Category Archives: Longevity Medicine

A study revealed that anthocyanins found in berries can help lower blood pressure and thus, manage hypertension.

Hypertension is otherwise known as high blood pressure or tensing of the arteries due to high pressure build-up. These arteries enable the transportation of blood from the heart to all the major organs and tissues in our body.  There are multiple causes of hypertension, such as obesity, chronic renal failure, diabetes mellitus type 2, renal infarction and even pregnancy. The normal blood pressure is within the bounds of 120/80, blood pressure ranging to 139/89 is categorized as pre-hypertension, and blood pressure of 140/90 and above is placed on the high category.

Symptoms of hypertension includes chronic headaches that goes on for days, vertigo or dizziness, nausea, heart palpitations, double vision or blurry, drowsiness, general fatigue, shortness of breath, and buzzing in the ears commonly known as tinnitus.

Hypertension Management

A treatment for this specific ailment varies but the most efficient cure for hypertension is using a complex approach. It includes patient’s history, age, gravity of the condition, therapy schemes that will concentrate on the ailment’s precise cause. Hypertension curable and it all begins with prevention.  This consists of keeping a healthy weight and lifestyle by avoiding excessive intake of alcohol, smoking cessation, and eating a well-balanced diet and regular exercise. Long ago, hypertension can only be controlled through the use of medications – but not anymore.

More natural forms of treatments are currently being introduced in the market. A study indicates that anthocyanins, a type of flavonoid found in strawberries, blueberries, cherries, purple grapes as well as in vegetables such as purple cabbage and beets, is helpful in alleviating high blood pressure.  According to a research study done by scientists from the Harvard School of Public Health, Harvard Medical School and a UK based University of Anglia, multiple intake of anthocyanins reduces the dangers of hypertension by up to 12 percent. Hence, the most important advantage one can get from taking in foods that are rich in anthocyanin is the management of hypertension. Cardiovascular diseases (CVD) are a result of chronic hypertension, and it is known to causes half of Europe’s death, and at the same time tallying Europe’s economy expense around $202 billion per year.

Research Findings

For an average span of 14 years, Harvard’s Eric Rimm led the researchers in gathering data from various subjects, consisting of 133, 914 women, and 23,043 men. Flavonoids and other subcategories were analyzed using questionnaires regarding food frequencies and were distributed every 4 years. An accumulation of 5,629 and 29,018 documented cases of hypertension were tabulated in men and women, correspondingly.

When the figures were finally reported, the researchers discovered that the topmost average consumption that ranges from 16.2 to 12.0 milligrams daily was correlated to an 8 percent reduction to the dangers of hypertension. On the other hand, a 12 percent increase in lowering hypertension risk was tabulated among subjects with ages from 60 and above, as compared to the nethermost consumption of anthocyanins, ranging from 5.7 to 6.8.

While no other subcategories of flavonoids were related to high blood pressure, researchers however, observed that the compound apeginin was linked to a 5 percent decrease in risk. When the maximum and minimum levels of intakes were compared, researchers added that a 6 percent reduction in the dangers of hypertension was noted for subjects over the age of 60 that has the topmost average consumption of flavan-3-ol catechin.  Also an important finding was documented stating that the consumption of blueberries among people of the same age group lessened their risk of hypertension by up to 10 percent compared to those who did not consume any blueberries. Dr. Rimm and his colleagues wrote that the results reinforce the theory that antihypertensive biological activities may be applicable to the processes of vasodilation linked with a particular flavonoid physical attribute.

Key Elements

According to Dr. Rimm and his colleagues, there is an existence of vast flavonoid structural varieties, but the likelihood that it can lower the effects of blood pressure is inadequate with regards to its similar anatomical composites which include the catechol and 4’ hydroxy flavonoids.

In addition, the research findings implies that distinct categories of flavonoids are connected with lowering blood pressure especially anthocyanins.  The data is highly significant due to the fact that anthocyanins are commonly found in blueberries, strawberries, cranberries, fruits that are normally consumed and can be easily added to a person’s dietary needs. Researchers also added that blackcurrants, blood orange juice and blueberries have an additional 500 mg of anthocyanins.

The researchers added, that the fundamental biological process wherein flavonoids helps control blood pressure comprise the influence of flavonoids with regards to the vascular movement of blood, vascular reactivity, and the process of glucose uptake.

However, researchers from the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition states that the research needs additional thorough investigations, which will include intervention analysis to assess the ideal dosage of foods that are rich in anthocyanin that could prevent hypertension and reinforce the recommendation and remedy of hypertension.

Additional Information Regarding Flavonoids

Other than hypertension, anthocyanin, the flavonoid compound is also recognized by countless laboratory researches.

• Based on findings, anthocyanin is also potent in preventing cancer by delaying the development of pre-malignant cells, hastening apoptosis, which effectively kills cancer cells in a faster rate.
• It also helps in controlling inflammation by dampening allergic reactions.
• It also cancels out enzymes that damage the connective tissue and its antioxidant properties blocks oxidants from destroying connective tissue.  Furthermore, it repairs proteins that were damaged in the blood vessel wall.
• Anthocyanins, at the same time hinders abnormal protein production, a significant importance for diabetic patients, since profuse protein production may lead to retinopathy which takes place when the body tries to repair leaks from damage capillaries.
• Lastly, anthocyanins may help prevent brain damage. Since the human brain is highly vulnerable to damage by peroxynitrite nitration of tyrosine excess in proteins and enzymes causing neurodegenerative ailments and possible brain trauma. The nitrates impede receptor sites, hence stopping neural growth and restorative processes.  Anthocyanins’ job is to aid the brain by protecting it against neurological diseases.

