Fight Aging!

The Leucadia Therapeutics principals and staff are working towards the prevention of Alzheimer's disease. Unlike most other initiatives in the space, their work is based on a novel understanding of the way in which reduced drainage of cerebrospinal fluid gives rise to Alzheimer's disease and potentially other neurodegenerative conditions. These conditions are characterized by rising levels of protein aggregates and other forms of molecular waste in the brain. This leads to toxicity to neurons, as well as to chronic inflammation due to the reactions of immune cells and other cells in brain tissue.

Cerebrospinal fluid drainage from the brain into the body is one of the ways in which these forms of waste are removed from the brain, keeping levels more manageable. As drainage falters due to age-related changes to the tissues involved, ever more molecular waste is trapped in the brain. Alzheimer's disease is one of the results. Leucadia researchers have in recent years used ferrets to show that surgically blocking cerebrospinal fluid drainage paths provokes early increases in protein aggregation, and then consequent neurodegeneration and cognitive decline.

Leucadia is one of the many stories in the anti-aging research and development community that in some way involves the Methuselah Foundation. Early work at Leucadia was funded by the foundation, and it was a conversation with Dave Gobel of the Methuselah Foundation at a scientific conference that convinced Doug Ethell, the Leucadia founder, to take his work out of academia and start down the road to human clinical trials. The company will in the next few years implant valve devices into patients to restore a measured flow of cerebrospinal fluid through the most important drainage pathway, and hopefully thereby definitely proof that Alzheimer's disease can be indefinitely postponed via this approach.

Scientists Develop AI Algorithms To Analyze Enormous Datasets In Alzheimer's Research

For the past 25 years, Alzheimer's disease researchers have viewed plaques and tangles pathology as the cause of Alzheimer's, which has led to an unbroken string of failed clinical trials. In 2014, neuroscientist Doug Ethell published a new hypothesis about the trigger for Alzheimer's and related dementias. In 2015, he founded Leucadia Therapeutics to develop a therapy based on his hypothesis. Leucadia's research has shown that plaques and tangles are effects of a more serious underlying condition that triggers the formation of those pathological features.

The cribriform plate is a porous bony structure located in the roof of the nasal cavity. The plate contains two deep pockets called fossa and many holes called olfactory foramina. Olfactory nerves that transmit the sense of smell pass through these holes. The cribriform plate is an outflow route the brain uses to clear out waste in cerebrospinal fluid (CSF). About half a liter of CSF is produced by the brain each day, but only about 1/20 of it drains through the cribriform plate. However, that small amount of CSF is responsible for clearing brain regions that are critical for making new memories and orienting us in the world. As humans age, the cribriform plate becomes ossified and less porous. The small holes close up and restrict the flow of cerebrospinal fluid. As less and less of this fluid is drained out of the brain, waste and toxins accumulate in the upstream brain regions responsible for memory. These waste-products form a slough (an area of dead tissue) where plaques form and neurons form tangles - two key hallmarks of Alzheimer's disease. Ethell's research indicates that Alzheimer's disease pathology result from reductions in cerebrospinal fluid drainage across the cribriform plate.

Leucadia Therapeutics is preparing for a clinical trial in 2022 that will use an implantable device to restore CSF drainage across the cribriform plate. With increasing life-expectancy, Dr. Ethell believes his device will become as common as a pacemaker. This well-founded approach should reverse early mild cognitive impairment and prevent Alzheimer's disease from occurring at all.

Psychological stress appears to modestly accelerate some measures of aging, though most of the evidence for this correlation comes from animal studies. Evidence points to chronic inflammation, and the immune system in general, as an important factor in this correlation. Separately, chronic inflammation in brain tissue is known to be important in neurodegenerative conditions, and the behavior of innate immune cells known as microglia are of late receiving increased attention in this context. Researchers here join the dots to discuss whether microglia may be a primary link between stress and accelerated aging.

The relationship between the central nervous system (CNS) and microglia is lifelong. Microglia originate in the embryonic yolk sac during development and populate the CNS before the blood-brain barrier forms. In the CNS, they constitute a self-renewing population. Although they represent up to 10% of all brain cells, we are only beginning to understand how much brain homeostasis relies on their physiological functions. Often compared to a double-edged sword, microglia hold the potential to exert neuroprotective roles that can also exacerbate neurodegeneration once compromised.

Microglia can promote synaptic growth in addition to eliminating synapses that are less active. Synaptic loss, which is considered one of the best pathological correlates of cognitive decline, is a distinctive feature of major depressive disorder (MDD) and cognitive aging. Long-term psychological stress accelerates cellular aging and predisposes to various diseases, including MDD, and cognitive decline. Among the underlying mechanisms, stress-induced neuroinflammation alters microglial interactions with the surrounding parenchymal cells and exacerbates oxidative burden and cellular damage, hence inducing changes in microglia and neurons typical of cognitive aging.

