FW:CR in a pill????

[Guest guest]

Dean wrote:

There is an interesting article in this month's (July) Scientific American

titled " The Serious Search for an Anti-Aging Pill " . It is by leading

researchers in the CR field, Lane, Ingram and Roth, and it deals with their

search for a substance ( " pill " ) that will mimic the effects of CR. They

have

focused on 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG) that blocks glucose metabolism and by

doing

so appears to imitate many of the effects of CR (a lifespan study is

underway).

Unfortunately 2DG is also toxic in reasonable doses, so it is impractical

for

human use.

There is nothing too new in the article, but it is a good introduction to CR

and

the search for a pill version of it. There are also two interesting

sidebars.

One is on the path the food we eat follows when it is converted into ATP in

mitochondria. The second is on the parallels between the effects of CR in

rodents, CR in monkeys and 2DG in rodents.

The full text of the article is available (for free) here:

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=000BC08E-5B8C-1D2B-97CA809EC588EE

DF & c

atID=2

Here is a quote from the introduction:

" Unfortunately, for maximum benefit, people would probably have to reduce

their

caloric intake by roughly 30 percent, equivalent to dropping from 2,500

calories

a day to 1,750. Few mortals could stick to that harsh a regimen, especially

for

years on end. But what if someone could create a pill that mimicked the

physiological effects of eating less without actually forcing people to go

hungry? Could such a caloric-restriction mimetic, as we call it, enable

people

to stay healthy longer, postponing age-related disorders (such as diabetes,

atherosclerosis, heart disease and cancer) until very late in life? "

If nothing else, this article should raise the level of awareness among the

general public that CR is the only intervention demonstrated to date to

robustly

extend healthspan and lifespan of all species tested.

FYI - still no sign of any " letters to the editor " (from us or anyone) in

response to the " The Truth about Human Aging " article from the June issue.

It

looks like the letters in the July issue are in response to articles in the

April issue, so it may still be several months until our comments on the

June

issue might be expected to appear.

--Dean