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Category: life extension

A new study published in Nature Metabolism finally reveals the answer to how NMN enters the cell in order to become NAD+ and that it does not need to convert into NR to do so.

In the last few years, there has been considerable interest in restoring levels of the nicotinamide adenine dinclueotide (NAD+) coenzyme to combat age-related diseases. Evidence suggests that NAD+ systemically declines with age in a variety of organisms, including rodents and humans, which contributes to the development of many age-related diseases and metabolic conditions.

What is NAD+?

Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) is a coenzyme found in all living cells. It is a dinucleotide, which means that it consists of two nucleotides joined through their phosphate groups. One nucleotide contains an adenine base, and the other contains nicotinamide.

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Is an American syndicated talk show airing daily on television in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, Ireland, Sweden and Finland. It debuted on September 8, 2008. The hour-long daytime program is produced by Phil McGraw and his son Jay McGraw and is distributed domestically and globally by CBS Television Distribution. The series is a spin-off of Dr. Phil and is the first talk show to be a third generation talk show spin-off, as Dr. Phil itself spun off The Oprah Winfrey Show.

Rejuvenation is a medical discipline focused on the practical reversal of the aging process.

Rejuvenation is distinct from life extension. Life extension strategies often study the causes of aging and try to oppose those causes in order to slow aging. Rejuvenation is the reversal of aging and thus requires a different strategy, namely repair of the damage that is associated with aging or replacement of damaged tissue with new tissue. Rejuvenation can be a means of life extension, but most life extension strategies do not involve rejuvenation.

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We take a somewhat humorous look at the messaging and the comfort stories people tell themselves to distract themselves from seeing why age-related diseases and dying from them is a problem that needs solving.

Here’s what might be considered a paradox: right now, the Facebook page of Death Cafe—a place where you go to talk about death—is a rather lively place, whereas pages about life extension are comparatively rather dead places. This screenshot shows the activity of a Death Cafe post:

There is no doubt that the subscribers of the Death Cafe page are quite engaged, but if the average message that the page aims at conveying is the same as in the text snippet above, then there is no paradox at all. The core of that message is “don’t worry, death is nothing to fear” (which, incidentally, implies you don’t have to engage in any extra effort to prevent death), whereas the core message of a life extension page is, “death is a problem, but hey—with some effort, we can beat it. Maybe.” That’s a bit like a kiosk giving candy away for free right next to another kiosk that first serves you overcooked broccoli and then says that you might get a nice present decades from now, assuming that you work hard enough for it—where do you think most people would flock to? Exactly.

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In a small and preliminary clinical trial, Johns Hopkins researchers and their collaborators have shown that an experimental gene therapy that uses viruses to introduce a therapeutic gene into the eye is safe and that it may be effective in preserving the vision of people with wet age-related macular degeneration (AMD). AMD is a leading cause of vision loss in the U.S., affecting an estimated 1.6 million Americans. The disease is marked by growth of abnormal blood vessels that leak fluid into the central portion of the retina called the macula, which we use for reading, driving and recognizing faces.

The study published on May 16 in The Lancet, reports an exciting new approach in which a virus, similar to the common cold, but altered in the lab so that it is unable to cause disease, is used as a carrier for a gene and is injected into the eye. The virus penetrates retinal cells and deposits a gene, which turns the cells into factories for productions of a therapeutic protein, called sFLT01.

The abnormal blood vessels that cause wet AMD grow because patients have increased production of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) in their retinas. Current treatments require injections of proteins directly into the eye that bind and inactivate VEGF, reducing fluid in the macula and improving vision. However, the therapeutic proteins exit the eye over the course of a month, so patients with wet AMD usually need to return to the clinic for more injections every six to eight weeks in order to stave off vision loss. Eye specialists say the burden and discomfort of the regimen is responsible for many patients not getting injections as frequently as they need, causing vision loss.

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The results from a human pilot study that focused on treating idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis with senescent cell-clearing drugs has been published. The drugs target aged and damaged cells, which are thought to be a reason we age and get sick, and remove them from the body.

Senescent cells and aging

As we age, increasing numbers of our cells become dysfunctional, entering into a state known as senescence. Senescent cells no longer divide or support the tissues and organs of which they are part; instead, they secrete a range of harmful inflammatory chemical signals, which are collectively known as the senescence-associated secretory phenotype (SASP).

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Many scientists research the practical and immediate applications of bio molecular technology but it seems most fail to study our most important, and largest organ, our skin.

Who will officially be the first transhuman? Will it be you? Why wait decades? This article explains one approach to speeding up the process and also the challenge involved.

Defining the Object of the Goal:

Although the words ‘cyborg’ and ‘transhuman’ are often used interchangeably, and someone can aspire to be a combination of both, there are fundamental differences between the two — as has been articulated by Dr. Natasha Vita-More: The transhuman will be genetically programmed and otherwise equipped towards indefinite life extension and to attain a great many other physical and mental capabilities and other benefits. The transhuman also maintains specific transhumanist values and may actively foster the far-reaching humane goals of the transhumanist movement, including guaranteed social justice for all and highly-advanced space colonization to foster indefinite life, peace, etc. Whereas, a cyborg may not uphold transhuman values or goals, and may or may not seek to live longer or indefinitely, but will be fitted with a device or devices to acquire one or more enhanced capabilities (such as better vision and/or hearing, faster running ability, etc.).

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At the Fourth Eurosymposium on Healthy Ageing, which was held in Brussels last November, Elena and I met Dr. Kris Verburgh, a medical doctor who is especially interested in biogerontology and the potential of this field of study to turn medicine on its head.

Dr. Verburgh is only about 33 years old and has already written several science books—one of which, written when he was only 16, made him the youngest science author in Europe. Another prominent interest of his is nutrition, which he believes is one of the best, if not the best, ways we currently have to slow down the march of aging and buy ourselves more time to live until the rejuvenation age; his latest book, The Longevity Code, is centered around this topic.

Dr. Verburgh is also a strong supporter of the idea that AI will play a more and more important role in research, leading the way to a not-too-far age of personalized medicine—this was one of the theses he touched upon during the panel in which he participated at EHA.

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In this interview, Dr. Leonid Peshkin offers insights on aging, the pitfalls of excessive optimism, and the role of machine learning in studying age-related disease.

Determined but not complacent, grounded but hopeful, Dr. Leonid Peshkin is one of the scientists working on understanding aging so that it may one day be treated like we treat any other ailment.

As he revealed in an interview with the Boston Globe in mid-2018, the idea of having to lose oneself and one’s loved ones to aging never made any sense to him, and ever since he was a child, he has been preoccupied with aging and the fear that it might take away his father, who was almost 60 when Leon was 10 and, sadly, passed away in July 2018 at the age of 96.

Dr. Peshkin, a 48-year-old from Moscow, Russia, possesses a master’s degree in applied mathematics and a Ph.D. in machine learning. He currently works at the Systems Biology Department at Harvard Medical School; his primary interests are embryology, evolution, and aging, which he has studied for over a decade.

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