Re: Stop, rewind: the scientists slowing the ageing process

[Guest guest]

Wonderful article! As a person who has always been concerned with overpopulation, I was pleased to see it mentioned. Overpopulation already impacts the quality of life on our planet in innumerable ways and if the population just continues to geometrically increase.....well, I don’t even know if I’ll want to be around...........

On 1/26/11 1:16 PM, " Diane W " <dianepwalter@...> wrote:

Sounds like calorie restriction isn't the only path to longevity.

-Diane

By Neil Bowdler Science reporter, BBC News

Scientists are slowly unlocking the secrets of ageing, and some suggest treatments may soon be at hand to slow or even reverse the ageing process.

But what can science really achieve, and what are the dangers of meddling with our biological clocks?

Could such treatments induce cancers in humans, for example, and what about the world's burgeoning population and the West's " pension time bomb " ?

The ageing process is a complex one, and for long remained an impenetrable mystery, but progress is now being made.

Late last year, a team at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute published a Nature paper in which they detailed the reversing of the ageing process in mice.

They targeted the chromosomes that reside within the nuclei of all our cells, and specifically telomeres, caps at the tips of chromosomes. The telomeres protect the chromosomes from damage, but also shorten with age, until the cells are no longer able to replicate. " By understanding the ageing process, we can help combat arthritis, diabetes and heart disease "

Professor DePinho and colleagues manipulated the the enzyme that regulates these tips - known as telomerase - on and off, and witnessed dramatic results. Boost the enzyme, and the mice appeared to rewind the clock.

" What we were expecting was a slowing or stabilisation of the ageing process, " he told the BBC. " Instead we witnessed a dramatic reversal in the signs and symptoms of ageing. "

" These animals had their brains increase in size, they improved their cognition, their coat-hair was restored to a healthy sheen and their fertility was also restored. "

Of course, this was a story of mice, not men, and applying such principles to humans could be an altogether bigger challenge. Telomerase has been linked with cancer, and there are likely to be many other mechanisms involved in ageing.

Many believe mitochondria may play a bigger role - genetic material contained within the cell but outside the nucleus. Mitochondria are the " power houses " of cells, but have also been seen to generate harmful chemicals linked with aging.

Then there is the role played by free radicals, highly reactive atoms or molecules that attack our bodies. Stem cells, primitive cells which play a key role in renewing the human body, are also likely to be involved.

But even though a comprehensive picture of how we age is still to be constructed, there are scientists who are already testing anti-ageing treatments on humans.

Professor Sinclair is based at an ageing laboratory at Harvard Medical School. He and his colleagues have been working on synthetic drugs called " Sirtuin activating compounds " or STACs.

Animal studies have indicated STACs can restore the health and life prospects of obese mice and early-stage trials in humans are now underway.

The research follows earlier work on resveratrol, a naturally-occurring ingredient of red wine. Both resveratrol and STACs appear to mimic the effects of restricting calorie intake, which has been seen to slow ageing in animals.

" This isn't going to be an excuse to eat French fries all day and watch TV but is a way to augment your healthy lifestyle and give you the ultimate benefits of perfect health which your body is capable of, " Professor Sinclair told the BBC.

" It doesn't change food intake - the mice eat just normally or they get fatter, but their body doesn't seem to know they're fat and their organs and even their longevity is as good as a really healthy mouse. "

But should we be experimenting with something so fundamental as ageing in the first place? And what of the ethical issues?

Professor Tim Spector of King's College London, who also works on the ageing process, says the focus is not on extending life, but on extending good health.

" If it means by living a long time you're crippled by arthritis and can't get out of the house that's not much use to anyone. "

" But by understanding the ageing process, we can help combat arthritis, diabetes, heart disease, all these things which are age-related. "

Professor Goodwin, head of research at Age UK, believes access will quickly emerge as a key issue, should effective anti-ageing medical treatments be developed.

" Will everybody be able to get this technology which will give them a longer healthier life, or will it be restricted to the rich and wealthy? " he asks.

