An enourmous problem with the life extension movement is that very little movement is taking place! I have read since the days of Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw the cliche that we are doubling our knowledge every year and that in a few short years we will be so knowledgable that aging will be a thing of the past.
The reality is that in the almost 20 years that I have been involved in the research and practical application of life-extenstion technologies I have seen very slow progress. With the exception of caloric restriction, we have gained few interventions that might (and that is a painfully truthful word) do us some good. Selenium and perhaps some other nutrients will be of use, but the picture is far from clear and the studies on the scale and the magnitude needed to confirm the assessment of these supplements have not been conducted. Don't bother to post zillions of citations from MEDLINE. I've read zillions of studies from MEDLINE posted here and dug up on my own. Unfortunately they aren't on a scale or focused on the information the life extension community needs to assess them.
So what is the prognosis for the patient (in the case of Durk Pearson and Sandy Shaw) not good. The last time I saw Durk at a life extension convention he looked terrible and that was 8 years ago. Don't get me wrong I love Durk and Sandy I've owned every book they wrote, subscribed to there news letter, and found there citations and evidence to sometimes be a little bit lacking, but they did manage to get the who idea in the public eye. Roy Walford, died a couple of years ago from ALS and Durk isn't far behind if looks and the occasional rumour of prostate cancer is correct. As for the readers of this message, if your in your 20's your have hope, if your in your 40's caloric restriction might save you, if your in you 60's and beyond maybe ALCOR will saw off your head and freeze it if your lucky.
This is not a good situation and one that doesn't speak to the doubling of knowledge to brush aside the simple problem of aging.
So what are we to do? My first suggestion is that we need to form a lobbying group. There is no voice in Congress and other countries pushing for the basic research we need conducted.
My second suggestion, that has come from years of struggling with caloric restriction, is that we need to form social relationships among the practioners of Caloric Restriction that will help us support each other. You know when I first started the caloric restriction mailing list years ago. I know your shocked, you probably thought Brian Delaney started it, but that is very inaccurate. Go back to the earliest archives of the list. You'll see that Brian didn't start the mailing list that eventually grew into the CR Society, I did. You'll see it in the first thousand emails or so that were exchanged that I am the lists creator not Brian Delaney (Brian did eventually take over the mailing list from me and go on to build a web page and call it the CR Society), but I started it. Anyway, the point is that I started this list for a reason, I knew from my own personal experience that it is very hard to practice Caloric Restriction (CR) in everyday life. Matter fact it is next to impossible to practice it and win over the long term. A little know fact that is often overlooked in the CR Society posting.
Don't believe me? How many of the original 100 or so CR Society members are still practicing CR. My best guess is that 2 or 3 if that. I read a little while ago that Brian had given up (I'm sure that was a short term thing brought on by the fact that you'll tend to find that women aren't very supportive or attracted to guys who are as thin as thin can be). I hope that his relationships with Lisa Walford will lead to some sort of long term relationship that will place him in a sphere of support where he can revisit CR in a more determined fashion. But the point is that I realized years and years ago that CR is very difficult to practice and will really only work if you have a social network to conduct it in, hence the mailing list.
But after about a year with the mailing list I realized that two things were being overlooked, a focus on cutting edge research that would answer basic questions and an understanding of the importance of a social reason and environment to conduct CR in. Yes debating the merits of brocolli vs carrots is importance, but winning the game is far more important.
If we are going to progress. I think we need two things a voice for our cause so that funds are devoted to it i.e. a lobbying group would be a good place to start, and place to call home. Not the home that we have here on the net, but an organization and social structure to support us in our journey.
In closing let me relate to you the last conversation I had with Roy L Walford and perhaps you might glean how large the stakes are of what we are discussing here today. I read Roy's first great work "Maximim Life Span" almost 20 years ago. It was a pivotal work that introduced to me to Caloric Restriction. Unfortunately, it didn't really give you any idea of how to implement it. I went on a crash caloric restriction diet and to the lowest body weight levels I have ever been at as an adult, wafer wafer thin. Then several years later while I struggled with a working implementation of CR Roy came out with his ground breaking book "The 120 Year Diet". A great work that helped with understanding how to implement CR. I then had the good fortune to meet Roy a couple of times at an Anti-Aging conference in Las Vegas. Where I got the idea to form a CR society mailing list to keep people in contact after discussing things with Roy (Roy of course didn't want to be a involved as he didn't want it to be his mailing list, rather a true society). This caused me to lose contact with Roy for a considerable period of time. Well many years after that I heard that Roy had ALS on the net. I was saddened, and I decided to look him up in the phone book and give him a call to let him know that someone cared about him. During the course of the brief conversation I relayed to Roy that his work would live on after him and that could take some solace in the fact that I and others like me heard and understood the significance of Caloric Restriction and what he had written about it. Well Roy tried to put a bright spin on it and told me "It's not all that bad", they really had overblown it in the media. One year later Roy L Walford was dead, and it really was all that bad.