Focusing on microglial interactions with neurons and their synapses, this review discusses the disrupted communication between these cells, notably involving fractalkine signaling and the triggering receptor expressed on myeloid cells (TREM). Overall, chronic stress emerges as a key player in cellular aging by altering the microglial sensome, notably via fractalkine signaling deficiency. To study cellular aging, novel positron emission tomography radiotracers for TREM and the purinergic family of receptors show interest for human study.

Link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnmol.2021.749737

Does the adult mammalian body contain naturally pluripotent stem cells, capable for forming any other cell type, given the right stimuli? Over the past twenty years various groups have argued that it does, but none of those scientists have produced evidence that is both compelling and easily replicated. If they had, the entire research community would have quickly jumped onto that bandwagon, just as they did after the discovery of reprogramming as a way to produce induced pluripotent stem cells. Patient-specific pluripotent cells are a highly desirable item, and a cost-effect source would enable many applications in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. Given this history, I think it appropriate to treat the material here with a healthy degree of skepticism.

A certain cell type can be isolated from different organs in the adult body (i.e., adipose tissue, heart, skin, bone marrow, or skeletal muscle) that can differentiate into ectoderm, mesoderm, and endoderm, providing significant support for the existence of a certain type of small, ubiquitously distributed, universal, vascular-associated, pluripotent stem cell in the adult body (vaPS cells). These vaPS cells fundamentally differ from embryonic stem cells and induced pluripotent stem cells in that the latter possess the necessary genetic guidance that makes them intrinsically pluripotent. In contrast, vaPS cells do not have this intrinsic genetic guidance. Nevertheless, they are able to differentiate into somatic cells of all three lineages under guidance of the microenvironment they are located in, independent from the original tissue or organ that they are derived from.

These vaPS cells are of high relevance for clinical application because they are contained in unmodified, autologous, adipose-derived regenerative cells (UA-ADRCs). The latter can be obtained from and re-applied to the same patient at the point of care, without the need for further processing, manipulation, and culturing. These findings as well as various clinical examples presented in this paper demonstrate the potential of UA-ADRCs for enabling an entirely new generation of medicine for the benefit of patients and healthcare systems.

As with any medical innovation, the scientific and medical community interested in these novel therapies needs to develop sound clinical evidence to further show safety and efficacy of cell-based therapies. Our understanding of the mechanism of actions and potential benefit of stem cell therapy has increased enormously over the past decade and we hope that there is now enough data to convince others to embark on scientifically designed clinical studies that will provide the necessary objective evidence.

Link: https://doi.org/10.3390/cells10092303

Today's materials from the Intraclear Biologics team may be of interest to those following the development of senolytic therapies. Since the Mayo Clinic has yet to publish results from their clinical trials of fisetin as a senolytic therapy, and may not do so for a few years yet, it is good to see even preliminary data from other sources. Senolytic therapies selectively destroy senescent cells, though only one approach (the combination of dasatinib and quercetin) has been definitely shown to destroy significant numbers of senescent cells in humans. Data has yet to be published on whether fisetin performs as well in humans as it does in mice.

The Intraclear Biologics data is an example of the Mayo Clinic's senolytic dose of fisetin applied to a single younger patient with autoimmunity - in effect a well-conducted self-experiment. The age of the patient, mid-thirties, is far too young to have any meaningful age-related accumulation of senescent cells. But various lines of work from recent years suggest that many autoimmune conditions are at least in part driven by the presence of senescent cells, a bidirectional dysfunctional relationship between the immune system and senescent cells in the tissue under attack. Type 1 diabetes, for example, and perhaps rheumatoid arthritis. Unfortunately, no assessment of senescent cell burden was carried out in this study, so it is possible that other mechanisms are involved in the lowered inflammation and other benefits experienced by the patient. Still, the results point the way to larger studies that include more comprehensive assessments.

Preliminary results of trials of Fisetin in a person with autoimmune thyroiditis

Since senescent cells also arise in the immune system, being one of the causes of autoimmune diseases, there is a hypothesis that the destruction of senescent cells will help in the prevention and treatment of many autoimmune diseases. It is important that the mechanisms of cell senescence and the effects of their destruction by senolytics are similar in mice and humans. For example, it has been shown that the combination of dasatinib (a relatively aggressive chemotherapeutic) and quercetin (a flavonoid) works in humans as well as in mice when it comes to destruction of senescent cells.

Some drugs that have established senolytic effects are available for purchase just now. However, they are usually used in much lower dosages than is required for the senolytic effect. Such substances include the readily available and cheap bioactive flavonoid fisetin. Mice experiments show that fisetin is about as effective against senescent cells as the dasatinib + quercetin combination. The advantage of fisetin, which is a plant substance, is its safety compared to many other drugs that have shown a senolytic effect.

There are currently three trials of fisetin as a senolytic in humans. They are conducted in Mayo Clinic (USA), where a special treatment protocol was developed. Mayo Protocol consists of taking 20 mg/kg of fisetin orally for two days in a row, after which a person takes the second course after a month or two months. Because of the availability and safety of fisetin, we decided to conduct our own trial of this drug in a person with autoimmune thyroiditis. It is noteworthy that, unlike most tests, we focus not on chronic inflammation, but on immune function.

