Category: life extension – Page 488
ANNOUNCING THE LONGEVITY FILM COMPETITION
Please join in the crusade of eliminating age-related disease by making a video, and not only potentially help save lots of lives, but also win the first prize of $10,000! Second prize is a trip to meet Dr. Aubrey de Grey! This international (short) film competition is presented by the SENS Research Foundation, the International Longevity Alliance and Heales. The winning film will be chosen by our remarkable jury. For more information on how to compete and to sign up please visit www.longevityfilmcompetition.com
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You’re probably familiar with the feeling of slight disappointment that you may have when a good thing—say, a nice trip—is over. Just as you say that it’s too bad that the experience is already finished, someone will probably say that you had a good time nonetheless; an innocent, fitting expression to cheer you up a little bit. This phrase can be harmlessly used in a variety of circumstances, but there’s one in which it really doesn’t fit at all, yet people keep using it: when somebody dies of aging.
Not quite the same thing
In the summer of 2011, my 99-year-old grandmother was dying. She was relatively fine one day, and then on the next day, for no apparent reason, she was in bed, barely conscious. Throughout the subsequent month, she never got out of bed; all her physical necessities were being taken care of by my aunt, who was assisting her day and night. She was drip-fed for the entire month until her death. The doctors couldn’t really do anything for her, and my aunt, stressed to her limit, was torn between the sight of the non-life her mother was going through and the thought that suspending the drip feed would possibly have been the more humane choice. The drip was never suspended, and eventually, my grandmother died.
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Researchers have manipulated the immune system to respond more aggressively to cancer according to a new study [1].
Manipulating macrophages
We have discussed modulating the immune system multiple times recently, especially in regards to macrophages and manipulating their behavior. Macrophages are part of the innate immune system and carry out a wide variety of tasks, such as clearing away cell debris, engulfing pathogens, facilitating tissue growth, and disposing of senescent cells once other immune cells have destroyed them.
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Life extension genetics.
Many factors contribute to exceptional longevity, with genetics playing a significant role. However, to date, genetic studies examining exceptional longevity have been inconclusive. This comprehensive review seeks to determine the genetic variants associated with exceptional longevity by undertaking meta-analyses.
Meta-analyses of genetic polymorphisms previously associated with exceptional longevity (85+) were undertaken. For each variant, meta-analyses were performed if there were data from at least three independent studies available, including two unpublished additional cohorts.
Five polymorphisms, ACE rs4340, APOE ε2/3/4, FOXO3A rs2802292, KLOTHO KL-VS and IL6 rs1800795 were significantly associated with exceptional longevity, with the pooled effect sizes (odds ratios) ranging from 0.42 (APOE ε4) to 1.45 (FOXO3A males).
Following heart attacks, a handful of monkeys regained some of the pumping ability their hearts had lost after being given human embryonic stem cells, according to a study published Monday in Nature Biotechnology.
Scientists have tried for years to develop a stem cell treatment for heart disease caused by lack of blood flow, which contributed to more than 9.4 million deaths worldwide in 2016, according to the World Health Organization.
“We’re talking about the number one cause of death in the world [for humans],” said study author Dr. Charles Murry, director of the Institute for Stem Cell and Regenerative Medicine at the University of Washington. “And at the moment all of our treatments are … dancing around the root problem, which is that you don’t have enough muscle cells.”
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Too healthy for your own good?
Posted in business, life extension
Why on Earth would you ever want to be less than completely healthy?
Recently, Reason of Fight Aging! pointed out psychological research revealing a certain conservatism in terms of what people consider to be the “ideal” levels of happiness, intelligence, longevity, and even health.
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that significant numbers of people in the studies weren’t too keen on the idea of living much longer than the average (around 90 years), and even under the assumption of eternal youth, their preference didn’t go past 120 on average; after all, LEAF wouldn’t be in business if the idea of healthy life extension wasn’t so inexplicably frowned upon. What’s really flabbergasting, though, is that even health—health!—is apparently something you can have too much of; on a scale from 0 (“completely unhealthy”) to 100 (“completely healthy”), the average preference gravitated somewhere between 80 and 90. These results provide us with an occasion for reflection.
(Il)logical conclusions
Senolytics have been in the news a great deal ever since van Deursen and his team conducted a landmark 2011 study showing that removing senescent cells could delay age-related ill health in mice [1]. Since then, interest in what was once a niche topic has continued to grow at an ever-increasing pace. Now, there are many researchers engaged in exploring senescent cells and their role in aging and disease.
Lately, there has been enthusiastic interest in developing therapies to remove these problematic senescent cells, but are there potentially better ways to deal with senescent cells beyond periodically purging them with senolytic drugs and therapies?
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LEAF’s monthly rejuvenation roundup is out!
July is here, and our upcoming conference in New York City is only a handful of days away! If you haven’t done so already, go and get your ticket now so that you can enjoy the June roundup fully relaxed, knowing that your seat is secured.
About our NYC conference
On the off chance you’ve missed the news about it, Ending Age-Related Diseases: Investment Prospects & Advances in Research is our first conference to be held in New York City. It will take place on July 12th at Cooper Union, and it will feature talks and panels with several great speakers, such as Dr. Vera Gorbunova from Rochester University, Dr. Vadim Gladyshev from Harvard Medical School, Dr. Aubrey de Grey from SENS Research Foundation, Dr. Kelsey Moody from Ichor Therapeutics, and many more. You can get your ticket here, and remember that Lifespan Heroes get 75% off the ticket price!