The modern age of antibiotics didn't do a great deal to combat the inexorable processes that contribute to tooth decay and gum disease, as it things turned out. One might have thought so at the outset: bacteria in the mouth are causing issues, we're developing all sorts of enormously improved methods of killing bacteria, ergo tooth decay and commonplace gum disease like gingivitis and should soon be a thing of the past. Alas not so, however - nothing is straightforward in the world of medicine. As one consideration, many of the hundreds of bacterial species in the mouth are actually beneficial.

In recent years, there has been some progress towards more sophisticated solutions. These include methods of sabotaging key mechanisms in problem bacterial species so as to leave other bacteria unharmed, or of targeting bacteria by their surface chemistry or other markers. For example:

• The End of Tooth Decay Looms Large
• The Possibility of Eliminating Tooth Decay
• Progress Towards Cavity Vaccines

I noticed another line of work in this field; here researchers are sabotaging the progression of gum inflammation caused by bacteria:

Penn-Led Research Suggests a New Strategy to Prevent or Halt Periodontal Disease

Porphyromonas gingivalis, the bacterium responsible for many cases of periodontitis, acts to "hijack" a receptor on white blood cells called C5aR. The receptor is part of the complement system, a component of the immune system that helps clear infection but can trigger damaging inflammation if improperly controlled. By hijacking C5aR, P. gingivalis subverts the complement system and handicaps immune cells, rendering them less able to clear infection from the gum tissue. As a result, numbers of P. gingivalis and other microbes rise and create severe inflammation. According to a study published [last year], mice bred to lack C5aR did not develop periodontitis.

[The] researchers synthesized and administered a molecule that blocks the activity of C5aR, to see if it could prevent periodontitis from developing. They gave this receptor "antagonist," known as C5aRA, to mice that were then infected with P. gingivalis. The C5aRA injections were able to stave off inflammation to a large extent, reducing inflammatory molecules by 80 percent compared to a control, and completely stopping bone loss. And when the mice were given the antagonist two weeks after being infected with P. gingivalis, the treatment was still effective, reducing signs of inflammation by 70 percent and inhibiting nearly 70 percent of periodontal bone loss.

I suspect that the next generation will very rarely visit dentists, as much of the need for regular dental services will be removed by products based on this and similar sorts of research.

Source:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/12/at-some-point-soon-mouth-bacteria-will-be-defeated.php

Recommendation and review posted by Fredricko

Researchers have found a number of potential ways to spur growth of muscle tissue, and some of these might be used in attempts to fend off the loss of muscle mass and strength that occurs with aging - not by fixing the root causes, but by trying to compensate through another mechanism. Here is a recent example:

The protein is an isoform, or slight variant, of PGC-1 alpha, an important regulatory of body metabolism that is turned on by forms of exercise, such as running, that increase muscular endurance rather than size. [A rise in] PGC-1 alpha-4 with exercise increases activity of a protein called IGF1 (insulin-like growth factor 1), which facilitates muscle growth. At the same time, PGC-1 alpha-4 also represses another protein, myostatin, which normally restricts muscle growth. In effect, PGC-1 alpha-4 presses the accelerator and removes the brake to enable exercised muscles to gain mass and strength.

Several experiments demonstrated the muscle-enhancing effects of the novel protein. The investigators used virus carriers to insert PGC-1 alpha-4 into the leg muscle of mice and found that within several days their muscle fibers were 60 percent bigger compared to untreated mice. They also engineered mice to have more PGC-1 alpha-4 in their muscles than normal mice who were not exercising. Tests showed that the treated mice were 20 percent stronger and more resistant to fatigue than the controls; in addition, they were leaner than their normal counterparts.

Link: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121206121728.htm

Source:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/12/pgc-1-alpha-4-spurs-muscle-growth.php

Recommendation and review posted by Fredricko

It should be noted that, on balance, everything except physical health becomes better with age. Outside of degenerative aging, becoming older is so good that people are driven to apologism for the fact that aging cripples and kills them - they conflate being old and being aged, seeing two very different things as one, and a certain confusion arises after that point.

Consider how much better it will be to be older once we start being able to treat the root causes of the degenerative medical condition called aging. If you're not there yet, consider just how good being older must be in order for people to be able to say they are well off even while their health is crumbling:

The SAGE study included adults between the ages of 50 and 99 years, with a mean age of just over 77 years. In addition to measures which assessed rates of chronic disease and disability, the survey looked at more subjective criteria such as social engagement and participants' self-assessment of their overall health.

Participants were asked to rate the extent to which they thought they had "successfully aged," using a 10-point scale and using their own concept of the term. The study found that people with low physical functioning but high resilience, had self-ratings of successful aging similar to those of physical healthy people with low resilience. Likewise, the self-ratings of individuals with low physical functioning but no or minimal depression had scores comparable to those of physically healthy people with moderate to severe depression.

"It was clear to us that, even in the midst of physical or cognitive decline, individuals in our study reported feeling that their well-being had improved with age."

Link: http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2012-12/uoc--poa120312.php

Source:
http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/12/being-older-is-very-positive-being-aged-is-not.php

Recommendation and review posted by Fredricko