions

Maintaining a steady population requires a birth rate of 2.1. In Western Europe, the birth rate currently stands at 1.5, or 30 percent below replacement. In 30 years there will be 70 to 80 million fewer Europeans than there are today. The current birth rate in Germany is 1.3. Italy and Spain are even lower at 1.2. At that rate, the working age population declines by 30 percent in 20 years, which has a huge impact on the economy. When you don't have young workers to replace the older ones, you have to import them.

In Japan, the birthrate is 1.3. As a result, Japan will lose up to 60 million people over the next 30 years. Because Japan has a very different society than Europe, they refuse to import workers. Instead, they are just shutting down. Japan has already closed 2,000 schools, and is closing them down at the rate of 300 per year. Japan is also aging very rapidly. By 2020, one out of every five Japanese will be at least 70 years old.

The birth rate in Russia is so low that by 2050 their population will be smaller than that of Yemen.

Nobody has any idea about how to run an economy with those demographics. Europe and Japan, which comprise two of the world's major economic engines, aren't merely in recession, they're shutting down. This will have a huge impact on the world economy, and it is already beginning to happen.

When the birth rate drops below replacement, the population ages. With fewer working people to support more retired people, it puts a crushing tax burden on the smaller group of working age people. As a result, young people delay marriage and having a family. Once this trend starts, the downward spiral only gets worse.

These countries have abandoned all the traditions they formerly held in regard to having families and raising children. The U.S. birth rate is 2.0, just below replacement. We have an increase in population because of immigration. When broken down by ethnicity, the Anglo birth rate is 1.6 (same as France) while the Hispanic birth rate is 2.7.

In the U.S., the baby boomers are starting to retire in massive numbers. This will push the elder dependency ratio from 19 to 38 over the next 10 to 15 years. This is not as bad as Europe, but still represents the same kind of trend.

The world's most effective birth control device is money. As society creates a middle class and women move into the workforce, birth rates drop. Having large families is incompatible with middle class living. The quickest way to drop the birth rate is through rapid economic development.

Pretty sobering, isn’t it? So what’s the solution? Longevity… and lots of it. Keep the elderly alive, healthy and productive. Keep them out of retirement, hospitals and nursing homes where they drain resources, and have them contribute to the economy when they are at the peak of their productive capacity.

A Real Boost for Aging Research

Friday, June 27th I attended Aging 2008 - Aging: the Disease, the Cure, the Implications at UCLA. It was sponsored by Dr. Aubrey de Grey and the Methuselah Foundation. About 700 people attended a stimulating three hour session featuring an All-Star lineup of aging researchers, advocates and personalities.

Most of the attendees spent the next couple of hours networking at an outdoor dinner. In my opinion, some of the more important and interesting people in the world were there, including some movers and shakers who are launching exciting companies and research projects – projects that could have a big impact on your health and longevity.

Here is a list of the speakers:
Dr. Bruce Ames, Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at UC Berkeley
G. Steven Burrill, Chairman of Pharmasset and Chairman of Campaign for Medical Research
Dr. Aubrey de Grey, Chairman and CSO of Methuselah Foundation and author of Ending Aging
Dr. William Haseltine, Chairman of Haseltine Global Health
Daniel Perry, Executive Director of Alliance for Aging Research
Bernard Siegel, Executive Director of Genetics Policy Institute
Dr. Gregory Stock, Director of Program on Medicine, Technology & Society at UCLA School of Medicine
Dr. Michael West, CEO of BioTime and Adjunct Professor of Bioengineering at UC Berkeley
I also got a Methuselah Foundation T-shirt, one of the coolest T-shirts I ever saw.

Aging 2008 was the opening session for the technically focused Understanding Aging conference which took place Saturday and Sunday. Thirty four scientists presented over the weekend. I believe this was the most extensive scientific longevity conference ever held in the US. Hopefully, the Methuselah Foundation will offer videos.

Open-forum events like this enable scientists to bounce ideas of one another, to cross pollinate ideas and to open up various research programs to debate and scrutiny. As a result, it fast tracks longevity research. Congratulations to Aubrey de Grey and all the Methuselah Foundation volunteers who made it happen.

Then last week, I attended a presentation to an investment banker to fund two very progressive adult stem cell companies. He made a verbal commitment, and funding might take place as early as this month. Once these companies are launched, human therapies could be accelerated. That could translate to the first round of therapies becoming available by next year. Anti-aging science is ratcheted up one more notch.
All-in-all that was a very productive week for life extension. Let’s look forward to many more.

