Lifeboat Foundation

Does an out of whack microbiome cause inflammaging?

Does our microbiome cause inflammaging, the low-level chronic inflammation that plagues our bodies as we get older? A new research paper examines the question, and their findings just might surprise you.

Many people still regard bacteria and other microorganisms as mere disease-causing germs. However, it’s a lot more complicated than that. In fact, it has become increasingly clear that a healthy human body is teeming with microbes, which play a role in our immune system. We are not just an organism; we are a super-organism and the millions of microbes both within and without our bodies.

Continue reading “Does Our Microbiome Cause Inflammaging? Can We Trust Our Gut?” »

ellagic acid, lignans, flavonoids, glucosinolates, curcumin, resveratrol and other bioactive compounds – are natural substances found in plants. Research has shown that these natural compounds help to prevent stroke, cancer, type 2 diabetes, heart disease, and premature death.

What Are Phytonutrients?

Whole plants contain thousands of natural compounds, called phytonutrients and phytochemicals. Deriving their name from phyto, the Greek word for plant, the terms are used interchangeably used to describe the health-promoting compounds found in all whole plants. While plants produce these chemicals to protect themselves from insects, germs, and fungi. Along with fiber, phytonutrients in our diet are the reason that fruits and vegetables help to prevent chronic diseases like cancer, stroke, heart disease, and premature death.

(Medical Xpress)—A team of researchers with Kyoto University and Kagawa University, both in Japan, has cured renal anemia in mice by injecting them with treated human stem cells. In their paper published in Science Translational Medicine, the group describes their approach and how well it worked.

Chronic kidney disease is a serious ailment resulting in a host of symptoms due to the body’s reduced ability to process waste and fluids—many patients eventually experience renal failure, which requires them to undergo routine dialysis or a kidney transplant. Less well known is that people with chronic kidney disease also suffer from renal anemia because the kidneys manufacture the hormone erythropoietin (EPO), which causes the body to produce red blood cells without which the blood cannot carry enough oxygen to the brain and other body parts. The current treatment for renal anemia is injections of EPO every few days, which, for many people, is impractical because of the cost and side effects. In this new effort, the researchers have found a possible new treatment—injecting treated stem cells directly into the kidneys.

In their experiments, the researchers collected stem cells from human cord blood (from the umbilical cord) and then treated them with growth factors that changed them to pluripotent stem cells that grew into mature cells capable of producing EPO. The team then injected the treated cells into the kidneys of mice suffering from renal anemia and monitored them for the rest of their lives.

Continue reading “Human stem cells used to cure renal anemia in mice” »

Your mindset matters — now more than ever.

We are in the midst of a drug epidemic.

The drug? Negative news. The drug pushers? The media.

Continue reading “Why the World Is (Still) Better Than You Think—New Evidence For Abundance” »

Recorded Oct 4th, 2017

Link to the interview, goo.gl/8rQ6YS

Continue reading “Aubrey de Grey — Our Moral Obligation to Cure Aging” »

I join this 30 min panel with scientists and a mother with a down syndrome child on Turkish national television to debate genetic editing. I adovcate for allowing genetic editing to improve the human race, despite fears:

Better, stronger, disease-free humans. Editing human DNA could save lives and enhance them. But should we be playing god?
Genes determine our health, looks, the way we function. They’re the ingredients for life. The idea that we could one day change them is an exciting prospect, but also an ethical minefield. As science moves closer towards gene editing, the concern is that it could go too far and even create a new elite group of enhanced humans.

Continue reading “Roundtable: Is human gene editing ethical?” »

A treatment that can stop patients from going blind is poised to be the first gene therapy for an inherited condition approved in the U.S., in what would be a major scientific milestone — and also open the door for record-breaking drug prices and novel ways to pay for them.

Spark Therapeutics Inc.’s Luxturna therapy crossed a key hurdle Thursday when it won backing from a group of advisers to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. After discussing the trial design, treatment procedure and safety profile, the panel of 16 experts voted unanimously that the drug’s benefits outweighed its risks.

We are doing a series of articles that discuss the Hallmarks of Aging. Published in 2013, this paper is highly regarded in academia and is one of the most cited papers in biology, with an average of being cited once every two days. The paper divides aging into distinct categories (“hallmarks”) of damage to explain how the aging process works and how it causes age-related diseases[1].

Today, we will be looking at one of the primary hallmarks, genomic instability.

Biohacker Josiah Zayner wants to create a world where anyone is free and able to experiment on their own DNA.