How Long Should You Expect To Live? Increasing numbers of people are making it into the triple digits. It's mostly a matter of lifestyle, but medical advances are also important.
Resources for Stem Cell Researchers CIRM = California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (California's Stem Cell Agency) This whole field of regenerative medicine is very interesting. Hopefully THREE BILLION DOLLARS in funding will result in some promising developments!
At CIRM, we never forget that we were created by the people of California to accelerate stem cell treatments to patients with unmet medical needs, and act with a sense of urgency commensurate with that mission. We are always seeking novel, high quality programs to built and enhance our robust portfolio. With $3 billion in funding and approximately 300 active stem cell programs in our portfolio, CIRM is the world’s largest institution dedicated to helping people by bringing the future of cellular medicine closer to reality.
Is this drug the first step to the fountain of youth? The drug being studied is called Rapamycin and it appears to slow the aging process. Human test subjects who took the drug experienced improved mental and immune system functioning and strengthening of skeletal muscles. Scientists say that in test animals lifespan was doubled or even tripled, but they speculate that in humans it is likely to simply extend healthspan and only increase lifespan marginally.
Scientists at the UT Medicine and Barshop Institute say recent advancements in pharmacology and genetics are bringing us closer to the fountain of youth.
Does a Real Anti-Aging Pill Already Exist? Here's a great article about the origins of rapamycin which also gets into studies which have been done on the drug. It was published last February, BTW.
Over the past decade, it’s shown promise as a drug that not only can extend life by delaying the onset of aging-related diseases such as cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s disease, but also postpone the effects of normal aging. With an eye toward changing the way millions grow older, Novartis, the $260 billion Swiss pharmaceutical giant, has begun taking the first steps to position a version of rapamycin as the first true anti-aging drug.
Eating Spicy Food Might Help You Cheat Death A Little Longer No cause and effect relationship is established by the study and so it could simply be that people in good health are more likely to eat spicy foods than others. That's a problem with correlational studies: They can be quite misleading.
According to the WikiPedia page on rapamycin, its actual name is sirolimus and it was approved by the FDA in 1999 and has a variety of uses. It has been shown to increase the lifespan of mice by about ten percent. This effect has been replicated in several studies. The downside is that rapamycin suppresses the immune system and so it must be taken in low doses if at all. So far no studies have shown that it has any effect on lifespan in humans.
Many Common Alzheimer's Risk Factors Are Controllable The information presented in this report suggests that there is a lot that can be done to prevent the most common form of dementia.
Anti-Aging Drug Could Let You Live to 120 Is seventy going to be the new fifty? Metformin is already readily available and cheap and so if it really has the hypothesized anti-aging effects in humans it may prove to be a veritable Fountain of Youth.
Metformin: This drug has been used with diabetic patients. So does this mean that some of these patients are living longer than others as a result of use of this drug? Metformin may help roundworms to live longer, but I doubt that the same effect will be observed in humans. And what about side-effects? There are always side-effects.