Sources
madsci.org
medicinenet.com
nutraingredients.com
chiro.org
wrongdiagnosis.com
symptoms-of-hypertension.com
en.wikipedia.org

Discuss this post in Frank Mangano’s forum!

FIGHT AGING! NEWSLETTER
February 14th 2011

The Fight Aging! Newsletter is a weekly email containing news, opinions, and happenings for people interested in aging science and engineered longevity: making use of diet, lifestyle choices, technology, and proven medical advances to live healthy, longer lives. This newsletter is published under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license. In short, this means that you are encouraged to republish and rewrite it in any way you see fit, the only requirements being that you provide attribution and a link to Fight Aging!

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CONTENTS

- Welcome to the Fight Aging! Newsletter
- Three Clades
- A Mixed Batch of Regenerative Medicine News
- The Sirtuin Faction
- Linking Mitochondrial Dysfunction and Telomere Erosion

WELCOME TO THE FIGHT AGING! NEWSLETTER

The merge of Longevity Meme content into Fight Aging! is complete, the old Longevity Meme website is shut down, and the Longevity Meme Newsletter is now the Fight Aging! Newsletter. Hopefully this will be a seamless change for you all. Please note that the newsletter email address is now different, so if you were whitelisting the address in your email software to prevent spam filters from triggering, you will need to add it again.

THREE CLADES

Many different types of people talk seriously about aging and human longevity. Not all of them have useful viewpoints, and separating the wheat from the chaff is one of the challenges for any newcomer to the community. In the post linked below I paint – with overly-broad strokes – a division between optimists, pessimists, and fools:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/three-clades.php

“The optimists understand the promise of rejuvenation biotechnology – that we stand on the verge of being able to greatly extend the healthy human life span – while remaining aware of the challenges that lie ahead. It will require decades to get to where we’re going, but the goal of human agelessness can be attained if we put our shoulders to the wheel.

“A pessimist is dismissive of technological progress, either deliberately or through simply being one of those people who don’t spend a lot of time in the consideration of change. Their thoughts on aging are locked to the here and now, caught in the moment. While rigorous in their examination of what is, their projections of what will be are unreliable – their view of aging tomorrow is that it looks much the same as aging today.

“The optimistic fool believes some or all of the nonsense propagated by the ‘anti-aging’ marketplace, or has deluded himself into thinking that a silver bullet lies just around the corner, some combination of lifestyle and ingested substance if it could just be found. In reality he is only spinning his wheels, just like all who came before him.”

Nothing is ever clear cut, of course, and many folk in the community embody aspects of all three clades above, depending on the particular topic at hand. The outright fools are very vocal in this age of ours, however, and dominate many of the largest media channels.

A MIXED BATCH OF REGENERATIVE MEDICINE NEWS

There is always some new news from the large and active regenerative medicine scientific community. In the post linked below, you’ll find pointers to research in a number of important themes: tissue engineering of new organs, examining the ability of lower animals to regenerate limbs, the use of stem cells to build tissue that can be used to test new therapies, and the advanced state of progress in veterinary stem cell science:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/a-mixed-batch-of-regenerative-medicine-news-and-video.php

“This is the sort of research community we want to see for every field that might impact human aging and longevity: large, thriving, dynamic, and attracting plenty of attention and funding. The practical result is that we live in exciting times – organ regrowth is right around the corner, as is the prospect of meaningful repair or replacement of many types of aged tissue. Regenerative medicine is not a one-stop solution for all of aging, but it is one of the necessary pillars of the true rejuvenation biotechnology that will be developed in the decades to come.”

THE SIRTUIN FACTION

Sirtuin research is here for the long term, but I predict that it will be only a small part of that long term:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/the-sirtuin-faction.php

“By virtue of the fact that very large sums of venture capital, big pharma investment, and public funding have been sunk into the examination of sirtuins in connection with longevity in mammals, I think we’ll see a strong sirtuin research contingent in the scientific community for some years to come – and this regardless of the ultimate merits of this work. While there are promising signs that sirtuins may do something useful in terms of enhancing cellular housekeeping, after some years of research we have yet to see any of the promise of slowed aging that looked possible at the outset.

“Research and development always takes longer than expected, but at this point I look at research into sirtuins as an early step forward on a much longer road – a part of the foundations of some later work, and producing little of direct use in and of itself. The newer technologies and newer companies who work on the same strategy of slowing aging via identification of ways to manipulate metabolism will leap over the work of the last five years, producing a hundred-fold more genetic and biochemical data in the process. Biotechnology is advancing so rapidly that each generation of development is made obsolete before it even hits its stride.”

LINKING MITOCHONDRIAL DYSFUNCTION AND TELOMERE EROSION

Mitochondrial damage and shortening telomeres are two biochemical characteristics of aging implicated in numerous forms of disease and degeneration. Mitochondria are the cell’s powerplants, which can become sources of damaging reactive molecules when they start to fail, while telomeres are the caps that protect the ends of your DNA. These may be independent mechanisms, which have to be dealt with by separate future rejuvenation therapies, but in recent years evidence has surfaced to suggest that one may be secondary to the other. You can read some of the details in the following post:

http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/another-proposed-link-between-short-telomeres-and-dysfunctional-mitochondria.php

“From an economic perspective, we should all be hoping that some of our present candidates for the primary causes of aging turn out to be secondary effects – because then we don’t have to devote any time towards developing repair biotechnologies to fix them.”

As of the moment, there are viable theories for either short telomeres or damaged mitochondria to be the primary mechanism, and the other the secondary – or perhaps they both influence the other in a form of feedback loop. Biology is very complex, which is why – in the midst of research towards as as yet unreached conclusion – you can point to an array of data that are supportive of both A causing B and B causing A.

