Fight Aging!

In lieu of a coherent theme, I will point to a few articles that caught my eye today. Firstly, a short piece on the new Scripps Institute in Florida that has this to say on longevity:

We live in a world devoted to biomedical progress. As medical science has helped civilized humanity overcome the more common life threatening diseases in history, we now must turn our efforts toward conquering the more difficult disease states. These include neurological, genetic and malignant diseases.

This phase of research will entail delving into the genetic code and molecular cell levels of disease. The rewards would be significant. Treatment for crippling diseases, birth defects, paralysis, cancer and organ transplants that are not rejected are on the horizon. These life-saving treatments will ultimately add greatly to our longevity. The human being, under the best of circumstances, could increase life span by 30 percent or more. The answers lie in biomolecular research.

Twenty years of healthy life extension seems to be percolating through the scientific community as a plausible figure for the near future, attained through better therapies for age-related disease and general improvements across the board in medicine. This ties in nicely to yesterday's topic, timescales of incidental versus directed anti-aging medicine. If we take aim at the roots of age-related disease rather than fighting the ultimate symptoms of aging, we could make far better progress.

On to the next article: CBS is running a profile of Denham Harman, originator of the free radical theory of aging.

In 1954, Harman developed what now is the most widely accepted theory on the aging process, known as the "Free Radical Theory of Aging." In simple terms, the theory says a byproduct of oxygen use is adverse chemical reactions in cells. The result is aging and, ultimately, death.

The theory initially was, Harman said, "pooh-poohed and ridiculed" by the medical community.

...

"There was a long lag between him saying this was important and others doing the research to prove it," Potter said. "The fact he was the original has been lost. There's no disagreement that he said it first. But he has been under-recognized."

Modest by nature, Harman has focused his energies on pressing for research that leads to the enhancement of life for seniors. He is driven by a quote by 18th century satirist Jonathan Swift, who wrote: "Every man desires to live long, but no one would be old."

Interestingly, he is not an advocate of healthy life extension; rather, he falls into the compression of morbidity camp - aiming not to extend life span, but simply reduce the period of ill health at the end. I suspect that we're going to find that any medical technology that can extend healthy life span will extend overall life span, as suggested by the reliability theory of aging. Compression of morbidity taken to its logical extreme implies that one would die in perfect health - which seems rather silly on the face of it.

Onwards to the last of the articles for today: news from research into Werner's syndrome, one of a family of conditions with symptoms that either are or resemble accelerated aging.

Scientists know Werner is caused by a dysfunctioning gene, but Hu's unique approach to the research has furthered their understanding. Hu created the first 3-D structure of the gene, which might show how to fix the dysfunctioning gene and enzymes. Control of the enzymes could lay the groundwork for finding a cure for Werner.

...

"Hu's research is not a direct panacea to understanding the aging process by itself, because the aging that patients with Werner experience differs from usual aging," Martin said. "However, Hu's structure will be very helpful and it will be nice to see how it relates to the aging process."

Hu plans to research other parts of the gene further in hopes of finding more significant answers that could lead to the cure for age-related diseases or reverse the aging process completely.

"If we can try to understand [Werner], we can understand the aging process in general," Hu said.

The study of accelerated aging conditions such as Werner's syndrome and Progeria has led to progress in understanding the biochemistry of normal aging. This is a good thing.

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