Life extension is alive and well. Calorie restriction was the first phase of LE. Nutritional therapy is the second phase of LE. Gene therapy is the future third phase of LE. Nanotechnology is the future forth phase of LE.
M5 wrote: > An enourmous problem with the life extension movement is that very > little movement is taking place! I have read since the days of Durk > Pearson and Sandy Shaw the cliche that we are doubling our knowledge > every year and that in a few short years we will be so knowledgable > that aging will be a thing of the past.
> The reality is that in the almost 20 years that I have been involved in > the research and practical application of life-extenstion technologies > I have seen very slow progress. With the exception of caloric > restriction, we have gained few interventions that might (and that is a > painfully truthful word) do us some good. Selenium and perhaps some > other nutrients will be of use, but the picture is far from clear and > the studies on the scale and the magnitude needed to confirm the > assessment of these supplements have not been conducted. Don't bother > to post zillions of citations from MEDLINE. I've read zillions of > studies from MEDLINE posted here and dug up on my own. Unfortunately > they aren't on a scale or focused on the information the life extension > community needs to assess them.
> So what is the prognosis for the patient (in the case of Durk Pearson > and Sandy Shaw) not good. The last time I saw Durk at a life extension > convention he looked terrible and that was 8 years ago. Don't get me > wrong I love Durk and Sandy I've owned every book they wrote, > subscribed to there news letter, and found there citations and evidence > to sometimes be a little bit lacking, but they did manage to get the > who idea in the public eye. Roy Walford, died a couple of years ago > from ALS and Durk isn't far behind if looks and the occasional rumour > of prostate cancer is correct. As for the readers of this message, if > your in your 20's your have hope, if your in your 40's caloric > restriction might save you, if your in you 60's and beyond maybe ALCOR > will saw off your head and freeze it if your lucky.
> This is not a good situation and one that doesn't speak to the doubling > of knowledge to brush aside the simple problem of aging.
> So what are we to do? My first suggestion is that we need to form a > lobbying group. There is no voice in Congress and other countries > pushing for the basic research we need conducted.
> My second suggestion, that has come from years of struggling with > caloric restriction, is that we need to form social relationships among > the practioners of Caloric Restriction that will help us support each > other. You know when I first started the caloric restriction mailing > list years ago. I know your shocked, you probably thought Brian > Delaney started it, but that is very inaccurate. Go back to the > earliest archives of the list. You'll see that Brian didn't start the > mailing list that eventually grew into the CR Society, I did. You'll > see it in the first thousand emails or so that were exchanged that I > am the lists creator not Brian Delaney (Brian did eventually take over > the mailing list from me and go on to build a web page and call it the > CR Society), but I started it. Anyway, the point is that I started > this list for a reason, I knew from my own personal experience that it > is very hard to practice Caloric Restriction (CR) in everyday life. > Matter fact it is next to impossible to practice it and win over the > long term. A little know fact that is often overlooked in the CR > Society posting.
> Don't believe me? How many of the original 100 or so CR Society > members are still practicing CR. My best guess is that 2 or 3 if that. > I read a little while ago that Brian had given up (I'm sure that was a > short term thing brought on by the fact that you'll tend to find that > women aren't very supportive or attracted to guys who are as thin as > thin can be). I hope that his relationships with Lisa Walford will > lead to some sort of long term relationship that will place him in a > sphere of support where he can revisit CR in a more determined fashion. > But the point is that I realized years and years ago that CR is very > difficult to practice and will really only work if you have a social > network to conduct it in, hence the mailing list.
> But after about a year with the mailing list I realized that two things > were being overlooked, a focus on cutting edge research that would > answer basic questions and an understanding of the importance of a > social reason and environment to conduct CR in. Yes debating the > merits of brocolli vs carrots is importance, but winning the game is > far more important.
> If we are going to progress. I think we need two things a voice for our > cause so that funds are devoted to it i.e. a lobbying group would be a > good place to start, and place to call home. Not the home that we have > here on the net, but an organization and social structure to support us > in our journey.