DISCUSSION

The highlights and headlines from the past week follow below. Remember – if you like this newsletter, the chances are that your friends will find it useful too. Forward it on, or post a copy to your favorite online communities. Encourage the people you know to pitch in and make a difference to the future of health and longevity!

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LATEST HEADLINES FROM FIGHT AGING!

A GOOD OP-ED ON AGING AND LONGEVITY
Friday, February 11, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/a-good-op-ed-on-aging-and-longevity.php
I’m always pleased to see more good writing on the topic of longevity science: “To extend our longevity, we’ll have to advance in stages. … With a healthy lifestyle and some luck (absence of accidents and natural disasters) we not only can increase our lifespan, we can increase the health in that lifespan and postpone debilitating illness to the very end of our life … To go beyond this achievable life extension, we need more advances in the basic sciences. Considering aging as a disease is new concept. It will take time before we accept this not just as wishful thinking but as a real possibility in our lifetime. The end of aging does not mean that we will never die; we will still die of other diseases, accidents, or natural disasters but no longer of aging itself. … Aging is not yet recognized as a disease. Some among us would like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to recognize it as a disease so that we could get funding for basic, translational, and clinical research on aging. … These changes will be implemented incrementally. The unprecedented biological and technological evolution we face today will be the driving force for social, economic, and even political changes. Working conditions will change significantly: retirement will be changed, people will no longer retire after a certain age, they will take time off from work every few years and then return to it afterwards. Our goal is not to reach immortality but to postpone and eventually prevent aging. For now and the immediate future we can change our lifestyle toward healthier living. This will buy us time so that we can survive long enough for the advances in basic sciences, which will be made in the next 15 to 20 years, helping us move to the next stage where aging will no longer be the biggest killer of our species.”

APOLOGISM FOR AGING IS ALIVE AND WELL
Friday, February 11, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/apologism-for-aging-is-alive-and-well.php
There is no shortage of people trying to convince us that degenerating into frailty, suffering, and death is a wonderful thing: “Mr Agronin is an optimist. He does not deny – how could he? – the sufferings and indignities of old age. Scanning slices of old brain, ’stained and prepped for the microscope’, his eye is unsparing: ‘the aged folds’ like ‘the withered meat of a walnut’, the blood vessels like ‘hardened tendrils’, the ’small plaques of toxic amyloid protein surrounded by a debris field of dead neurons’. But alongside the science, he sees something else: the people themselves. Old age, he says, has become our blind spot, neglected by the medical profession, lumped together with dementia and disease, something to be endured, dreaded, mercifully pre-empted, or even – as one researcher in the field, Aubrey de Grey, argues – reversed. Mr Agronin, by contrast, embraces it. He sees it as intrinsic to life, with its own ‘ways and meanings’, its particular wisdom. Even at its most tenuous and hollowed out, he finds some shape, a sense of cyclic pattern. In an almost mystical passage, inspired by his professor, Erik Erikson, a psychologist, Mr Agronin likens life to a stream which eventually seeps down unseen into the bedrock, and opens ‘like a flower into the aquifer below’.” From where I stand, there needs to be more of a healthy dread of aging – perhaps that would motivate more people to help develop the rejuvenation biotechnologies that can do something about it. To try to pretend that aging to death, suffering terribly along the way, is just peachy keen has an air of desperate madness to it.

IN 2045, THE END OF AGING?
Thursday, February 10, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/in-2045-the-end-of-aging.php
Time here looks at Ray Kurzweil’s timeline for the development of biotechnologies that can defeat aging: repair the old, remove biological damage, and eliminate frailty and age-related death. “The Singularity isn’t just an idea. it attracts people, and those people feel a bond with one another. Together they form a movement, a subculture; Kurzweil calls it a community. Once you decide to take the Singularity seriously, you will find that you have become part of a small but intense and globally distributed hive of like-minded thinkers known as Singularitarians. … At the 2010 summit, which took place in August in San Francisco, there were not just computer scientists but also psychologists, neuroscientists, nanotechnologists, molecular biologists, a specialist in wearable computers, a professor of emergency medicine, an expert on cognition in gray parrots and the professional magician and debunker James ‘the Amazing’ Randi. … After artificial intelligence, the most talked-about topic at the 2010 summit was life extension. Biological boundaries that most people think of as permanent and inevitable Singularitarians see as merely intractable but solvable problems. Death is one of them. Old age is an illness like any other, and what do you do with illnesses? You cure them. Like a lot of Singularitarian ideas, it sounds funny at first, but the closer you get to it, the less funny it seems. It’s not just wishful thinking; there’s actual science going on here. … People have begun to realize that the view of aging being something immutable – rather like the heat death of the universe – is simply ridiculous. It’s just childish. The human body is a machine that has a bunch of functions, and it accumulates various types of damage as a side effect of the normal function of the machine. Therefore in principal that damage can be repaired periodically. This is why we have vintage cars. It’s really just a matter of paying attention. The whole of medicine consists of messing about with what looks pretty inevitable until you figure out how to make it not inevitable.” I don’t see it as plausible that we’ll have everything in hand by 2045, but if we make a good start now, then we could have enough to put us into actuarial escape velocity – gaining life expectancy faster than we age, and thus able to wait for far better technologies that arrive later.

CHRONOSPHERE, A NEW CRYONICS BLOG
Thursday, February 10, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/chronosphere-a-new-cryonics-blog.php
The early posts at Chronosphere are well done and worth reading. The theme is a detailed and picture-strewn look at the history of cryonics, mixed in with considerations of our presently imperfect society and where it might be going next: “Chronosphere is your gateway to a fundamentally new way of living – in pursuit of physical immortality in a world of our own making – free from the tyranny of time, and the burden of injustice. Chronosphere will explore and create interfaces with the scientific, technological, social and moral resources needed to achieve these ends. Because we are all at risk of dying, cryonics will be a central focus of Chronosphere for the foreseeable future, but will be by no means be the only technology explored here. Interventive gerontology, with a strong emphasis on immediate, or very near term interventions to slow cognitive aging, will also be explored in detail. Join us on our quest to transcend the limits of time!”