In accordance with animal experiments, the inflammatory factors C reactive protein and rheumatoid factor decreased. Antibodies to thyroglobulin did not change, which means the autoimmune response does not decrease. TSH returned to normal value, which allowed the patient to reduce the dose of hormone therapy.

In this commentary, scientists note the paucity of funding for chronic kidney disease research, given the widespread suffering and death caused by this presently incurable condition. This and many other areas of medicine are seen as solved problems by the powers that be simply because there is some form of treatment, even palliative treatment, in widespread use. That the treatment does little and many people die doesn't appear to motivate those who could fund progress. There is no sense of urgency and little sense of need. We might make the same comments in the case of atherosclerosis, a condition many consider to be adequately treated and under control, due to the existence of statins and similar drugs that lower LDL cholesterol in the bloodstream, despite the fact that these treatments only somewhat reduce mortality, and that atherosclerosis still kills 27% of our species at the present time. We could indeed make much the same argument for many other primarily age-related conditions.

The uptake of the current concept of chronic kidney disease (CKD) by the public, physicians and health authorities is low. Physicians still mix up CKD with chronic kidney insufficiency or kidney failure. In a recent manuscript, only 23% of participants in a cohort of persons with CKD had been diagnosed by their physicians as having CKD while 29% has a diagnosis of cancer and 82% had a diagnosis of hypertension. For the wider public and health authorities, CKD evokes kidney replacement therapy (KRT). In Spain, the prevalence of KRT is 0.13%.

A prevalent view is that for those in whom kidneys fail, the problem is "solved" by dialysis or kidney transplantation. However, the main burden of CKD is accelerated aging and all-cause and cardiovascular premature death. CKD is the most prevalent risk factor for lethal COVID-19 and the factor that most increases the risk of death in COVID-19, after old age. Moreover, men and women undergoing KRT still have an annual mortality which is 10-100-fold higher than similar age peers, and life expectancy is shortened by around 40 years for young persons on dialysis and by 15 years for young persons with a functioning kidney graft. CKD is expected to become the fifth global cause of death by 2040 and the second cause of death in Spain before the end of the century, a time when 1 in 4 Spaniards will have CKD.

However, by 2022, CKD will become the only top-15 global predicted cause of death that is not supported by a dedicated well-funded CIBER network research structure in Spain. Leading Spanish kidney researchers aim to prevent the dire predictions for the global 2040 burden of CKD from becoming true. However, only the highest level of research funding through the CIBER will allow to adequately address the issue before it is too late.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.nefro.2021.09.004

Heart rate variability is an increasingly popular measure of cardiovascular health. Heart rate variability is known to decline with age, but to what degree is this a reflection of processes of cardiovascular aging versus the loss of physical fitness that is a feature of old age in our present, overly sedentary societies? This remains an open question, and an important one, given the range of evidence for exercise programs, and thus increased physical fitness, to be as effective as many medical interventions when it comes to improving cardiovascular health and reducing mortality in later life. Yes, aging causes an inevitable decline in physical condition, but living a sedentary lifestyle certainly speeds up that process.

Fluctuation analysis in intervals between heartbeats provides important indices related to autonomic modulation of heart rate variability (HRV). These indices are considered predictors of morbidity and mortality as they are frequently altered in patients with chronic degenerative diseases, especially in those with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases. Similarly, a reduction in HRV is common with aging. In all cases, cardiovascular fitness is often reduced to below the predicted values.

In turn, increases in cardiovascular fitness through regular physical exercise, especially aerobic exercise, represent an important therapeutic tool capable of promoting positive adjustments in cardiac autonomic modulation. These adjustments are characterized by reduced sympathetic modulatory influence and/or increased vagal modulatory influence on the heart, increasing the HRV. Therefore, several methodological tools have been used to assess the degree of impairment of autonomic modulation and the therapeutic effects of physical exercise.

In summary, there is a close relationship between cardiovascular fitness and HRV. This relationship was more evident in patients with cardiovascular and metabolic diseases and in aging, especially in those whose cardiovascular fitness and HRV were below the predicted values for age and sex. The challenge is to develop techniques and interpretation of increasingly accurate data, as well as standardizing the application of these techniques.

Link: https://doi.org/10.2147/VHRM.S279322

Senescent cells accumulate with age throughout the body, and contribute directly to the onset and progression of a wide range of age-related conditions. While never present in large numbers in comparison to normal somatic cells, senescent cells are metabolically active, secreting signals that provoke chronic inflammation, altered cell behavior, and numerous forms of tissue dysfunction. Senolytic therapies selectively target senescent cells for destruction, most by forcing these errant cells into the programmed cell death process of apoptosis. Senescent cells are primed to self-destruct, and suppressing anti-apoptosis mechanisms for a time can push them over the edge while leaving normal cells largely unaffected.

