Lifeboat Foundation

We are all aware of the health benefits of regular exercise, but what if we could reap the rewards of a good workout without any of the effort? Michigan Medicine researchers have found that a conserved class of proteins known as Sestrins can mimic many of the beneficial effects of exercise on metabolism in flies and mice, and boost their physical endurance. The findings could eventually help scientists to devise strategies that combat muscle wasting due to aging or disease. “These results indicate that Sestrin is a key integrating factor that drives the benefits of chronic exercise to metabolism and physical endurance … Sestrin may serve as a promising therapeutic molecule for obtaining exercise-like benefits such as improving mobility and metabolism,” commented the researchers, headed by Myungjin Kim, PhD, a research assistant professor in the department of molecular & integrative physiology, and first author of the team’s published paper in Nature Communications, which is titled, “Sestrins are evolutionarily conserved mediators of exercise benefits.”

As the percentage of older members in the population continues to increase, so do concerns about keeping an aging population healthy and mobile. In fact, elderly people put mobility as their biggest age-related concern, the authors stated. “Mobility is important both for direct health reasons (e.g., preventing falls, retaining access to relatives and health care providers) and for psychological reasons, as it is highly correlated with retained morale personal satisfaction and morale.”

One promising therapeutic intervention that can help to hold back age-related functional decline is endurance exercise, they noted. But endurance exercise isn’t suitable for everyone. While evidence in humans and other animals suggests that endurance exercise has substantially protective effects on measures of healthspan, not everyone can train to the level needed to achieve the resulting health benefits, perhaps due to age, injury, or illness. “Therefore, generation of therapeutic mimetics to induce the benefits of exercise could provide broad ranging benefits to the medical community,” the researchers suggested.

Underdog Pharma is developing disease-modifying treatments for atherosclerosis and other age-related diseases.

They want to prevent or reverse atherosclerosis by removing a harmful lipid known as 7-ketocholesterol (7KC) from the arterial walls.

Continue reading “Underdog Pharma Could Reverse Cardiovascular Disease Which is the Leading Medical Problem” »

Tooth loss is a concern that most people will face at some point in their life. According to studies, by the age of 74, 26 percent of adults will have lost all of their permanent teeth. Dentures are sufficient, but they’re uncomfortable and dental implants can fail and have no ability to “remodel” as the surrounding jaw bone changes with age.

All of these are reasons why some people have placed their hope in stem cell research. While there are controversy surrounds the new medical method such as the use and destruction of human embryos, not all research involves human tissue and has the potential to change a lot of lives.

A new technique being tested in the Tissue Engineering and Regenerative Medicine Laboratory of Dr. Jeremy Mao, Edward V. Zegarelli prof of odontology, and a professor of biomedical engineering at Columbia University, could make “tooth loss” a thing of the past. The cluster believes they need to find some ways to own the body’s stem cells, migrate it to a three-dimensional scaffold manufactured from natural material and insert it to a patient’s mouth.

Episode 16 (full episode)
OLD AGE: the biggest threat facing humanity
with Dr. Aubrey de Grey

Show notes and resources: (to be released on 13 Jan 20)

Continue reading “OLD AGE with Dr. Aubrey de Grey #16 (full episode)” »

Billions of dollars are being invested into research on aging, with promising early results. What if immortality were possible?

Robin looks like an ordinary twelve year old girl. She is about to run a mile for gym class and expects to do well. She comes in dead last, gasping for air by the end. Fast forward one year: her hair is graying, her skin bruises easily, and she suffers from chronic fatigue. Robin, now in her thirties, is completely gray.

Robin has a rare condition that prematurely shortens telomeres. Her father had the same condition. Before passing away at forty three, both of his hips had been replaced due to bone and muscle loss. What’s happening to Robin is happening to all of us, just at a slower pace.

In 1961 Leonard Hayflick found fetal cells would divide a finite number of times. This overturned the long-held (and now ridiculous sounding) belief that all cells are immortal. The maximum number of divisions allotted to them could not be altered by his best efforts.

There are lots of exciting companies working in the aging field, and it’s a great time to tell you about some of the more interesting ones. Most of these companies are a while away from human trials yet, but their innovations could possibly be truly game changing.

Underdog Pharmaceuticals is a spin-off company of SENS Research Foundation and is developing a novel approach to treating atherosclerosis.

Atherosclerosis is the number one killer worldwide, and it currently has no totally effective solution. There are three ways in which current medicine tries to address it: Lifestyle changes, including diet and exercise; drugs that slow down the rate of cholesterol accumulation; and interventions such as stents and bypass surgery.

Chip Walter’s new book is titled “Immortality Inc.: Renegade Science, Silicon Valley Billions and the Quest to Live Forever.” It’s about the money, and the research, that’s seeking a way to extend human life indefinitely.

Chip Walter discusses “Immortality, Inc.” at Pittsburgh Arts & Lectures: 6 p.m. Thu., Jan. 16. Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh Main Branch, 4400 Forbes Ave., Oakland.

Sounds like science fiction, but Walter thinks breakthroughs are just around the corner.

What the reasons underlying these impairments are is yet unclear but scientists at the Center for Regenerative Therapies of TU Dresden (CRTD) wanted to investigate if increasing the number of stem cells in the brain would help in recovering cognitive functions, such as learning and memory, that are lost during ageing.”

https://tu-dresden.de/tu-dresden/newsportal/news/verjuengung…en-maeusen

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Continue reading “We all will experience it at some point, unfortunately: The older we get the more our brains will find it difficult to learn and remember new things” »