> In closing let me relate to you the last conversation I had with Roy L > Walford and perhaps you might glean how large the stakes are of what we > are discussing here today. I read Roy's first great work "Maximim Life > Span" almost 20 years ago. It was a pivotal work that introduced to me > to Caloric Restriction. Unfortunately, it didn't really give you any > idea of how to implement it. I went on a crash caloric restriction > diet and to the lowest body weight levels I have ever been at as an > adult, wafer wafer thin. Then several years later while I struggled > with a working implementation of CR Roy came out with his ground > breaking book "The 120 Year Diet". A great work that helped with > understanding how to implement CR. I then had the good fortune to meet > Roy a couple of times at an Anti-Aging conference in Las Vegas. Where > I got the idea to form a CR society mailing list to keep people in > contact after discussing things with Roy (Roy of course didn't want to > be a involved as he didn't want it to be his mailing list, rather a > true society). This caused me to lose contact with Roy for a > considerable period of time. Well many years after that I heard that > Roy had ALS on the net. I was saddened, and I decided to look him up > in the phone book and give him a call to let him know that someone > cared about him. During the course of the brief conversation I relayed > to Roy that his work would live on after him and that could take some > solace in the fact that I and others like me heard and understood the > significance of Caloric Restriction and what he had written about it. > Well Roy tried to put a bright spin on it and told me "It's not all > that bad", they really had overblown it in the media. One year later > Roy L Walford was dead, and it really was all that bad.
> Steve M > WR-2731
Good points, but not too surprising when you consider how little progress has been made against cancer, even over 30 years after the "war on cancer" was announced and substantial increases in funding became available. I've always wondered why the big pharmaceutical companies aren't putting more effort into what would be a truly enormous market.
> Good points, but not too surprising when you consider how little > progress has been made against cancer, even over 30 years after the "war > on cancer" was announced and substantial increases in funding became > available. I've always wondered why the big pharmaceutical companies > aren't putting more effort into what would be a truly enormous market.
See:
Mechanisms of Ageing and Development 76 (1994) 201-214 Arthur R. Robinson*, Arnold Hunsberger, Fred C. Westall Suppression of squamous cell carcinoma in hairless mice by dietary nutrient variation PMID: 7885065
Hi M5, If you're as widely read as you claim, I would guess you're the type of person with rigid beliefs, unaffected by new information. Such people naturally see little movement. Possibly I'm the opposite type who sees legitimate movement in every new paper I uncritically read. A gullible mind, or strong desire to live can easily lead thru wishful thinking to inappropriate acceptance of spurilous progess. We know each other's opinions. Here are some facts: 1. Rich Orientals living in the NE of the USA live on average to 90, Japenese women live to 89. 2. Men who take certain common antioxidants, including vit C have the same plasma redox levels as women and seven uncontradicted randomized, placebo controlled, gold standard, intervention trials show them to live as long. Only one gave mortality results, the others showed coronary benefits. 3. Epidemiology shows at least a ten year increase in lifespan compared to the average for certain groups with good life styles. 4. Certain peptides have reduced mortality by 75% in a large intervention trial, the only one done on them. This promises a 15 year life extension. 5. Epidemiology shows a 90% reduction of cancer and coronary mortality for people with proper lifestyles, who get good, regular, preventative exams. These data seem to me to give a healthy 60 year old life extensionist much better than a 50-50 chance to reach 90. 90% of centenarians die of heart or respiratory disease. Today artificial lungs are in use in China, and artificial hearts are just around the corner in the USA. IMO these and other advances give today's 60 year old life extensionist a fine chance to reach 110 without other breakthroughs. That's fifty years from now. No one can say what his chances will be at that time. So get back in line and keep in step. We may reach the promised land, we may get reaped by the grim one. Play the cards you're dealt as well as you can. A lack of confidence in new technology could be cause of the failure of many.
Hi Dr. Zarkov, The reason they don't put more is they are already putting every possible dime into the development of new medicines. All drug companies do this because it is their ONLY source of income. It's what keeps them solvent. All other expenditures are necessary to exploit their successful previous efforts, and as overhead these are understandably minimized. Slow progress on cancer? Sure. The dragons are tuffer than thought. Four guided arrows have been developed and have had good success in slaying four of them. Others are under development. Hold your horses, eat your fruggies, get your check ups, and cross your fingers.