In recent years, researchers have shown that many of the detrimental effects of excess visceral fat tissue are mediated by the presence of senescent cells in that fat tissue. This isn't just age-related: excess visceral fat generates senescent cells even in youth, but it does become worse with age. Thus eliminating senescent cells on a periodic basis via the use of senolytic therapies may allow for some decoupling of excess visceral fat from poor health and accelerated aging. One of the more prominent consequences of gaining too much fat tissue is the onset of type 2 diabetes, a condition that can be reversed even at a comparatively late stage by low-calorie diets leading to weight loss. Senescent cells appear to play an important role here, causing the death and dysfunction of islet cells in the pancreas, cells that are necessary for the correct function of insulin metabolism.

Researchers here demonstrate that eliminating senescent cells in fat tissue causes a sizable improvement in the manifestations of type 2 diabetes in mice. This isn't the first time that results of this sort have been produced by the scientific community, and the data here can be added to that from similar studies conducted in last few years. Since most of these studies used the readily available senolytic treatment of dasatinib and quercetin, presently in human trials for other conditions, it is perhaps surprising to see little movement towards off-label use in humans, given the considerable size of the diabetic patient community.

Deleting Dysfunctional Cells Alleviates Diabetes

The cells in your body are constantly renewing themselves, with older cells aging and dying as new ones are being born. But sometimes that process goes awry. Occasionally damaged cells linger. Called senescent cells, they hang around, acting as a bad influence on other cells nearby. Their bad influence changes how the neighboring cells handle sugars or proteins and so causes metabolic problems. Type 2 diabetes is the most common metabolic disease in the US. Most people with diabetes have insulin resistance, which is associated with obesity, lack of exercise, and poor diet. But it also has a lot to do with senescent cells in people's body fat, according to new findings. And clearing away those senescent cells seems to stop diabetic behavior in obese mice.

Alleviating the negative effects of fat on metabolism was a dramatic result, the researchers said. If a therapy worked that well in humans, it would be a game-changing treatment for diabetes. Researchers tested the efficacy of a combination of experimental drugs, dasatinib and quercetin. Dasatinib and quercetin had already been shown to extend lifespan and good health in aged mice. In this study, they found these drugs can kill senescent cells from cultures of human fat tissue. The tissue was donated by individuals with obesity who were known to have metabolic troubles. Without treatment, the human fat tissues induced metabolic problems in immune-deficient mice. After treatment with dasatinib and quercetin, the harmful effects of the fat tissue were almost eliminated.

Targeting p21Cip1 highly expressing cells in adipose tissue alleviates insulin resistance in obesity

Insulin resistance is a pathological state often associated with obesity, representing a major risk factor for type 2 diabetes. Limited mechanism-based strategies exist to alleviate insulin resistance. Here, using single-cell transcriptomics, we identify a small, critically important, but previously unexamined cell population, p21Cip1 highly expressing (p21high) cells, which accumulate in adipose tissue with obesity. By leveraging a p21-Cre mouse model, we demonstrate that intermittent clearance of p21high cells can both prevent and alleviate insulin resistance in obese mice.

Exclusive inactivation of the NF-κB pathway within p21high cells, without killing them, attenuates insulin resistance. Moreover, fat transplantation experiments establish that p21high cells within fat are sufficient to cause insulin resistance in vivo. Importantly, a senolytic cocktail, dasatinib plus quercetin, eliminates p21high cells in human fat ex vivo and mitigates insulin resistance following xenotransplantation into immunodeficient mice. Our findings lay the foundation for pursuing the targeting of p21high cells as a new therapy to alleviate insulin resistance.

Researchers have in the past proposed links between oral bacteria and chronic inflammation, particularly in the heart and brain, proposing that bacterial toxins and bacteria themselves enter the bloodstream via damaged gums. This undoubtedly happens, but supporting data is mixed when it comes to the question of whether or not this has a meaningful effect size in comparison to other inflammatory mechanisms and contributions to age-related disease. Here, a different route for bacteria is proposed: passage into the airways and lungs, a possibly explanation as why gum disease and respiratory mortality are correlated in older patients.

The global population is aging, and elderly people have a higher incidence of lower airway diseases owing to decline in swallowing function, airway ciliary motility, and overall immunity associated with aging. Furthermore, lower airway diseases in the elderly tend to have a high mortality rate. Their prevention is important for extending healthy life expectancy and improving the quality of life of each individual.

In recent years, the relationship between chronic periodontitis and oral bacteria, especially the periodontopathic ones, and respiratory diseases (e.g., pneumonia, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, and influenza) has become clear. In addition, the association of several periodontal pathogens with the onset and aggravation of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is also being reported. The oral cavity is the entry point for bacteria and viruses to enter the body, and it is also the entrance to the lower airway, including the bronchi and lungs, in which inflammation occurs during lower airway diseases. Therefore, if aspiration of oral bacteria has an adverse effect on lower airway diseases, it is not difficult to imagine such an effect.

In support of these findings, oral health management has shown to reduce deaths from pneumonia and prevent influenza in nursing homes and inpatient wards. This has led to clinical and multidisciplinary cooperation between physicians and dentists, among others. However, to date, the mechanisms by which chronic periodontitis and oral bacteria contribute to lower airway diseases have not been well understood. Clarifying these mechanisms will lead to a theoretical basis for answering the question, "Why is oral health management effective in preventing lower airway diseases?"