THE HUMBLE OLM AND THE FREE RADICAL THEORY OF AGING
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/the-humble-olm-and-the-free-radical-theory-of-aging.php
You might recall that the olm (Proteus anguinus) is a type of small salamander that lives as long as we do. Here researchers point out that olm life span is inconvenient for some theories of aging: “Recent work on a small European cave salamander (Proteus anguinus) has revealed that it has exceptional longevity, yet it appears to have unexceptional defences against oxidative damage. This paper comes at the end of a string of other studies that are calling into question the free-radical damage theory of ageing. This theory rose to prominence in the 1990s as the dominant theory for why we age and die. Despite substantial correlative evidence to support it, studies in the last five years have raised doubts over its importance. In particular, these include studies of mice with the major antioxidant genes knocked out (both singly and in combination), which show the expected elevation in oxidative damage but no impact on lifespan. Combined, these findings raise fundamental questions over whether the free-radical damage theory remains useful for understanding the ageing process, and variation in lifespan and life histories.” Yet there are still the studies demonstrating extended life span through targeting antioxidants to mitochondria, which imply that at least so far as those cellular structures are concerned, oxidative damage is very important. It may be that the olm, like naked mole rats, has mitochondria that are highly resistant to damage in comparison to other species.

TOXIC PROTEIN ACCUMULATION AND DRY MACULAR DEGENERATION
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/toxic-protein-accumulation-and-dry-macular-degeneration.php
A fair chunk of degenerative aging is caused by the accumulation of various kinds of damaging biochemicals, and here dry macular degeneration is added to that list: “A team of researchers, led by University of Kentucky ophthalmologist Dr. Jayakrishna Ambati, has discovered a molecular mechanism implicated in geographic atrophy, the major cause of untreatable blindness in the industrialized world. … Concurrent with this discovery, Ambati’s laboratory developed two promising therapies for the prevention of the condition. … Geographic atrophy, a condition causing the death of cells in the retina, occurs in the later stages of the ‘dry type’ of macular degeneration, a disease affecting some 10 million older Americans and causing blindness in over 1 million. There is currently no effective treatment for geographic atrophy, as its cause is unknown. Ambati’s team discovered that an accumulation of a toxic type of RNA, called Alu RNA, causes retinal cells to die in patients with geographic atrophy. In a healthy eye, a ‘Dicer’ enzyme degrades the Alu RNA particles. … We discovered that in patients with geographic atrophy, there is a dramatic reduction of the Dicer enzyme in the retina. When the levels of Dicer decline, the control system is short-circuited and too much Alu RNA accumulates. This leads to death of the retina. … Alu elements make up a surprisingly large portion – about 11 percent by weight – of the human genome, comprising more than 1 million sequences. However, their function has been unknown, so they have been called ‘junk’ DNA or part of the ‘dark’ genome. The discovery of Alu’s toxicity and its control by Dicer should prove of great interest to other researchers in the biological sciences … Ambati’s team developed two potential therapies aimed at preventing geographic atrophy and demonstrated the efficacy of both approaches using laboratory models. The first involves increasing Dicer levels in the retina by ‘over-expressing’ the enzyme. The second involves blocking Alu RNA using an ‘anti-sense’ drug that binds and degrades this toxic substance. … Ambati’s group is preparing to start clinical trials by the end of this year.”

A LOOK AT THE INSTITUTE FOR BIONANOTECHNOLOGY IN MEDICINE
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/a-look-at-the-institute-for-bionanotechnology-in-medicine.php
From Fast Company: “The mice in the video flickering on his colleague’s computer screen were moving their legs. Their back feet trailed behind them from time to time, but the fact that they were walking at all was astounding. Only a few weeks earlier, they’d been paralyzed from the waist down. Then Stupp’s team at Northwestern University injected them with made-to-order molecules. Now the mice were trying to run around their cage. … Those mice were the first living glimpse of the future that Stupp is hoping to accelerate in his role as the director of the Institute for BioNanotechnology in Medicine at Northwestern. It’s a future in which molecular self-assembly – where researchers direct molecules to spontaneously combine into ordered structures – will help the body heal itself. … It wasn’t until 1995 that one of his nanotechnology experiments steered him onto an entirely new scientific course. He was trying to make molecules called rodcoils line up side by side to create a large polymer sheet with one side shiny and the other sticky, properties that might make the sheet useful for industrial applications. But something unexpected happened. Instead of forming a single thin membrane, the rodcoils coalesced into trillions of tiny individual structures that looked like mushrooms. Stupp initially wrote off the result as a failure, but he quickly realized that the mushroom-shaped nanoparticles might have a host of advantages. … What if he could inject the nanomolecules into the bloodstream so they could serve as microscopic vehicles to deliver therapeutic compounds? Even better, what if he could modify the nanomolecules so that they would attract the body’s own healing compounds to an injured area, kick-starting the repair process without introducing any foreign cells at all? The ‘mushroom’ paper Stupp published in 1997 attracted lots of attention, and Northwestern lured the rising star to its materials-science program in 1999. The very next year, Stupp founded IBNAM, the lab he hoped would bring his interdisciplinary ideas to fruition.”

