Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: life extension – Page 613

Rapamycin: An impressive geroprotector with a few fatal flaws

A look at Rapamycin the life extending drug with some serious drawbacks.

If any drug has performed consistently and unequivocally well in anti-aging trials, it’s rapamycin. Dr. Matt Kaeberlein’s Dog Aging Project is among the most recent trials investigating its longevity-promoting potential in mammals, but it’s also been the subject of numerous trials in mice, worms, flies and yeast. And although it acts through a mechanism which has been most closely associated cancer prevention, this drug appears to stave off all maladies related to aging.

Even more encouraging are the indications that it could be beneficial well into old age. Trials done in the National Aging Institute’s ITP, a testing protocol that collects its data from three independent labs, found that when mice started rapamycin treatment at 600 days old (roughly 60 in human years), they lived an average of 11% longer than control counterparts. Longevity interventions that hold up well even in late-life are few and far between, and even the traditionally successful method of caloric restriction has limited utility when begun late.

Coincidentally, some think that caloric restriction works via the same pathway as rapamycin: by inhibiting the enzyme mTOR. Among its numerous functions, mTOR helps to drive cell growth and proliferation. Halting out of control cell division is key to cancer prevention, and so it’s not too surprising that rapamycin treatment counters development of certain types of tumors by inhibiting mTOR. It can have detrimental effects on nutrient sensing, the factor behind metabolic diseases like diabetes, by promoting activation of insulin receptors. And since mTOR is responsible for increasing energy consumption and cellular metabolism, it can also produce oxidative stress by way of the free radicals created by overactive mitochondria.

Senolytics against Aging: Snapshot of a Fast-Moving Field

A review of senescent cell removal therapies.

Aging at the cellular level is called “cell senescence”, and it contributes profoundly to whole-body aging. The most promising near-term prospects for a leap in human life expectancy come from drugs that eliminate senescent cells. Programs in universities and pharmaceutical labs around the world are racing to develop “senolytic” drugs, defined as agents that can kill senescent cells with minimal harm to normal cells.

Apoptosis is cell suicide, and (from the perspective of the full organism) it’s the best thing that can happen to senescent cells. The authors of this newest Dutch study ask how it is that senescent cells escape apoptosis.

FOXO is a protein that controls gene expression, a master transcription factor associated with aging and development. (It is the homolog in mammals of the pivotal life extension protein first identified in worms as DAF16 in the 1990s.) FOXO4 activiation in a cell can block apoptosis. P53 is the most common trigger of apoptosis, the first protein biochemists usually think of in connection with apoptosis. P53 has multiple functions in the cell nucleus, but as a trigger for apoptosis, it works through the mitochondria. FOXO4 binds to p53 and blocks its induction of apoptosis.

Not all discriminations are born equal

Some fear that expensive rejuvenation treatments would give rise to discrimination, but what about the discrimination against old people resulting from not developing rejuvenation?

It’s been quite a while since I posted anything new. I’ve been quite busy lately with a lot of things, including rebooting looking4troubles, my other blog. As a result, my topic list for Rejuvenaction has been growing dangerously long, so I decided it’s about time I tackled some of the lengthiest items on my list.

People like talking about justice, equality, and discrimination a lot. I mean a lot. In my experience, though, most tend to focus mainly or entirely on the type(s) of discrimination they’re more interested in for whatever reason, sometimes minimising others or not even noticing they exist in the first place. Some other times, they even end up endorsing one type of discrimination for the sake of warding off another.

As if poor people cared

Take the good ol’ ‘only the rich ‘ objection against rejuvenation. Its essence is that, to forestall the possibility of rejuvenation being available only to a few wealthy ones, rejuvenation should not be created at all—if not everyone can have it, then no one should have it.

Immortal Stem Cells Let Scientists Create an Unlimited Supply of Artificial Blood

Researchers have developed a line immortal stem cells that allow them to generate an unlimited supply of artificial red blood cells on demand.

If these artificial blood cells pass clinical trials, they’ll be far more efficient for medical use than current red blood cell products, which have to be generated from donor blood — and would be a huge deal for patients with rare blood types, who often struggle to find matching blood donors.

The idea isn’t for these immortal stem cells to replace blood donation altogether — when it comes to regular blood transfusions, donated blood still does the trick.

An Amazing Therapy That Might Cure Age Related Blindness

An exclusive interview with Ichor, the biotech company pioneering a SENS based repair therapy that could help cure age related blindness.

Check out our exclusive interview with Ichor the company taking the first SENS based therapy to the clinic. Should clinical trials be a success this will mark the arrival of a technology that addresses one of the aging processes.

Rejuvenation would cause cultural stagnation

Is the risk of cultural stagnation a valid objection to rejuvenation therapies? You guessed it—nope.

This objection can be discussed from both a moral and a practical point of view. This article discusses the matter from a moral standpoint, and concludes it is a morally unacceptable objection. (Bummer, now I’ve spoiled it all for you.)

However, even if the objection can be dismissed on moral grounds, one may still argue that, hey, it may be immoral to let old people die to avoid cultural and social stagnation, but it’s still necessary.

One could argue that. But one would be wrong.

Silicon Valley’s Quest to Live Forever

Newyorker article about aging research. At least they gave both the conservative and more progressive camps a mention though it appears the author sides with the healthspan crowd.

A large article in the newyorker about longevity research. The conservative and the more radical approaches are discussed including SENS.

Amusing to note that the mainstream are portrayed as healthspanners and dont think its possible to comprehensively fix aging. Looks like we have much work to do to change that view.