Link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdsr.2021.10.003

Exercise in the form of strength training creates such broad changes in metabolism and produces such diverse benefits to health that it is interesting to see a specific example in which it doesn't help at all. That is possibly a path to better understanding which of the results of exercise are important, versus which are not, when it comes to functional improvement of specific tissues in later life. Many of the benefit of exercise are likely secondary effects produced by changes in skeletal muscle metabolism and myokine signaling on other parts of the body. Those effects will be largely absent in a study such as this, where only one small set of muscles are trained.

Exercise-based treatment approaches for dysphagia may improve swallow function in part by inducing adaptive changes to muscles involved in swallowing. We have previously shown that both aging and progressive resistance tongue exercise, in a rat model, can induce biological changes in the genioglossus (GG); a muscle that elevates and protrudes the tongue. However, the impacts of progressive resistance tongue exercise on the retrusive muscles (styloglossus, SG; hyoglossus, HG) of the tongue are unknown. The purpose of this study was to examine the impact of a progressive resistance tongue exercise regimen on the retrusive tongue musculature in the context of aging. Given that aging alters retrusive tongue muscles to more slowly contracting fiber types, we hypothesized that these biological changes may be mitigated by tongue exercise.

Hyoglossus (HG) and styloglossus (SG) muscles of male rats were assayed in age groups of young (9 months old, n = 24), middle-aged (24 months old, n = 23), and old (32 months old, n = 26), after receiving an 8-week period of either progressive resistance protrusive tongue exercise, or sham exercise conditions. Following exercise, HG and SG tongue muscle contractile properties were assessed in vivo. HG and SG muscles were then isolated and assayed to determine myosin heavy chain isoform (MyHC) composition.

Both retrusive tongue muscle contractile properties and MyHC profiles of the HG and SG muscles were significantly impacted by age, but were not significantly impacted by tongue exercise. Old rats had significantly longer retrusive tongue contraction times and longer decay times than young rats. Additionally, HG and SG muscles showed significant MyHC profile changes with age, in that old groups had slower MyHC profiles as compared to young groups. However, the exercise condition did not induce significant effects in any of the biological outcome measures.

Link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fphys.2021.740876

Genes determine species longevity, though within a species, and particularly within our species, the estimated involvement of genetic variants in individual life expectancy is becoming ever smaller as ever more data accumulates. Nonetheless, researchers are very interested in the comparative biology of aging, the question of why long-lived species are long-lived in comparison to their closest relatives. Which of the many evolved differences tend to produce a longer life span?

A longer species life span necessarily requires a lower incidence of cancer. Cancer is a numbers game: a larger body size means that there are more cells that can suffer mutation and become cancerous; a longer life allows more time for those cells to suffer mutation and become cancerous. Thus in larger and longer-lived species there must be mechanisms that either (a) lower the rate at which cancerous mutations can occur, or (b) increase the efficiency of cancer suppression mechanisms. These mechanisms are layered, ranging from those inside cells that provoke self-destruction when damage is identified, to the ability of the immune system to detect and destroy cancerous cells.

Elephants are both large and long-lived, and yet have a lower risk of cancer than is the case for our species. In recent years, researchers identified that elephants have many duplicated copies of the TP53 cancer suppression gene. The protein p53 produced from this gene is involved in DNA repair, as well as induction of cellular senescence and programmed cell death in response to DNA damage. It is thus an important part of cellular responses to potentially cancerous mutations. In today's open access paper, researchers report on their discovery of similar duplications in genes related to longevity and cancer suppression in long-lived Galapagos tortoises, indicating that this sort of evolutionary change is probably commonplace in longer-lived species.

It is interesting to consider that continually upregulating TP53 expression in short-lived mammals such as mice does improve cancer suppression, but also shortens life span, via mechanisms that likely include a reduction in stem cell activity and increase in the burden of cellular senescence. Too much vigilance has its costs. Researchers have worked around this issue, in mice at least, via forms of intermittent upregulation that only operate when TP53 is called upon, or via combining p53 upregulation with telomerase upregulation.

Concurrent evolution of anti-aging gene duplications and cellular phenotypes in long-lived turtles

A recurring theme in lifespan and aging regulation is the critical role played by processes that promote cellular protection and maintenance, including the ability of cells to recycle materials, repair damage, and remove waste. Senescent cells, whose numbers greatly increase with age, exhibit declines in these processes, and are also associated with pro-inflammatory phenotypes that are linked to age-related diseases. At the same time, apoptosis, which is the programmed destruction of unfit or damaged cells, is reduced in older individuals. This decline in cell performance in combination with a decreased ability to remove poor-performing cells is central to the aging process. Similarly, cancer can arise from cumulative genotoxic and cytotoxic stress, and apoptosis also plays a primary role in cancer resistance by removing potentially cancerous cells. Thus, if cancer-suppressing mechanisms are similar across species, then larger, longer-lived organisms should be at greater risk of cancer than smaller, shorter-lived ones. While this correlation exists within species, for example, cancer incidence increases with increasing adult height for most cancer types in humans and overall body mass in dogs, there is no such correlation between species - an observation often referred to as "Peto's paradox".

