Biochemical Judo

Fight Aging!

Do you want to live a longer life in good health? Simple practices can make some difference, such as exercise or calorie restriction. But over the long haul all that really matters is progress in medicine: building new classes of therapy to repair and reverse the known root causes of aging. The sooner these treatments arrive, the more lives will be saved. Find out how to help »

Some of the best medical research today makes use of existing biochemical mechanisms and cellular systems within the body - let them do the heavy lifting for a therapy that is comparatively simple to put in place. Here is an example of the type from a study on rats published in the Journal of Thoracic and Cardiovascular Surgery: "Our data demonstrate that intravenously infused embryonic stem cell-derived cells homed to the [damaged] heart, improved cardiac function, and enhanced regional blood flow at 6 weeks after myocardial infarction. ... such a homing mechanism could be associated with locally released cytokines, such as tumor necrosis factor [alpha], that are upregulated in the setting of acute myocardial infarction and heart failure." Inject stem cells, get results - there are many hurdles (and years) between here and commercialized, reliable therapies of this sort, but I can think of worse goals to aim for.

Link: http://jtcs.ctsnetjournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/131/4/889