LIFESTYLE MORE IMPORTANT THAN GENES TO NATURAL LONGEVITY
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/lifestyle-more-important-than-genes-to-natural-longevity.php
Another confirmation that your natural longevity is more a matter of your choices than the luck of the draw: “It is often assumed that people with parents who lived to be very old are more likely to live to a grand old age themselves. ‘But that’s just not true – our study shows that hereditary factors don’t play a major role and that lifestyle has the biggest impact,’ says professor emeritus Lars Wilhelmsen, referring to the 1913 Men study that formed the basis of the current research. Those who did not smoke, consumed moderate amounts of coffee and had a good socio-economic status at the age of 50 (measured in terms of housing costs), as well as good physical working capacity at the age of 54 and low cholesterol at 50 had the greatest chance of celebrating their 90th birthday. … We’re breaking new ground here. Many of these factors have previously been identified as playing a role in cardiovascular disease, but here we are showing for the first time that they are important for survival in general. The study clearly shows that we can influence several of the factors that decide how old we get. … The 1913 Men epidemiological study started up in 1963. A third of all male 50-year-olds in Gothenburg were called for a check-up that focused on cardiovascular health. Every ten years since, a new group of 50-year-olds has been called in and those who were already taking part in the study have been given another check-up. This has enabled researchers to follow the development of illnesses in a specific age group, and to compare the health of 50-year-olds in 2003 with that of 50-year-olds in 1963, for example.” The choices you make become even more important when we consider the prospects for future medical technology: are you helping to bring about the rejuvenation biotechnology that will extend all healthy human lives, or are you merely sitting on the sidelines and hoping?

STEM CELLS FORM NEW SKIN RAPIDLY WHEN SPRAYED ON
Monday, February 7, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/stem-cells-form-new-skin-rapidly-when-sprayed-on.php
Here is an example of the way in which advances in delivery methodology can greatly improve an existing therapy: “Doctors have invented a revolutionary skin spray-gun that heals severe burns within days. The spray-gun which fires stem cells on to the damaged skin has already been used successfully on a dozen patients. Rather than sheets of skin being laboriously grown over a period of a month and applied to the patient, stem cells are harvested from a small patch of healthy skin, put into a solution and sprayed back on to the affected area. The process takes only 90 minutes [and] burns can heal in as little as four days. It eliminates a major flaw of existing burns treatment, the time taken to grow new layers of skin in the lab, during which time patients can die from infection. … the process involved isolating stem cells from a healthy patch of the patient’s skin, putting those cells in a water solution, and then spraying the mixture back on. After being sprayed, the patient’s wound is covered with a special dressing that provides glucose, sugar, amino acids, antibiotics and electroytes to the treated area, to provide nutrition and clean the wound until the stem cells get established. … For Matthew Uram, a police officer from Pennsylvania, the radical technical has already saved his skin. Last July he received severe burns to his face, neck, shoulder, arm and hand after someone threw a cup of petrol on to a bonfire at a party. His hand looked like a ‘charred piece of meat’, he said. Quickly taken to hospital, he was offered the chance to be one of the first patients to benefit from the skin gun. … They did it on a Friday, and my follow up was that Monday and the burns unit said it was completely healed.”

ENGINEERED CELLS, PROGRAMMABLE CELL THERAPIES
Monday, February 7, 2011
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/02/engineered-cells-programmable-cell-therapies.php
A look at what might be accomplished in the years ahead: “In work that could jumpstart the promising field of cell therapy, in which cells are transplanted into the body to treat a variety of diseases and tissue defects, researchers [have] engineered cells that could solve one of the key challenges associated with the procedure: control of the cells and their microenvironment following transplantation. … the team reports creating tiny internal depots within human mesenchymal adult stem cells, which among other functions are key to the generation of several tissues. These depots can slowly release a variety of agents to influence the behavior of not only the cells containing the depots, but also those close to them and even much farther away. The team demonstrated this by prompting mesenchymal stem cells to differentiate into the cells that make bone. … This work could allow programmable cell therapies where the cell or the agent is the therapeutic. For example, depots containing specific agents could enhance cell survival or expression of a particular growth factor. Cells could also be used as a delivery vehicle to shuttle drugs to target tissues that may be useful to accelerate tissue regeneration, or to deliver chemotherapeutics to tumors while minimizing systemic side effects. … Ten to fifteen years from now, people will visit cell infusion centers to receive routine therapy for multiple diseases and tissue defects. … For example, a person who has had a heart attack could be infused with cells that could help stimulate regeneration of new heart cells to replace those that have died and prevent eventual heart failure.”

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There’s always something interesting in the news when it comes to progress in regenerative medicine and tissue engineering. This is the sort of research community we want to see for every field that might impact human aging and longevity: large, thriving, dynamic, and attracting plenty of attention and funding. The practical result is that we live in exciting times – organ regrowth is right around the corner, as is the prospect of meaningful repair or replacement of many types of aged tissue. Regenerative medicine is not a one-stop solution for all of aging, but it is one of the necessary pillars of the true rejuvenation biotechnology that will be developed in the decades to come.

Here are a few articles that caught my eye of late; the mainstream media seems to be picking up the level of attention they are giving to the cutting edge of regenerative medicine these days.

Seeing local scientists at heart of regenerative medicine

In one lab, a surgeon builds a pink, pulsing heart, cell by cell. In another, a researcher literally sprays new skin onto severely burned patients. Elsewhere, a scientist re-creates the delicate folds of the ear – on the back of a mouse. Sound like science fiction? It already is science: Researchers in Boston and beyond are building everything from blood vessels to internal organs, using engineering tricks and dome-like bioreactors. Tonight, in ‘How to Build a Beating Heart,’ National Geographic Explorer investigates those efforts to transform human health, revealing the pulse-quickeningly cool side of regenerative medicine.

Building body parts: Saving lives, salamander style

If an injured salamander can grow a new limb, why can’t a human? Maybe they can, say researchers at the Armed Forces Institute of Regenerative Medicine. Starting with stem cells from patient’s bodies, scientists at this Wake Forest University facility have grown 22 different types of tissues and organs. Lives are being saved and more amazing successes are on the way.

