Lifeboat Foundation

“People on metformin have 30% lower rates of almost every kind of cancer. It delays cognitive decline. Even people with diabetes who are obese and have more disease to start with but are on metformin have lower mortality rates than people without diabetes who aren’t on the drug.”

What he says is born out in numerous studies. Overall, this safe, super-cheap, decades-old drug not only treats diabetes, but it also seems to delay and compress the years of chronic illness associated with the final stage of life and extend what geroscientists call the “healthspan.”

Metformin is just one of many medications, including other old ones and some brand new inventions, that academic researchers and biotech startups are exploring to slow, stop, or perhaps even reverse aging.

For the first time, a researcher at the University of Delaware College of Health Sciences in collaboration with a team at the National Institute on Aging, a division of the National Institutes of Health, has determined that the naturally occurring dietary supplement known as nicotinamide riboside (NR) can enter the brain.

The discovery was made by Christopher Martens, assistant professor of kinesiology and applied physiology and director of the Delaware Center for Cognitive Aging Research, and Dr. Dimitrios Kapogiannis, a senior investigator at the National Institute on Aging. The finding is significant because it supports the idea that NR, upon reaching the brain, can alter the metabolism of relevant biological pathways involved in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer’s. Their work was recently published in the journal Aging Cell.

Upon consumption, NR is readily converted into nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD+), which is critical to cellular repair and the repair of damaged DNA.

In this video we run through a recent study which analyzed data in the UK Biobank to see if patients taking lithium as an anti-psychotic saw extended lifespan of those using a different type of medication and they found that they did.

📃Papers in this video.
Lithium treatment extends human lifespan: findings from the UK Biobank.
_https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9925675/_
Low-dose lithium uptake promotes longevity in humans and metazoans.
_https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/21301855/_

Continue reading “Lithium Extends Human Lifespan In Two Studies” »

José Cordeiro is convinced that victory over death is only a matter of time. He believes people will soon be able to choose the age at which they want to live.

José Cordeiro, living forever has been a dream of human beings since their beginning. Currently, we live for around 100 years, whales and turtles live even longer. Is that fair?

Two U.S. congressmen have announced the formation of a bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Longevity Science.

Jeanne Calment is the world’s oldest person on record, and she lived to age 122. Here’s what a longevity expert says about why she was able to live so long.

19 minutes in, “At this point I think things are going pretty damned well,” when talking about if the middle-aged will benefit.

Life-Extension pioneer Dr. Aubrey De Grey discusses the LEV & SENS foundations, the latest trends in anti-aging research, new animal trials anticipated to double or triple life expectancy, and increased social acceptance for the disease model of aging.

Continue reading “Aubrey de Grey — Longevity & Life-Extension” »

Glioblastomas are the most common malignant tumors of the adult brain. They resist conventional treatment, including surgery, followed by radiation therapy and chemotherapy. Despite this armamentarium, glioblastomas inexorably recur.

In a new study published in Nature Communications, Isabelle Le Roux (CNRS) and her colleagues from the “Genetics and development of brain tumors” team at Paris Brain Institute have shown that the elimination of senescent cells, i.e., cells that have stopped dividing, can modify the tumor ecosystem and slow its progression. These results open up new avenues for treatment.

Glioblastoma, the most common adult brain cancer, affects 2 to 5 in 100,000 individuals. While the incidence of the disease is highest in those between 55 and 85 years old, it is increasing in all age groups. This effect can’t be attributed to improved diagnostic techniques alone, suggesting the influence of environmental factors hitherto unidentified.

Can we objectively tell how fast we are aging? With a good measure, scientists might be able to change our rate of aging to live longer and healthier lives. Researchers know that some people age faster than others and have been trying to concisely measure the internal physiological changes that lead to deteriorating health with age.

For years, researchers have been using clinical factors normally collected at physicals, like hypertension, cholesterol and weight, as indicators to predict aging. The idea was that these measures could determine whether someone is a fast or slow ager at any point in their life cycle. But more recently, researchers have theorized that there are other biological markers that reflect aging at the molecular and cellular level. This includes modifications to a person’s genetic material itself, or epigenetics.

Continue reading “Epigenetic and social factors both predict aging and health, but new research suggests one might be stronger” »