Lifeboat Foundation

Glossing over the fact ageing is a chronic decline in function won’t help with anything, let alone ending ageism.

At times, I think that I have written enough rejuvenation advocacy articles and that every time I write a new one, I’m just repeating myself. I sometimes say to myself that I’ve written about concerns and misconceptions from so many angles that I’ve probably exhausted all the options. However, from time to time, there comes the bittersweet reassurance that I’m not going to be out of a job any time soon.

The culprit

Continue reading “Sugarcoating aging won’t fight ageism” »

Investigators at Harvard Medical School have identified the key cellular mechanisms behind vascular aging and its effects on muscle health, and they have successfully reversed the process in animals.

The scientists used a chemical compound that’s an NAD+ booster called NMN which plays a critical role in repairing cellular DNA as well as maintaining cell vitality to test what would happen.

Could reversing the aging of blood vessels hold the key to restoring youthful vitality? If the old adage “you are as old as your arteries” reigns true then the answer is yes, at least in mice.

Continue reading “Harvard Rewinds the Biological Clock of Time” »

Today, we want to draw your attention to an open-access review that focuses on the role of senescent cells in sarcopenia, the age-related loss of muscle mass and strength that leads to frailty.

KANSAS CITY, MO — Researchers at the Stowers Institute for Medical Research have captured the one cell that is capable of regenerating an entire organism. For over a century, scientists have witnessed the effects of this cellular marvel, which enables creatures such as the planarian flatworm to perform death-defying feats like regrowing a severed head. But until recently, they lacked the tools necessary to target and track this cell, so they could watch it in action and discover its secrets.

Now, by pioneering a technique that combines genomics, single-cell analysis, flow cytometry and imaging, scientists have isolated this amazing regenerative cell – a subtype of the long-studied adult pluripotent stem cell – before it performs its remarkable act. The findings, published in the June 14, 2018, issue of the journal Cell, will likely propel biological studies on highly regenerative organisms like planarians and also inform regenerative medicine efforts for other organisms like humans that have less regenerative capacity.

“This is the first time that an adult pluripotent stem cell has been isolated prospectively,” says Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, Ph.D., an investigator at the Stowers Institute and Howard Hughes Medical Institute and senior author of the study. “Our finding essentially says that this is no longer an abstraction, that there truly is a cellular entity that can restore regenerative capacities to animals that have lost it and that such entity can now be purified alive and studied in detail.”

In case we needed more evidence that staying fit is good for you…

A study to be published in the Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease shows a correlation between low fitness, aortic stiffness, and the cognitive decline typically observed during brain aging [1].

Study abstract

Continue reading “Brain Aging Correlates with Aortic Stiffness and Low Fitness” »

July 12th sees us launch our first conference in New York City dedicated to the field of rejuvenation biotechnology, the science that seeks to end age-related diseases forever.

At the Frederick P. Rose Auditorium, Cooper Union in New York City, we will be hosting a special one-day conference focused on aging research and biotech investment. Developing therapies from initial concepts, through clinical testing, and ultimately to market takes a pipeline, and right now, that p…

Hypertension is an increasingly encountered condition in modern society, as sedentary lifestyles, poor diet, and other unhealthy lifestyle choices are becoming more prevalent.

The aging processes generally cause our blood pressure to rise, as they steadily clog our arteries, stiffen blood vessels, and cause our hearts to work harder to get blood to all our tissues. However, the rate at which this happens is subject to a great deal of variation, and diet and lifestyle are two big influences on this. At least initially, hypertension is frequently self-inflicted and something that we can reverse to a certain extent, as a new study shows.

Researchers have recently demonstrated that a program seeking to help people change their lifestyles through diet and exercise was almost as effective as some medications for reducing blood pressure.

The idea of “healthy ageing” is a contradiction in terms.

Suppose you read the following sentence in an article about company management: “This factor is central in achieving successful bankruptcy.” It sounds rather weird, doesn’t it? What if you read this about football team training? “Contrary to popular belief, it is possible to lose a game in a successful way.” These are so-called oxymorons—by Oxford’s definition, “figures of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction.”

The contradictory nature of the statements above is more than just apparent—bankruptcy is the exact opposite of “success” for a company, and the same goes for losing a game for a football team. One can get very creative with these: “a blockbuster fiasco”; “the façade of the building deteriorated nicely”; and so on. Examples closer to home would be “healthy aging” or “aging gracefully”.

Continue reading “Getting sick in a healthy way” »