Skin cells help to develop possible heart defect treatment in first-of-its-kind Stanford study

Using skin cells from young patients who have a severe genetic heart defect, Stanford University School of Medicine scientists have generated beating heart cells that carry the same genetic mutation. The newly created human heart cells – cardiomyocytes – allowed the researchers for the first time to examine and characterize the disorder at the cellular level. … the investigators also report their identification of a promising drug to reverse the heart malfunction – for which there are currently no decent treatments – after using these newly created heart cells to check the effects of a plethora of compounds.

College of Veterinary Medicine to perform an animal stem cell first

The first animal stem cell procedure in Oregon done entirely in a veterinary facility is scheduled for Thursday at the Oregon State University College of Veterinary Medicine. The procedure will be performed on Basco (pronounced “Bosco”), a 7-year-old German Shepherd suffering from osteoarthritis in his left rear hip. … Fat tissue is removed from the animal, the stem cells are separated and activated, and then injected into the affected area. Within three to four weeks of the procedure, Basco should be moving well, with little or no pain, Medi-Vet predicted.

Veterinary medicine is far ahead in its application of first generation stem cell therapies; if you’re a human in need of the same sort of treatment, you’ll have to leave the US to find it. The principle effect of heavy US regulations on medical development is to ensure that working, beneficial, reasonably safe treatments take a very long time to come to the clinic and are very expensive when they arrive. Fortunately the FDA can’t do anything about the competitive service providers and medical research and development groups in other parts of the world. Thus, absent a sea change in the state of regulation in the US, medical tourism will be a part of all our futures, and we will benefit greatly from the fact that at least some parts of the world are not as shackled and held back by a full-on command economy medical system.

A new study from South Korea revealed lycopene’s potential in promoting heart health by protecting the body against damage in the DNA and in enhancing the body’s antioxidant defenses.

A recent study conducted by researchers from South Korea revealed that daily supplementation of about 15 milligrams of lycopene for a period of eight weeks helps lower systolic blood pressure and reduces inflammatory processes related to cardiovascular events while simultaneously increasing the activity of a potent antioxidant that helps to reduce DNA damage that occurs in white blood cells.  The results of the study are found in the Atherosclerosis journal.

Yonsei University, South Korea’s Jong Ho Lee, the study’s lead researcher, along with his colleagues, enrolled 126 healthy men to participate in the study.  The average age was set at 34 and average BMI was at 24 kg/m2.  The participants were then randomly assigned in one of the three groups:  one group received 6 milligrams of lycopene supplements each day for eight weeks, another group was given 15 milligrams of lycopene supplements daily for the same period, while the other group received placebo treatment.

Results showed that SOD (super oxide dismutase) activity rose by 2.37 units/ml in the group that received 15 milligrams lycopene supplements while those who received 6 milligrams lycopene supplements only experienced a 1.73 units/ml increase. The group who receive placebo supplements exhibited decreased SOD activity.  SOD is a potent antioxidant that helps combat oxidative damage brought about by free radical activity.

The Other Health Benefits of Lycopene

Studies have shown the benefits of lycopene consumption especially when it comes to promoting a healthy prostate, heart skin, bones and blood pressure levels.  Because of this, lycopene is now being used in various products such as supplement, beverages and even beauty products. As a matter of fact, according to Mintel’s database of global new products, there were about 500 lycopene-based products that were launched between the year 2003 and 2009.

Aside from the health benefits mentioned above, here are more amazing benefits that lycopene can do for you:

1. Lycopene is best known for reducing the risk of some types of cancer such as those of the prostate, breast, cervix, and the lungs. Its antioxidant property helps in neutralizing the activity of free radicals which has been tagged as the cause of most diseases that plague the human body.
2. It can also lessen sun damage to the skin by about 35%.Even just a single cup of tomatoes on a daily basis can already counteract the ill-effects of the free radicals that are given off by the UVB and UVA rays of the sun. If you want to get higher amounts of beneficial lycopene from it, it is advised that you cook the tomatoes first since heat can liberate a greater amount of lycopene from the hard cell membranes of the plant.
3. It can improve and make your skin look better and it also helps in purifying your blood. This in turn can help in lessening the number of pimples on your face.
4. Studies have also suggested that regular lycopene consumption can be of great benefit to people with high cholesterol levels, or those with atherosclerosis.
5. Ongoing studies are also being conducted as to lycopene’s role in the prevention of conditions such as cancers of the urinary tract, stomach, skin, pharynx, pancreas, ovaries, larynx and esophagus.  Others include rheumatoid arthritis, respiratory infection, periodontal diseases, Parkinson’s disease, pancreatitis, melanoma, mesothelioma, diabetes mellitus, cataracts and AIDS.  However, further studies are needed in order to truly establish lycopene’s role in reducing a person’s risk of these conditions.