Is Curing Aging Just a Scientific Challenge? The Answer Below May Surprise You.

Dear Future Centenarian,

I wish you could have been with me last week. Please let me explain…

I attended a week-long conference for two reasons. First, my assistant went on his honeymoon then, and it was convenient for me to hole up and rest in a hotel for 5 days. Second, it gave me a good chance to spend some time with some friends who I hadn’t seen for a while. Oh and there was a third reason too… I figured I couldn’t help but pick up a nugget or two of valuable information.

Well, here’s what happened:

I didn’t get much rest. The conference started at 9 am each day and ran until almost 8 pm. And it was so captivating that I didn’t want to miss a word.
I hardly got to spend any time with my friends (See #1).
I picked up my nugget or two in the first 10 minutes. Five days and a whole tablet full of notes later, I looked back on the most insightful and valuable conference I ever attended.

Without going into detail, it was advertised as a business building and development conference. The organizer, Eben Pagan, walked nearly 200 attendees through the trials and tribulations he endured in building his business (and his incredible life) and how to shortcut them. Eben disclosed, step-by-step, how he built a business that triples every year. It already earns well over $2 million a month – and is still exploding. But there was more. Much more.

Why do I mention this in a life extension newsletter? Because solving the aging puzzle and delivering extreme life extension to you is as much a business and marketing challenge as a scientific one. Last week’s education is fast tracking that challenge for me. It could do the same for you, your project or your business.

If you’d like details, go to http://getaltitude.com.

Network Your Way to Immortality

Dear Future Centenarian,

Saturday evening, I enjoyed life extension and stem cell technology conversation and dinner at an incredible couple’s home. Their guests were incredible as well. Not only were they bright, well informed and enthusiastic about extreme life extension, but they were a mix of savvy and successful scientists and business people. The latter will have as much to do with your longevity as the former. Maybe more. You’ll see what I mean when you read the attached PowerPoint.

Since 2000, Maximum Life Foundation designed a scientific and financial roadmap to reverse the human aging process. The attachment illustrates an aggressive approach to solving aging in your lifetime. You’ll notice what a surprisingly small investment we think it will take. But we can back up our scientific and financial assumptions. Now it’s time to implement the plan.

AGE Breakers

Dear Future Centenarian,

Advanced glycation endproducts (AGEs) are a range of metabolic byproducts that gum up the works in your biochemistry, such as by sticking vital chemical compounds together so that they can't perform their role. The more AGEs in your system, the worse the damage they cause, directly contributing to age-related degeneration and disease:

A number of groups are at the stage of animal or early human trials with designed or discovered compounds, many focused on diabetes due to the increased level of AGEs associated with that condition, and the fact that regulatory agencies do not recognize aging as a disease - and thus will not approve a therapy designed to repair a cause of aging. For example, the AGE-breaker compound C36 has been evaluated on diabetic rats:

"Unfortunately, past evidence suggests that excitement over work in rodents should be muted at best - the history of ALT-711 or alagebrium demonstrates that different types of AGEs are important in shorter-lived mammals versus humans. So far, promising work in mice and rats has translated poorly into human therapies - in most cases, through trying to address the wrong AGEs."

Life is Everything. Death is Nothing

Dear Future Centenarian,

To seek to provide the choice of healthy longevity for all who want it is an aspect of the better side of human nature:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001254.php

"Helping to make life longer and better, one action at a time, is a core human ideal. There are no special cases, no magical transition point at which it's fine and dandy to write people off or justify their deaths.

Healthy life extension flows quite naturally from the same mindset that helps neighbors and appreciates modern medicine. We all recognize that which is unpleasant in commonplace life, and it's only natural to work to remove that unpleasantness. Seeking equality of opportunity by helping people to overcome the limitations of their own personal human condition is a worthy goal today, and will be just as much so in a future of far greater opportunity. The foundation of opportunity is life - is being alive, and possessed of the vigor to take advantage of that fact. Without that, there is nothing. So I think we really have to start there, with aging, a great injustice blindly inflicted upon humanity by chance, physics and evolution.

To not seek the cure for aging would be just as strange as to fail to seek a cure for cancer or Alzheimer's - it would be inhuman and unnatural for the species that helps its neighbors and appreciates the good things in life."