The molecular and cellular mechanisms underlying the evolution of large bodies and long lifespans have been explored in mammals such as elephants, whales, bats, and naked mole rats, but are less well studied in other vertebrates. Reptiles are an excellent system in which to study the evolution of body size and longevity because diverse lineages have repeatedly evolved large body sizes and long lifespans. Turtles, in particular, have lower rates of neoplasia than snakes and lizards, are especially long-lived, and are "slower aging" than other reptiles. Most notably, Galapagos giant tortoises (C. niger) and Aldabra giant tortoises (Aldabrachelys gigantea) can live over 150 years (3-5 times longer than their closest relatives) and weigh over 200 kg (50-100 times heavier than their closest relatives). Galapagos giant tortoises also appear to have evolved a suite of cellular traits that may contribute to their longevity, such as a slower rate of telomere shortening and extended cellular lifespans compared to mammals.

Here, we explore the evolution of body size and lifespan in turtles by integrating several approaches: (1) phylogenetic comparative analysis of body size, lifespan, and intrinsic cancer risk in turtles; (2) gene duplication analysis of aging and cancer-related genes across available turtle genomes; (3) cell-based assays of apoptosis and necrosis in multiple turtle species varying in body size and lifespan. We show that species with remarkably long lifespans, such as Galapagos giant tortoises, also evolved reduced cancer risk. We also confirm that the Galapagos giant and desert tortoise genomes encode numerous duplicated genes with tumor suppressor and anti-aging functions. Our comparative genomic analysis further suggests that cells from large, long-lived species may respond differently to cytotoxic stress, including endoplasmic reticulum (ER) stress and oxidative stress. The combined genomic and cellular results suggest that at least some turtle lineages evolved large bodies and long lifespans, in part, by increasing the copy number of tumor suppressors and other anti-aging genes and undergoing changes in cellular phenotypes associated with cellular stress.

Regeneration from injury is an intricate dance between stem cells, somatic cells, senescent cells, and immune cells. In particular, research into the biochemistry of species such the axolotl that can regenerate limbs and organs has identified the innate immune cells known as macrophages as essential to the process. Specific differences in macrophage behavior between more regenerative species such as the axolotl and less regenerative species such as our own are still under exploration. Here, researchers uncover a greater level of complexity in axolotl regeneration, in that only some macrophages are important to scar-free regeneration, and these cells originate in the liver rather than the bone marrow.

In 2013 it was discovered that a type of white blood cell called a macrophage is essential to limb regeneration in the axolotl. Without macrophages, which are part of the immune system, regeneration did not take place. Instead of regenerating a limb, the axolotl formed a scar at the site of the injury, which acted as a barrier to regeneration, just as it would in a mammal such as a mouse or human. Now, in a new study, researchers have identified the origin of pro-regenerative macrophages in the axolotl as the liver. By providing science with a place to look for pro-regenerative macrophages in humans - the liver, rather than the bone marrow, which is the source of most human macrophages - the finding paves the way for regenerative medicine therapies in humans.

Although the prospect of regrowing a human limb may be unrealistic in the short term due to its complexity, regenerative medicine therapies could potentially be employed in the shorter term in the treatment of the many diseases in which scarring plays a pathological role, including heart, lung and kidney disease. "If axolotls can regenerate by having a single cell type as their guardian, then maybe we can achieve scar-free healing in humans by populating our bodies with an equivalent guardian cell type, which would open up the opportunity for regeneration."

Although it remains to be seen if achieving scar-free healing in mammals will allow regeneration to proceed, researchers believe that may be the case. Because mammals already possess the machinery for regeneration - young mice can regenerate, as can human newborns - mammalian regeneration may simply be a matter of removing the barrier posed by scarring. "In axolotls, macrophages act as a brake on fibrosis, or scarring. Humans may possess macrophages that are doing their hardest to repair the damage, but are being held back. If we can engineer human macrophages to promote scar-free healing, we might be able to achieve a huge improvement in repair with just a little tweak. We have the luxury in the salamander of being able to work out which macrophage functions are essential to scar suppression and regeneration, gene by gene if we have to. If we can find out what that is, then maybe we can get that interaction happening in mammals."

Link: https://mdibl.org/press-release/mdi-biological-laboratory-scientist-advances-prospect-of-regeneration-in-humans/

There have been suggested that metformin, a at best weak calorie restriction mimetic, can suppress some of the beneficial metabolic response to exercise. Metformin is in general a poor choice in comparison to mTOR inhibitors when it comes to animal evidence for an ability to modestly slow the progression of aging. The primary human evidence for metformin to be useful, and why it attracted interest in the first place, comes from a large study of diabetic patients, and the gain in life expectancy was not large. Researchers here provide evidence against any suppression by metformin of beneficial mechanisms resulting from exercise, but I can't say that this does much to make metformin an attractive option. At the end of the day, small effect sizes are just not worth chasing, given the many other lines of research and development that offer greater promise.