Sources of Lycopene

Cooking can release lycopene from a lot of plants. But the most popular food sources that you can get a great amount of lycopene from would be ketchup, tomato sauce, tomato paste and the canned tomatoes – more so if it is from the organic kind. Here are some of the other major sources of lycopene aside from the tomatoes:

• A cup of carrot juice
• Four asparagus spears, cooked
• A cup of baked beans
• Tablespoon of salsa
• A cup of raw watermelon
• A cup of marinara sauce
• A cup of vegetable beef soup

Natural Ways to Ensure a Healthy Heart

Aside from lycopene intake, there are a lot of other ways to ensure a healthy heart.  Your diet, physical activity and lifestyle could influence not just your heart’s health, but your overall health as well.  So I just cannot anymore emphasize the importance of living healthy.  Here are some natural ways which you can easily do to show that you love your heart, and your life:

• Get sufficient sleep. When you lack sleep, you are most likely to develop high blood pressure.  This is according to the hypertension report published in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Sleep normally allows your heart to take things easy and let your blood pressure drop significantly after a stressful day has passed. Furthermore, sleep gives your body the rest that it needs and allows your body to recover and heal from damage caused by physical, emotional and environmental factors.
• Eat more vegetables and fruits. Fruits and vegetables play a huge role in supplying your body and heart with considerable amount of vitamins, minerals and important nutrients that can protect your cells from possible damage caused by free radicals which are touted to be one of the major causes of heart failure.
• Go easy on your coffee intake. Yes, coffee has been said to contain antioxidants but it is also very important that you limit caffeine intake since too much would reverse its effects. Its effects won’t enable you to sleep which, again, is very important to the body.
• Lessen your salt intake. By doing this, you can cut down the risk of heart disease by 40% according to the studies made by the Department of Health. You must always opt for foods that are low processed and make it to only consume about five to six grams of a salt each day – and make sure it’s organic salt.
• Get enough folic acid. According to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, sufficient amounts of folic acid within the body helps to maintain healthy blood pressure levels. This, in turn, can also lead to a better heart condition for you to enjoy for the rest of your life.

Sources
nutraingredients.com
hubpages.com
dietbites.com
guardian.co.uk

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A study published in an issue of Cell Metabolism revealed that researchers found that the consumption of spinach can increase the performance of the power house of the cells, the mitochondria.

A team of researchers observed how doses of inorganic nitrate can improve a person’s muscle performance. They gathered a group of healthy people and asked them to take in specific amounts of inorganic nitrate.  This lasted for a period of three days and researchers then observed how their oxygen consumption responded to the change in diet. The results of the study were published in the science journal Cell Metabolism. But despite the promising results, the researchers said that they are not recommending the intake of inorganic nitrate food supplements basing on the results of their study alone. They added that they are recommending the consumption of natural sources like green vegetables and fruits to obtain the health benefit of nitrate.

Head researcher from the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, Eddie Weitzberg, said that the dosage of nitrate which they used in the study is equivalent to that contained in a small spinach plate and three red beets. He added that the consumption of more vegetables and fruits can help reduce the risk of developing diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But it is unclear which nutrients in these natural food sources are responsible for producing the effects. The researchers are looking at inorganic nitrate as one of the strongest candidate.

Nitrate: Under the Magnifying Glass

The nutritional value of nitrate is not well established compared to other well-studied nutrients. Other people are considering nitrate as a toxic substance that may produce adverse effects to the body in high amounts. But the researchers found that nitrate can be beneficial to the body by acting as a co-producer of nitric oxide assisted by good bacteria present in the mouth. Nitric oxide had been found by decades of scientific research to be beneficial in opening up the blood vessels, lower blood pressure and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease.

The Swedish researchers found another health advantage of nitrate and its resulting nitric oxide. The mitochondria is responsible for providing power to the cells. But levels of protein decreases in the process of increasing its efficiency which in turn makes the mitochondria become leaky. Weitzberg said that the mitochondria is not fully efficient in normal circumstances and added that no machine is.

The study showed that the increase intake of nitrate through diet can have an immediate effect to the body by increasing the efficiency of the mitochondria. But researchers are still finding a way to determine the long term effects of eating inorganic nitrate to people. Weitzberg said that their next study will focus on observing the effects of inorganic nitrate to people with health conditions concerning the mitochondria like mitochondrial dysfunction, cardiovascular disease and diabetes.

The researchers concluded that other studies had been consistent in saying that eating fruits and vegetables can have positive effects to the body like the prevention of certain diseases like diabetes and cardiovascular disease. But despite this, they added that the mechanisms responsible for producing these effects are still not for certain. Weitzberg also said that certain organisms in the mouth need to be present in order to fully take advantage of the health benefits of nitrate; the use of strong mouthwashes can kill these microorganisms and may prevent the production of the nitric oxide in the body.

Health Benefits of Eating Spinach

Spinach is an epic vegetable with tons of health benefits but which is dreaded by most kids. It has more nutrients than any other vegetable and is very available throughout the year; but it has the best flavor during its season which runs from September to October. The vegetable belongs to the family of beets and Swiss chard and has a similar taste with the other vegetables in its group. Spinach has a distinctive mild and sweet taste which makes it perfect for making salads, but the taste becomes more robust and acidic once cooked. The three types of Spinach available in the market are baby spinach ideal for salads, smooth-leaf and savoy.

The Anti-Cancer and Anti-Inflammatory Health Benefits of Spinach

Studies had found that spinach has more flavonoid content than other vegetables. Researchers had identified more than a dozen favonoids in spinach which are effective in reducing cellular inflammation and the risk of developing certain types of cancer. The evidences indicating that the potential antioxidant value of spinach is strong enough for research to extract these compounds for controlled laboratory studies. And they found that the compounds are effective in reducing the cell division rate of human stomach cancer cells.

Studies using laboratory animals also showed that the extracts can inhibit the growth of skin pappilomas or skin cancer cells. In addition, a related study found that women with higher intake of spinach have lower risk and incidence of breast cancer than women who ate less of the jade green vegetable.

Spinach is also a good source of carotenoids and other antioxidants like vitamin E, beta-carotene, manganese, vitamin C and zinc that have been found to inhibit inflammation and reduce cancer risk. The peptides in spinach can also lower blood pressure and help in treating and lowering the risk of certain diseases like atherosclerosis and other blood-vessel related problems.

