Lifeboat Foundation

There’s good cell death and then there’s the bad kind.

Programmed cell death goes haywire and causes cancer and many inflammation-related diseases, such as arthritis, atherosclerosis, and diabetes.

Last article (3 of 3) in three part stem cell series.

Stem cell decline goes with aging. With the right growth factors, we can awaken our lazy stem cells to repair our aging organs.

Second article (#2 of 3) in three part stem cell series.

Summary: Stem cell decline leads to disease, gradual organ failure, and death. Learn what causes it and how researchers are trying to reverse stem cell decline. Part one of a two-part series.

Are stem cells the fountain of youth?

Continue reading “Can We Reverse Stem Cell Decline and Rejuvenate Our Bodies? (Part 1)” »

First article (#1 of 3) in three part stem cell series.

Summary: A brief tutorial on the science behind stem cell therapy.

Doctors already use stem cells to treat blood diseases, a cell-based therapy that has saved the lives of thousands of children with leukemia. Additionally, physicians used stem cells to successfully treat some types of bone, skin, and eye injuries and diseases. The potential of stem cell therapies is enormous, and some researchers feel that we will be able to regrow organs in the near future.

Continue reading “Stem Cell Primer What You Need to Know” »

Cellular Garb-aging is the build-up of junk inside the cells that naturally occurs during aging. This article says why it happens.

To maintain protein homeostasis, and prevent garb-aging, the cell uses molecular chaperones, which help assemble and disassemble proteins. Chaperonins are a special class of chaperones that provide favorable conditions for the correct folding of other proteins, thus preventing aggregation. Chaperonins prevent the misfolding of proteins, which prevents conditions such as Mad Cow Disease. Sometimes, chaperonin proteins may also tag misfolded proteins to be degraded. When properly tagged, other processes can recognize the damaged or misfolded proteins and ‘take out the trash.’

Think of it as garb-aging removal.

Continue reading “Cellular Garb-aging Causes You To Age (Loss of proteostasis)” »

Researchers have discovered why inflammaging occurs and are working on new treatments. Inflammaging is new medical term for “the chronic inflammation brought on by old age.”

Summary: Inflammaging is a low-grade inflammation brought on by old age. It accelerates the aging process and worsens diseases like cancer and heart disease. Because inflammaging accelerates aging, geroscientists are perfecting a few cures for the condition.

As we age, most of us tend to develop a low-grade chronic inflammation that causes disease and damage throughout the body. Because this low-level inflammation typically accompanies aging, scientists have nicknamed it ‘inflammaging.’ Most geroscientists implicate inflammaging as the cause of many of age-related diseases including diabetes, heart disease, cancer, and dementia. These chronic diseases accelerate aging and shorten our lives.

Continue reading “Why Inflammaging Causes Disease and Premature Aging” »

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” »