The researchers of a new publication take a look at the effects of obesity on aging and consider its impact in the context of the Hallmarks of Aging, a popular theory that breaks down aging into nine distinct processes.
The case for obesity accelerating aging
Being overweight and carrying excessive amounts of visceral fat, a type of body fat that is stored in the abdominal cavity and surrounds a number of important internal organs, such as the liver, pancreas, and intestines, is known to increase the risk of age-related diseases.
We are pleased to announce the launch of the Longevity Book Club hosted by LEAF Director Javier Noris, where you can join other longevity enthusiasts in reading the most interesting works that relate to our mission of ending age-related diseases.
You will also get the opportunity to listen to discussion panels and take part in Q&A sessions that are focused on books that touch on these important scientific, philosophical, moral and futuristic longevity topics. This is the ideal place to meet like-minded longevity enthusiasts who are working on building their knowledge on longevity and all of the implications that come with ending age-related diseases.
Biologist, Tyrone Hayes is a soft-spoken professor at the University of California with a big message. One of the most commonly used pesticides in agriculture, atrazine, is responsible for feminizing amphibians, according to his research. More importantly, the chemical is effectively eliminating male chromosomes at an alarming rate, at levels which are three times lower than what are currently appearing in our drinking water. It isn’t just lead and fluoride we need to be concerned about, but a known endocrine disruptor, created by Syngenta, that is utterly changing our gene pool.
Hayes has been fighting Syngenta, to report the harmful effects of Atrazine for decades now. His scientific papers describe how Atrazine demasculinizes male gonads producing testicular lesions associated with reduced germ cell numbers in teleost fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals, and induces partial and/or complete feminization in fish, amphibians, and reptiles. These effects are strong (statistically significant), consistent across vertebrate classes, and specific. Reductions in androgen levels and the induction of estrogen synthesis — demonstrated in fish, amphibians, reptiles, and mammals — represent plausible and coherent mechanisms that explain these effects.
Ira Pastor, ideaXme longevity and aging Ambassador and Founder of Bioquark interviews Camillo Ricordi, Director Diabetes Research Institute University of Miami and Editor in Chief CellR4. They talk of the science behind the claim “We will cure diabetes!”.
Note: A decision was made to publish this interview despite the quality of the audio as it is still possible to understand the content. For links to research papers contact [email protected].
In the “Automate the Freight” series, I’ve concentrated on stories that reflect my premise that the killer app for self-driving vehicles will not be private passenger cars, but will more likely be the mundane but necessary task of toting things from place to place. The economics of replacing thousands of salary-drawing and benefit-requiring humans in the logistics chain are greatly favored compared to the profits to be made by providing a convenient and safe commuting experience to individuals. Advances made in automating deliveries will eventually trickle down to the consumer market, but it’ll be the freight carriers that drive innovation.
While I’ve concentrated on self-driving freight vehicles, there are other aspects to automating the supply chain that I’ve touched on in this series, from UAV-delivered blood and medical supplies to the potential for automating the last hundred feet of home delivery with curb-to-door robots. But automation of the other end of the supply chain holds a lot of promise too, both for advancing technology and disrupting the entire logistics field. This time around: automated packaging lines, or how the stuff you buy online gets picked and wrapped for shipping without ever being touched by human hands.
Imagine a simple and effective treatment for restoring the sense of smell in people who have lost it or never had it in the first place – that could one day be possible as a result of early stage research on mice, in which olfactory nerves were replenished using stem cells.
Using droplets of globose basal cells – the same cells that naturally replace damaged and ageing neurons related to smell – scientists were able to get them to develop into full nerve cells, stretching right into the brain.
Ultimately a few squirts of stem cells were able to reconnect the axons leading to the olfactory signalling in the brains of the mice. Scientists are still a long way from repeating the trick with human beings, but it’s a very promising start.
The sense of smell has been restored to mice suffering olfactory problems with the aid of stem cell therapies. The findings provide the basis for transitional research to see whether intranasal stem cell treatments can be beneficial for those who have lost their sense of smell.
Damage of healthy intestinal cells is the main disadvantage of radiotherapy leading to the discontinuation and failure of an efficient cancer treatment, potentially causing a quick tumour recurrence. Now, a discovery published in Science by scientists from the Growth Factors, Nutrients and Cancer Group at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO) might be useful to protect healthy intestinal cells from radiation damage. The consequences of their findings in mice might radically change the way humans manage exposure to high levels of radiation; both for cancer research and treatment as well as for other areas like space explorations, nuclear warfare or nuclear accidents.
The Group’s work focuses on URI, a protein whose functions remain not yet fully understood. However, previous studies from the Group have found that abnormal levels of expression of this protein in certain organs can cause cancer. The study now published in Science shows that high levels of URI protein protect mice from radiation-induced intestinal damage, whereas low or no detectable levels of the protein can lead to gastrointestinal syndrome and death.
“The precise functions of URI have not been identified yet,” says Nabil Djouder, Head of the Growth Factors, Nutrients and Cancer Group at CNIO and leader of the study. “Just like pH or temperature, which the organism needs to maintain within a certain range, URI levels must also be kept within a very narrow window to regulate the proper functioning of other proteins. When URI levels are higher or lower than optimal, they may promote or protect against tumour development as well as other diseases, depending on the context.”
Am J Med Sci. 2014 Mar;347:178–82. doi: 10.1097/MAJ.0b013e318287c79c.
BACKGROUND: To investigate the efficacy and indications of zolpidem, a nonbenzodiazepine hypnotic, inducing arousal in vegetative state patients after brain injury.
METHODS: One hundred sixty-five patients were divided into 4 groups, according to area of brain damage and injury mechanism. All patients’ brains were imaged by Tc-ECD single-photon emission computerized tomography (SPECT), before and 1 hour after treatment with 10 mg of zolpidem. Simultaneously, 3 quantitative indicators of brain function and damage were obtained using cerebral state monitor. Thirty-eight patients withdrew from the study after the first zolpidem dose. The remaining 127 patients received a daily dose of 10 mg of zolpidem for 1 week and were monitored again at the end of this week.