" Or how will the poorer countries regard the richer countries of the world where everyone is living well and living longer? "

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-12207953

[Guest guest]

Not to debate polemics, but I don't follow how population growth hurts our standard of living. Most of the western countries have falling rates of population replacement. If want poor nations to have less babies, make them wealthy like the west.We have the capacity to grow far more food than we do today, and are not running out of energy any time soon either. We are already crushing our medical systems (in all countries) with longer life spans, and more, very expensive medicines for mitigating the inevitable cancers most of us will encounter if we live long enough. There are no simple answers for this on the immediate horizon, and one could argue that the primary drain on quality of life, is all the old people. :-) JROn Jan 26, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Francesca Skelton wrote:

Wonderful article! As a person who has always been concerned with overpopulation, I was pleased to see it mentioned. Overpopulation already impacts the quality of life on our planet in innumerable ways and if the population just continues to geometrically increase.....well, I don’t even know if I’ll want to be around...........

On 1/26/11 1:16 PM, "Diane W" <dianepwalter@...> wrote:

[Guest guest]

Horrendous traffic, pollution, global warming, crime, just to name a few impacts in western countries. I don’t want to debate it either. Just know that I strongly disagree that there is no impact.

On 1/26/11 3:05 PM, " john roberts " <robertsjohnh@...> wrote:

Not to debate polemics, but I don't follow how population growth hurts our standard of living. Most of the western countries have falling rates of population replacement. If want poor nations to have less babies, make them wealthy like the west.

We have the capacity to grow far more food than we do today, and are not running out of energy any time soon either.

We are already crushing our medical systems (in all countries) with longer life spans, and more, very expensive medicines for mitigating the inevitable cancers most of us will encounter if we live long enough.

There are no simple answers for this on the immediate horizon, and one could argue that the primary drain on quality of life, is all the old people. :-)

JR

On Jan 26, 2011, at 12:33 PM, Francesca Skelton wrote:

Wonderful article! As a person who has always been concerned with overpopulation, I was pleased to see it mentioned. Overpopulation already impacts the quality of life on our planet in innumerable ways and if the population just continues to geometrically increase.....well, I don’t even know if I’ll want to be around...........

On 1/26/11 1:16 PM, " Diane W " <dianepwalter@...> wrote:

[Guest guest]

On 1/26/2011 3:05 PM, john roberts wrote:

 

Not to debate polemics, but I don't follow how population

growth hurts our standard of living.  Most of the western

countries have falling rates of population replacement. If

want poor nations to have less babies, make them wealthy

like the west.

    For one thing,  people take up space.  You get less living area

in your home,  pay more for it,  and have to spend more time

commuting to work.  We can make decisions that make different

tradeoffs in this department,  but many problems get harder to solve

when you add more people.  Noise pollution has definitely gotten

worse in the last 30 years in the Northeastern US,  driven by both

car traffic noise and air traffic,  which seems to be heavy even

when you get away from major population centers.

We have the capacity to grow far more food than we do

today, and are not running out of energy any time soon

either. 

    In principle yes,  but who knows in practice.

    Brazil has had spectacular success in modernizing agriculture in

the Cerrado grasslands because they invested in irrigation,

agricultural research and machinery.  On the other hands,  more

habitat loss is happening in the Cerrado than in the Amazon.  We can

certainly imagine that similar success stories could happen in many

developing countries,  but production is dropping in California's

Central Valley (one of the first such success stories) because

they're running out of water.

    Modernization of agriculture has serious social consequences. 

Labor requirements can drop by 90% or more when agriculture

mechanizes,  and this can result in violence (WWII,  Gulags, etc... 

There's a reason why Hitler felt that much of the population had to

go) and refugee crises (American blacks and Italians immigrants

suddenly teemed in American cities in the 1960's because they were

both fleeing the collectivization of agriculture.)

    India has resisted the largely resisted the modernization of

agriculture largely because it would leave 500 million people with

nothing to do and who would have genocidal designs on each other if

push comes to shove.

    As for energy,  we could get all we'd ever need by switching to

uranium,  and then to plutonium,  but the world is still stuck on

fossil fuels -- we could be largely free of them in 30 years or so, 

but we'll face an antinuclear lobby funded by the fossil fuel

industry every step of the way.  One of the factors in the recent

economic turbulence has been that demand for petroleum is surging at

a time when petroleum production can only be increased by turning to

sources that are more expensive and environmentally destructive to

produce.

    Things can look very different in the long term than they look

in the short term,  but we're only going to get to a bright future

by facing down four hundred horseman of the apocalypse.