Lifeboat Foundation

NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide), a key metabolite central to an efficient and healthy metabolism, declines with age. This previously unexplained phenomena is associated with numerous age-related diseases and has spawned the development of many nutritional supplements aimed at restoring NAD+ to more youthful levels. Publishing in Nature Metabolism, researchers at the Buck Institute have identified chronic inflammation as a driver of NAD+ decline. They show that an increasing burden of senescent cells, which is also implicated in the aging process, causes the degradation of NAD via the activation of CD38 (cyclic ADP ribose hydrolase) a protein that is found on the cell membranes both inside and on the surface of many immune cells.

“We are very excited to link two phenomena which have been separately associated with aging and age-related disease,” said Eric Verdin, MD, Buck Institute President and CEO and senior author of the paper. “The fact that NAD+ decline and chronic inflammation are intertwined provides a more holistic, systemic approach to aging and the discovery of CD38 macrophages as the mediator of the link between the two gives us a new target for therapeutic interventions.”

AgelessRx claims that PEARL is the first nationwide telemedicine trial and one of the first large-scale intervention trials on Longevity. The human trial is a stepping stone to the way to bringing rapamycin to the Longevity market. PEARL (Participatory Evaluation of Aging with Rapamycin for Longevity) is a $600,000 trial with the University of California. They will evaluate the safety and effectiveness of rapamycin in 200 healthy adults for Longevity in double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled trial.

Interested patients will be screened for eligibility using telemedicine. Eligible patients include those aged 50–85 of any sex, any ethnicity, in relatively good health, with only well-managed, clinically stable chronic diseases.

TAME is a separate $75 million trial to clinically evaluate Metformin drugs for Longevity properties. TAME has a composite primary endpoint – of stroke, heart failure, dementia, myocardial infarction, cancer and death. Rather than attempting to cure one endpoint, it will look to delay the onset of any endpoint, extending the years in which subjects remain in good health – their healthspan. A $40 million donation has been combined with a $35 million NIH grant to fund the TAME trial.

Where do you typically go to get the most up-to-date news on anti-aging research studies?

I’ve been digging around and found some longevity journals and other resources but curious to know what else is out there.

One of the most-frequent questions prominent longevity experts get asked is, “How can I contribute?”

Continue reading “14 Best Anti-Aging Research Journals for 2021” »

– and Why We Don’t Have To — A conversation with David Sinclair.

David Andrew Sinclair AO is an Australian biologist who is a professor of genetics and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biology of Aging at Harvard Medical School.

Continue reading “Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To — A conversation with David Sinclair” »

https://media.blubrry.com/drjohnday/p/drjohnday.com/podcasts/Podcast217.mp3 Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadSubscribe: Apple Podcasts | Android | RSS6 Foods to Reverse Aging with Lithium Could a microscopic dose of the psychoactive drug lithium, which occurs naturally in mineral water and certain foods, actually be the secret to less heart disease, better moods, and a longer life? In this article, I share how eating six foods may reverse aging with lithium.

“In our current study we were able to uncover important limitations for the use of metformin as longevity medicine,” says Dr. Ermolaeva. In contrast to the positive longevity effects in young organisms that received metformin, lifespan is shortened through metformin intake at an older age. “Previous studies that provided evidence of an extended longevity by metformin usually examined animals treated with metformin from young adult or middle age until the end of life. In contrast, we have looked at treatment windows covering the entire life span, or restricted to early life or to late life”. The study also utilized a human cell culture model of replicative aging to assess human responses to metformin at a cellular level and compare them to organismal responses of the worms.

**Metformin longevity benefits are reversed with age**

The research team led by Dr. Ermolaeva found that the very same metformin treatment that prolonged life when C. elegans worms were treated at young age, was highly toxic when animals of old age were treated. Up to 80% of the population treated at old age were killed by metformin within the first 24 hours of treatment. Consistently, human primary cells demonstrated a progressive decrease in metformin tolerance as they approached replicative senescence. The researchers were able to link this detrimental phenotype to the reduced ability of old cells and old nematodes to adapt to metabolic stressors like metformin. Under these circumstances, the exact same dose of the drug that increased longevity of young-treated organisms by triggering adaptive stress responses was harmful in animals treated at old age, which were unable to activate such protective signals.

Continue reading “Age is decisive for positive or negative effects of the diabetes drug metformin” »

Aging link

~~~ “The telomere biology of humans is closer to the telomere biology of birds than those of traditional laboratory models. In both humans and birds, telomere length is measured in a minimally-invasive way from small blood samples,” says Collegium Researcher Antoine Stier from the University of Turku (Finland), the main author of the research article.

While authors of the study had reasons to expect shorter telomeres in chicks born from eggs injected with thyroid hormones, they were quite surprised to find that those chicks actually exhibited longer telomeres right after birth.” “Based on the natural decline of telomere length observed with age in the same collared flycatcher population, we estimated that chicks hatching from thyroid hormones injected eggs were approximately four years younger at birth than chicks hatched from control eggs,” adds Collegium Researcher Suvi Ruuskanen.

Continue reading “Born to be young? Prenatal thyroid hormones influence ‘biological age’ at birth” »

Here’s my latest video, “Longevity Genes: APOE”!

A reduced mortality risk and an increased lifespan has been reported for people who have APOE2 alleles, when compared with APOE3 or APOE4, but beyond associations, data for lifespan in APOE-expressing mice was recently reported, evidence that supports a causative role for APOE on longevity.

Summary: YTHDF2 is a key protein that assists in creating healthy blood cells by regulating the body’s inflammatory response.

Source: University of Edinburgh

The study is the first to reveal a protein that has a crucial role in protecting the blood’s stem cells, which continually produce all blood and immune cells needed in the body, from premature aging.