Metformin and exercise both improve glycemic control, but in vitro studies have indicated that an interaction between metformin and exercise occurs in skeletal muscle, suggesting a blunting effect of metformin on exercise training adaptations. Two studies (a double-blind, parallel-group, randomized clinical trial conducted in 29 glucose-intolerant individuals and a double-blind, cross-over trial conducted in 15 healthy lean males) were included in this paper. In both studies, the effect of acute exercise with or without metformin treatment on different skeletal muscle variables, previously suggested to be involved in a pharmaco-physiological interaction between metformin and exercise, was assessed. Furthermore, in the parallel-group trial, the effect of 12 weeks of exercise training was assessed.

Skeletal muscle biopsies were obtained before and after acute exercise and 12 weeks of exercise training, and mitochondrial respiration, oxidative stress, and AMPK activation was determined. Metformin did not significantly affect the effects of acute exercise or exercise training on mitochondrial respiration, oxidative stress or AMPK activation, indicating that the response to acute exercise and exercise training adaptations in skeletal muscle is not affected by metformin treatment. Further studies are needed to investigate whether an interaction between metformin and exercise is present in other tissues, e.g. the gut.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1139/apnm-2021-0194

Most of the work aimed at treating aging as a medical condition is focused on stress response upregulation, finding ways to trigger some of the regulatory pathways and mechanisms involved in beneficial cellular reactions to the mild stresses of exercise, reduced calorie intake, hypoxia, heat, cold, and so forth. Improved cell behavior leads to improved tissue function, which in turn slows the progression of degenerative aging. Many of these pathways converge on autophagy, and evidence from the study of calorie restriction suggests that improved autophagy is the largest contributing factor.

Autophagy is the name given to a collection of cellular maintenance processes that remove unwanted or damaged structures and proteins, ensuring that they are broken down in a lysosome and the raw materials returned to the cell for reuse. Autophagy becomes less effective with age, and researchers have in recent years identified a range of age-related defects in the various component parts of the autophagic process. Tracing these issues back to root causes is, as for most of the changes observed in cells in aged tissues, quite challenging and very much a work in progress.

Stress response upregulation is much more effective at extending life span in short-lived species than it is in long-lived species. Calorie restriction can increase life span by 40% in mice, but certainly doesn't do that in humans. Stress response upregulation as a strategy for the development of therapies does not seem likely to greatly improve the healthy human life span to a much greater degree than is already possible via lifestyle changes. So it is disappointing that so much of present efforts are directed towards this part of the field. Results in mice should not be taken as indicative of the benefits that these same treatments might achieve in longer-lived species such as our own.

AMPK activator O304 improves metabolic and cardiac function, and exercise capacity in aged mice

Metabolic function, cardiac capacity, and vascular flexibility decline progressively with age, which in combination reduce work capacity, mobility, and quality of life. Type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) incidence increase with age and are current global epidemics representing major challenges to health care systems. Regular exercise not only increases work/exercise capacity but also counteracts the development of numerous age-related diseases, including several forms of metabolic and CVDs, thus promoting healthy aging. However, aged individuals are frequently unable to engage in regular exercise/physical activity. Thus, there is a large need to develop pharmacological treatments that can increase exercise/work capacity to counteract metabolic dysfunction and improve cardiac and vascular function and thereby promote healthy aging and increase quality of life in the aging population.

Insulin resistance and associated hyperinsulinemia are predictors of age-related diseases such as T2D and CVD. Increased activity of AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), a key energy sensor that is activated in response to low energy and glucose levels following exercise, enhances insulin-dependent and insulin-independent skeletal glucose uptake, thus improving glucose homeostasis and insulin resistance. AMPK activity declines however with age. Thus, AMPK has emerged as a potential important link between, and mediator of, numerous positive effects of exercise including protection against age-related diseases.

We previously showed that pan-AMPK activator O304 stimulates AMPK activity and glucose uptake in both skeletal muscle and heart of diet-induced obese (DIO) mice in vivo. In DIO mice, O304 mitigated hyperglycemia, hyperinsulinemia, insulin resistance, and obesity, and in a transgenic type 2 diabetic mouse model, O304 reversed established diabetes. O304 also significantly increased stroke volume, end-diastolic volume, and reduced heart rate in DIO mice, mimicking the cardiac effects of exercise. Thus, AMPK activator O304 efficiently ameliorated obesity-provoked insulin resistance, diabetes, and cardiovascular dysfunction in obese mice. O304 is currently in clinical development, and in a short proof-of-concept phase IIa clinical trial in T2D patients O304 reduced fasting plasma glucose levels and insulin resistance, i.e., HOMA-IR, and increased microvascular perfusion in the calf muscle and reduced blood pressure.

