Lifeboat Foundation

The hematopoietic (blood-forming) stem cells (HSCs) residing in our bone marrow produce all of our blood cells, including key immune cells that protect us from bacteria and viruses. As we age, our HSCs become less efficient and less able to make healthy new blood cells. In a study published online today in Nature, researchers at Albert Einstein College of Medicine have found that this reduction in HSC efficiency is caused in part by the deterioration of chaperone-mediated autophagy (CMA), the housekeeping process that removes damaged proteins and other waste materials that interfere with cells’ ability to function.

“While the aging of HSCs in our bone marrow is inevitable, the good news is that it may be reversible,” said co-study leader Ana Maria Cuervo, M.D., Ph.D., professor of developmental and molecular biology, of anatomy and structural biology, and of medicine, and the Robert and Renée Belfer Chair for the Study of Neurodegenerative Diseases at Einstein. “Our studies in mice suggest that drugs we’ve developed at Einstein can activate CMA and potentially restore the vitality of HSCs in older people.”

“This is a fascinating study of gut microbiome in older adulthood,” wrote Barbara Bendlin from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. “While the investigators did not look at brain health or cognitive outcomes, it’s interesting to see that they found that healthy aging was accompanied by gut microbiomes that became increasingly more unique to each person starting in middle age. This type of divergence is also observed in brain aging.” (Full comment below.)

Past studies have shown that the gut microbiome undergoes rapid changes in the first three years of life, followed by a longer period of relative stability, then more change once again in later years (Yatsunenko et al., 2012; O’Toole and Jeffery, 2015). Research has also found that centenarians have fewer of the gut microbes commonly seen in younger, healthy people. Instead, they live with an increasingly rarefied microbiota (Kim et al., 2019). This suggests that gut microbiomes become increasingly personalized as people get older, but little is known about how these gut profiles affect the aging process or longevity.

To find out, first author Tomasz Wilmanski and colleagues analyzed gut microbiomes, personal traits, and clinical data from more than 9000 people 18 to 101 years old. They came from three independent cohorts. One was a group of 3653 people aged 18 to 87 who had signed up with Arivale, a now-defunct scientific wellness company co-founded by systems biology pioneer Leroy Hood and Price. Arivale provided personalized wellness coaching by collecting and analyzing data on participants’ genomes and other systems, including their gut microbiomes. Hood founded the Institute for Systems Biology.

Creating 200 billion-plus brand-new red blood cells a day can take a toll on a body. The capacity to replace components charged with the life-sustaining task of carrying oxygen eventually wears out with aging, resulting in health problems, from anemia to blood cancers.

What if we could halt the aging process and maintain young blood cells for life? With blood cells making up a whopping 90% of the body’s cells, it makes sense that keeping them abundant and fit could boost vitality into our golden years.

Now, a group of researchers, including experts at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, has discovered ways to do just that – keep the blood manufacturing process flowing. The work, recently published in the journal Nature, could open doors to everything from disease-preventive therapies to better blood banks.

Rapamycin is the drug used to suppress the immune system after organ transplants, but in reduced doses, it appears it may have other health benefits and as such is discussed considerably in the longevity community, and taken regularly my some very famous proponents.

So I thought I would give you some background, alongside the pros and cons, to see what all the fuss is about…

Continue reading “Rapamycin Anti Aging — Worth The Hype?” »

This enables scientists to determine an organism’s biological age with high precision. Get the details here.

Here’s my latest video!

Results for my first blood test in 2021 are in-what’s my biological age, and how am I optimizing it?

Continue reading “Quantifying Biological Age: Blood Test #1 in 2021” »

Summary: Meta-analysis reveals those who have visual impairments or are blind have a higher risk of mortality compared to peers with better vision. The study found mortality risk was 29% higher in those with mild visual impairment and rose to 89% higher for those with severe visual impairments.

Source: University of Michigan.

The global population is aging, and so are their eyes. In fact, the number of people with vision impairment and blindness is expected to more than double over the next 30 years.

Mr. — Chairman, Joseph P. Kennedy Enterprises — Our discussion starts out on U.S. food insecurity, but journeys into the topics of aging, as well as regeneration research at University of Chicago’s MBL.

A “food desert” is an area that has limited access to affordable and nutritious food, and the designation considers both the type and quality of food available, as well as the accessibility of the food through the size and proximity of the food stores.

Continue reading “Christopher Kennedy — Top Box Foods — Year Round Access To Nutritious Foods, In Food Insecure Areas” »

“An exciting outcome of this research is that it definitively shows the critical protective element at chromosome ends is the telomere DNA loop,” said Associate Professor Cesare.

“This likely explains why telomere length regulates ageing; cells must need long enough telomeres to make the DNA loops and this becomes difficult as cells age.”

Telomeres are the protective caps at chromosome ends. In adult cells, telomeres shorten each time a cell divides and this contributes to ageing and cancer. Pluripotent stem cells, however, are specialised cells that exist in the earliest days of development. These pluripotent cells do not age and have the ability to turn into any type of adult cell.

Continue reading “Unexpected discovery about stem cell immortality study” »