Lifeboat Foundation

Autophagy is often likened to the trash management system of the cell. And just as municipal waste services involve collection, transportation and ultimately disposal, so too must the cell’s autophagy system follow a coordinated, multistep process. It first requires cellular refuse to be bagged up inside sack-like structures known as phagophores. These then mature into cargo containers called autophagosomes, which fuse with degradation hubs called lysosomes. Only then do waste products get broken down.

Any part of that cell-cleaning process could go wrong, and they often do as cells age. But if researchers do not fully understand what aspects of autophagy are defective in any particular disease, drugs that modulate the wrong parts of the pathway could do more harm than good. A therapy could, for instance, help the cell to package more trash. “But if your trash compactor isn’t working properly, you’re just going to end up with a room full of trash bags,” says Tim Sargeant, who studies autophagy at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute in Adelaide. “That’s one of the dangers here.”

As a result, although some anti-ageing researchers and companies have gone all-in on targeting autophagy, others are more circumspect — especially given the lack of solid evidence in people or even mouse models for many of the proposed interventions.

Frogs briefly treated with a five-drug cocktail administered by a wearable bioreactor on the stump were able to regrow a functional, nearly complete limb.

For millions of patients who have lost limbs for reasons ranging from diabetes to trauma, the possibility of regaining function through natural regeneration remains out of reach. Regrowth of legs and arms remains the province of salamanders and superheroes.

But in a study published in the journal Science Advances, scientists at Tufts University and Harvard University’s Wyss Institute have brought us a step closer to the goal of regenerative medicine.

Many of the all-too-familiar symptoms of aging can be attributed to a build-up of senescent cells, those which have stopped dividing. In a new study, researchers in Japan have identified a protein specific to these cells and developed a vaccine that can clear them away, with tests on mice reducing the effects of aging.

Cells cannot keep dividing forever – eventually they accumulate too much DNA damage through environmental stress, so the body shuts them down and flags them to be cleared out by the immune system. This seems to be an evolutionary defense mechanism against cells turning cancerous.

However, even immune cells aren’t immune from this process, and as they become senescent themselves the immune system gradually loses the ability to clear out senescent cells. As these inactive cells accumulate in the body, they contribute to symptoms of aging and the diseases that come with it.

First known for their link with longevity, sirtuins play a key role in maintaining a cell’s integrity in light of metabolic and environmental damage.

“The change in life expectancy is significant, when you consider that an equivalent jump in human life expectancy would have us living on average until almost 120,” lead researcher Haim Cohen of Bar-Ilan University told the Times of Israel.

A longer life: The average human life expectancy has doubled in just the past 200 years, thanks in no small part to scientific breakthroughs in medicine, nutrition, and disease.

A study explores how supplementing with a compound produced by gut bacteria when digesting foods such as pomegranates could help reverse muscle aging.

Building resilience for healthy aging — dr. charlotte yeh, MD, chief medical officer, AARP services.

Dr Charlotte Yeh, MD Chief Medical Officer, AARP Services, Inc. (https://www.aarp.org/about-aarp/aarp-services/), where she works with the independent carriers that make health-related products and services available to AARP members, to identify programs and initiatives that will lead to enhanced care for older adults.

Continue reading “Dr Charlotte Yeh, MD — Chief Medical Officer, AARP Services — Building Resilience For Healthy Aging” »

Join us on Patreon!
https://www.patreon.com/MichaelLustgartenPhD

Papers referenced in the video:
Main study:
Clinical course of the longest-lived man in the world: A case report.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34973348/

Continue reading “Supercentenarian (112 — 116y) Blood Test Analysis” »

A study cohort that received an oral supplement of a gut-produced compound had better endurance in two small exercises.

An oral supplement intended to stimulate a natural body process appears to promote muscle endurance and mitochondrial health in humans. New research suggests that the supplement, urolithin A, may help improve or prolong muscle activity in people who are aging or who have diseases that make exercise difficult.

The paper was published in JAMA Network Open.