What is Your Life Worth… Really?

Dear Future Centenarian,

If you knew technologies over the next few decades could deliver to you a chance for an open-ended youthful lifespan, how much would you donate to the research?

Say you want to live a much longer, healthier life. Would you help to achieve that goal by donating 90% of your net worth in support of research? If so, when? When you are terminally ill when it would probably be too late? Years or decades down the road? How about now? If not, how much?

There are no right answers in consideration of personal economic choices, but these are question you might ask yourself. Wealth at any level is worthless to the dead, and being alive and healthy allows you to generate more wealth. Logically we should all be willing to devote most of our net worth to longevity research at the most effective time. If we can buy time with money - and we can begin to now in earnest, for the first time in history, by supporting the research that will lead to the first healthy life extension medicine - then we should all be in that market.

MaxLife believes the tiniest fraction of most wealthy individuals’ net worth or annual income could reverse aging in less than 30 years. It also believes most of the money could be invested… not donated… in for-profit enterprises. More on this topic in a week or two.

Who Doesn’t Want to Live Longer?

Dear Future Centenarian,

Casual deathists are everywhere. I'm sure you all know someone who responds to the concept of healthy life extension with "I can't see why anyone would want to live past 100." This is what they have been taught throughout their lives, implicit in the way their peers and parents plan, act and talk. Perhaps "learned deathism" is a better term. A longevity revolution is right around the corner, yet we structure our lives in the same way our grandparents did:

There's nothing wrong with choosing not to strive for more healthy life, but I believe it's our responsibility to at least point out the lazy assumptions and false information that forms the basis of most casual deathism. Kevin Perrott, organizer of the Edmonton Aging Symposium, recently did a sterling job of this in a letter to the Globe and Mail, reproduced in this Fight Aging! post:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001332.php

For Reversing Aging, SENS Makes Sense

Dear Future Centenarian,

Where has summer gone? For that matter, where have the past few years gone? Days, weeks, months and years fly by too quickly now. What did you do this past year to help insure your longevity? You most likely belong to the last generation to die “on time”, or you will be part of the first generation to escape death for aging. It’s partly your choice.

A few days ago, I started reading Aubrey de Grey’s new book, Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime. If you want an education on what causes aging damage and how to fix it, I suggest you get a copy. It is fascinating, and it could help you help yourself to extreme life extension.

Go to http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation-Breakthroughs-Lifetime/dp/0312367066.

With Friends Like This…

Dear Future Centenarian,

Admittedly, I’m a wild eyed optimist, especially regarding the prospects of indefinite youthful lifespans for you and me. But since I KNOW I’m an optimist, I try to take special efforts to see and understand pessimists’ points of view. Ten I try to balance the input and come to my own conclusions. In other words, I try to be objective about what our chances really are. I sent you my timeline and budgetary estimates several issues ago and stand by them.

So here’s an opinion from one who may be the most pessimistic of all well known gerontologists, followed by Reason’s commentary:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001354.php

"'We're all going to croak,' says Richard Sprott, the Ellison Medical Foundation's director, who expects that humans may eventually live as much as 30 years longer, but only in the distant future."

Read the full post; I find it incredible that anyone with Sprott's background can stand in the midst of the present outright revolution, of wild, foaming progress in bioscience, and say that things just aren't going to change all that much. It's an outlandish position - and an outlandish position held by someone who directs a fair amount of funding for aging research:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/001331.php

It's a sad state of affairs we're in, wherein so much of the research establishment has declared defeat and stasis before even setting goals for aging science. How is it that we have an establishment community disbursing so much in the way of funds to exactly the people who are not going to make significant progress - those who say that progress is impossible or far distant in advance of any initiative?

The advance of science and technology is change itself, is the growth of opportunity and choice, and is the opening of new doors in the halls of the human condition. The hidebound and defeatist are not really contributing - if you want things done, if you want bold new progress, fund the people willing to set goals and shake trees.


NOTE: Sprott’s stance makes we want to toss my cookies. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. In his case though, I believe it will cost lives. Lots of lives. I say that not only because he may control more of the scarce “life extension” funding than almost all the administrators and researchers in the free market combined… but also because he is influential. With 100,000 people dying every day from aging, the last thing we need is anyone standing in the way of those who refuse to “go silently into the night”.

If someone were drowning and a lifeguard stood in the way of a would-be rescuer, what would you call the lifeguard? Multiply that by millions.