Here we show that the pan-AMPK activator O304, which is well tolerated in humans, prevented and reverted age-associated hyperinsulinemia and insulin resistance, and improved cardiac function and exercise capacity in aged mice. These results provide preclinical evidence that O304 mimics the beneficial effects of exercise. Thus, as an exercise mimetic in clinical development, AMPK activator O304 holds great potential to mitigate metabolic dysfunction, and to improve cardiac function and exercise capacity, and hence quality of life in aged individuals.

Researchers here mine patient data in order to demonstrate that type 2 diabetes combines with the age-related stiffening of blood vessels to produce greater structural damage in the brain, leading to a more rapid cognitive decline. This correlation between stiffening and damage was not observed in non-diabetic patients. This is an interesting result, as a reasonable view of the consequence of blood vessel stiffening with age is that it will produce increased blood pressure and consequence pressure damage to delicate tissues regardless of other factors. The authors conclude that the most likely explanation is that diabetes makes this process significantly worse, and thus more easily identified in patient data.

Cerebrovascular dysfunction has been proposed as a possible mechanism underlying cognitive impairment in the context of type 2 diabetes mellitus (DM). Although magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) evidence of cerebrovascular disease, such as white matter hyperintensities (WMH), is often observed in DM, the vascular dynamics underlying this pathology remain unclear. Thus, we assessed the independent and combined effects of DM status and different vascular hemodynamic measures (i.e., systolic, diastolic, and mean arterial blood pressure and pulse pressure index [PPi]) on WMH burden in cognitively unimpaired (CU) older adults and those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI).

559 older adults (mean age: 72.4 years) from the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroimaging Initiative were categorized into those with diabetes (DM+; CU = 43, MCI = 34) or without diabetes (DM-; CU = 279; MCI = 203). Participants underwent BP assessment, from which all vascular hemodynamic measures were derived. The presence of DM, but not PPi values, was independently associated with greater WMH burden overall after adjusting for covariates. Higher PPi values predicted greater WMH burden in the DM group only. No significant interactions were observed in the CU group.

Results indicate that higher PPi values are positively associated with WMH burden in diabetic older adults with MCI, but not their non-diabetic or CU counterparts. Our findings suggest that arterial stiffening and reduced vascular compliance may have a role in development of cerebrovascular pathology within the context of DM in individuals at risk for future cognitive decline. Given the specificity of these findings to MCI, future exploration of the sensitivity of earlier brain markers of vascular insufficiency (i.e., prior to macrostructural white matter changes) to the effects of DM and arterial stiffness/reduced vascular compliance in CU individuals is warranted.

Link: https://doi.org/10.3389/fnagi.2021.716638

Research of the past decade makes it clear that it is plausible and possible to alter the aged gut microbiome in ways that will reduce chronic inflammation and improve long-term health. This goal has been achieved in animal models via a range of different means, including flagellin immunization and fecal microbiota transplantation. In short-lived species, healthy life spans can be extended by restoring a more youthful gut microbiome, and in our own species, the detrimental changes that take place in gut microbiome populations are increasingly well catalogued. The next step has yet to be taken in earnest, however: to roll out human trials of the known ways to beneficially alter the gut microbiome.

Changes in the intestinal microflora with aging are related to the pathogenesis of age-related chronic diseases. Dietary intervention, exercise, and drug therapy are currently the most studied anti-aging measures and can improve the intestinal microbial imbalance caused by aging and promote a healthier intestinal environment to achieve anti-aging effects. In addition, gut microbiota modification represents a promising intervention for anti-aging and aging-related diseases, such as the use of probiotics, prebiotics, and synbiotics.

Studies suggest that modifying the gut microbiota of the elderly population by the intake of functional food as probiotics, prebiotics, or synbiotics may be an effective strategy to counteract natural aging. At the same time, these functional products may be suitable, affordable, and economical to most elderly people. However, their effects on health are complex, depending on individual populations and the duration of treatments. Evidence of probiotic, prebiotic and synbiotic use in elderly people is in its infancy compared with other measures.

Despite much research on these interventions, there are no firm conclusions about the benefits for human health. The reasons may be as follows: (1) Most of the relevant studies have been conducted in laboratory and animal models. These findings do not necessarily apply to humans directly. (2) Most clinical trials with humans are short-term and insufficient to understand long-term health effects. (3) Humans are quite different from each other in terms of sex, size, age, genetics, environment, lifestyle, and other factors. An anti-aging intervention that was found to help one person might not have the same effect on another. (4) Although many probiotics have proven strong safety profiles, we should still be careful to monitor their potential risks in different populations in the development of new probiotics.

Therefore, future research needs to focus on addressing these issues to better understand the safety and efficacy of these anti-aging measures in humans. In addition, although much hope and investment are currently focused on drug development, the application of anti-aging drugs in humans still has a long way to go. It is important to note that sensible habits may be more effective at extending healthspan than taking a medication. This means eating healthy foods, exercising, drinking alcohol in moderation or not at all, not smoking, getting adequate sleep, and maintaining an active lifestyle.

Link: https://doi.org/10.1080/19490976.2021.1994835