Two other important and powerful antioxidants can also be found in spinach. These are zeaxanthin and lutein which can naturally be found in certain areas of the eye like the macula and retina. Though there hasn’t been any large scale study which investigated the effects of lutein and zeaxanthin in preventing eye problems like macular degeneration, studies have found that the consumption of spinach can increase the concentration of lutein in the blood.

Spinach for Bone Health

A cup of boiled spinach contains around 100 percent more of the body’s daily requirement of vitamin K; this nutrient is essential in preventing the excessive activation of osteoclasts which are responsible for breaking down the bones. In addition to this, vitamin K reacts with certain microorganisms in the stomach to produce vitamin K2 which is an important component in the production of more osteocalcin in the bones. Osteocalcin helps in storing more calcium in the bones to make it stronger. There’s a reason why Popeye always had a can of spinach with him.

Sources
eurekalert.org
whfoods.com
spinachwords.com
buzzle.com

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A study conducted by a team of researchers from London found that drinking cherry juice rich in polyphenols can boost recovery after exercise.

The body experiences a series of interconnected metabolic processes during exercise. You will begin to notice heavier and faster breathing, faster heart rate and your muscles will begin to heat up and feel sore. This is the body’s natural response to mild and extreme physical activities, and this can intensify to higher levels depending on the intensity of the physical activity. Exercise demands different systems in the body to respond according to the increased demand for energy. Body heat, breathing and blood circulation will be affected.

Different forms of exercise call for the action of specific muscle groups. Other more strenuous forms of exercise may require the use of multiple muscle groups. But in any case, exercise means muscle activity. The muscles will demand other systems in the body to respond and produce energy. Each system in the body will either work more, work less or focus on muscle activity. The heart, for example will start beating faster to speed up the circulation of blood and energy throughout the body while the stomach temporarily slows down in digesting food in order to channel more energy into the muscles.

Adenosine triphosphate, or ATP, is an essential biochemical fuel needed by the body to supply the muscles with energy. ATP needs to be burned in order for it to be transformed into usable energy. And this process will require oxygen, the elimination of metabolic wastes like lactic acid and carbon dioxide which are produced in the process, and the omission of heat out of the body.

After about 30 minutes to an hour of exercise, the body is tired and exhausted. And recovery is needed before doing the same routine all over again. The body will need at least 24 to 48 hours of recovery for muscle and tissue repair, especially when weight lifting. There are natural techniques to hasten and improve recovery after performing an exercise. A study conducted by a team of researchers from London found that the simple habit of drinking cherry juice can help the muscles recover faster.

Cherry Juice for Faster and Better Recovery

Researchers from London found that cherry juice can boost the muscle recovery after strenuous exercise. Previous studies had reported that the antioxidants in cherries can help the body overcome the oxidative damage caused by exercise. The study, conducted from the London South Bank University Sports and Exercise Science Research Center, focused and looked at the antioxidant property of cherry juice and its potential in hastening muscle recovery.

The study was published in the Medicine and Science in Sports Exercise. The researchers observed that people who were subjected to a week of drinking a certain branded cherry juice after a series of intensive exercise routines can help speed up recovery time and create better results compared to those who consumed control beverage. The cherry juice used in the study was from Montmerency beverage company. Lead researcher, Dr Joanna Bowtell, said that Montmorency cherry juice can improve the recovery of isometric muscles after exercise due to its strong antioxidant property.

A related study published in the Journal of Nutrition reported that the consumption of at least 45 cherries in a day can reduce the circulation of inflammatory markers in the body. This is due to the anthocyanin and flavonoid content of cherries, the researchers said. Reducing the amount of inflammatory compounds in the body can help reduce the muscle damage caused by exercise and lessen recovery time.

The researchers gathered a group of 10 competitive weight lifters to participate in the study and divided them in half. The first group was asked to drink cherry juice 7 days before and 2 weeks after a series of single leg knee extensions. The second group was subjected to the same process but with fruit concentrate in place of the cherry juice. At the end of the study, the researchers found that the recovery of the first group was faster than that of the control group but there was no noticeable difference between their energy production.

The industry of food nutrition in North America costs around $3.2 billion while Western Europe accounts for $713.6 billion of the industry. Researchers and sports scientists are continuously on the lookout for better ways of improving the performance of athletes by creating new exercise programs and products that promote better and faster recovery. But for individuals who simply want to improve their performance and enjoy a healthy life, there are several natural ways of hastening recovery time without spending too much.

Natural Ways to Speed Up Recovery after Exercise

The body needs time to recover. The length of time needed for the muscles to repair may vary depending on the intensity of the exercise. Resting between exercise days will not only let the body perform its natural recovery process but this will also help avoid injuries in the future. So make it a point to get enough sleep and sufficient nutrition after each exercise.

Stretching is not only needed before doing any form of physical activity, but stretching after each exercise can also help the muscles recover faster. Moving around or maintaining the same exercise but at a lower intensity for a few minutes will help remove lactic acid from the body. Lactic acid substances are produced in the combustion of ATP and may result to muscle stiffness.

Get enough nutrients from the food you eat and replace lost fluids. During exercise, the body makes use of available and stored energy. Refueling by eating the right kinds of food will help the body recover better and faster. Drinking a lot of fluids during and after exercise is also recommended to avoid dehydration, promote the flow of nutrients and support certain metabolic processes.

Taking an alternation of cold and hot baths a few hours after heavy exercise will help in alleviating muscle soreness and prevent injury. Contrast water therapy will help get rid of waste products faster by repeatedly dilating and constricting the blood vessels. Some athletes alternate 30 seconds of cold water with 2 minutes of hot water for four times with a short rest in between.

The key to faster recovery is using an exercise routine that allows time for recovery. Over-training without sufficient rest may only defeat the purpose of exercising.

Sources
nutraingredients.com
sportsmedicine.about.com
health.howstuffworks.com

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