Hi, $Date 2002 Adv Gerontol. 2002;10:74-84. [Geroprotective effect of thymalin and epithalamin] [Article in Russian] Khavinson VKh, Morozov VG. St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology, 3, Dynamo Prospect, 197110, St. Petersburg, Russia. khavin...@gerontology.ru Researchers of the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology of the North-Western Branch of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences and the Research Institute of Gerontology of the Ukrainian Academy of Medical Sciences (Kiev) clinically assessed the geroprotective effects of thymic and epiphyseal peptide bioregulators (Thymalin and Epithalamin, correspondingly) in 266 elderly and older persons during 6-8 years (the bioregulators were applied for the first 2-3 years of observation). The obtained results convincingly confirmed the ability of the bioregulators to normalize the basic functions of the human organism, i.e. to improve the indices of the cardiovascular, endocrine, immune, and nervous systems, homeostasis, and metabolism. The restoration of homeostasis in the patients was accompanied by a 2.0-2.4-fold decrease in acute respiratory disease incidence, reduced incidence ischemic heart disease clinical manifestations, hypertension, deforming osteoarthrosis, and osteoporosis, as compared to the control group. Such a significant improvement in the somatic state of the peptide-treated patients corresponded to a decrease in their mortality rate during the observation period: 2.0-2.1-fold among the Thymalin-treated patients, 1.6-1.8-fold--in the Epithalamin-treated group, and 2.5-fold--in the patients treated with Thymalin combined with Epithalamin, as compared to the control group. A separate group of patients was treated with Thymalin combined with Epithalamin annually for 6 years. We registered a 4.1-fold mortality decrease in this group as compared to the control level. The results of our research confirmed the conclusion on the high geroprotective efficacy of Thymalin and Epithalamin and the expediency of their application in medicine and social care as the means of health maintenance and age-related pathology prevention in persons over 60 years old enabling the prolongation of the active period of their lives. PMID: 12577695 (This gave them the same mortality rate as people fifteen years younger)
> Has anyone heard of the benefits of Monavie and the Acai Berry,
it was listed as the number 1 food by Dr. Perricone for extending life and the antioxidant ORAC level is 673. you should go to http://www.monavieflorida.com and click on the Acai Berry button at the top.
M5 wrote: > An enourmous problem with the life extension movement is that very > little movement is taking place! I have read since the days of Durk > Pearson and Sandy Shaw the cliche that we are doubling our knowledge > every year and that in a few short years we will be so knowledgable > that aging will be a thing of the past.
> The reality is that in the almost 20 years that I have been involved in > the research and practical application of life-extenstion technologies > I have seen very slow progress. With the exception of caloric > restriction, we have gained few interventions that might (and that is a > painfully truthful word) do us some good. Selenium and perhaps some > other nutrients will be of use, but the picture is far from clear and > the studies on the scale and the magnitude needed to confirm the > assessment of these supplements have not been conducted. Don't bother > to post zillions of citations from MEDLINE. I've read zillions of > studies from MEDLINE posted here and dug up on my own. Unfortunately > they aren't on a scale or focused on the information the life extension > community needs to assess them.
> So what is the prognosis for the patient (in the case of Durk Pearson > and Sandy Shaw) not good. The last time I saw Durk at a life extension > convention he looked terrible and that was 8 years ago. Don't get me > wrong I love Durk and Sandy I've owned every book they wrote, > subscribed to there news letter, and found there citations and evidence > to sometimes be a little bit lacking, but they did manage to get the > who idea in the public eye. Roy Walford, died a couple of years ago > from ALS and Durk isn't far behind if looks and the occasional rumour > of prostate cancer is correct. As for the readers of this message, if > your in your 20's your have hope, if your in your 40's caloric > restriction might save you, if your in you 60's and beyond maybe ALCOR > will saw off your head and freeze it if your lucky.
> This is not a good situation and one that doesn't speak to the doubling > of knowledge to brush aside the simple problem of aging.
> So what are we to do? My first suggestion is that we need to form a > lobbying group. There is no voice in Congress and other countries > pushing for the basic research we need conducted.
> My second suggestion, that has come from years of struggling with > caloric restriction, is that we need to form social relationships among > the practioners of Caloric Restriction that will help us support each > other. You know when I first started the caloric restriction mailing > list years ago. I know your shocked, you probably thought Brian > Delaney started it, but that is very inaccurate. Go back to the > earliest archives of the list. You'll see that Brian didn't start the > mailing list that eventually grew into the CR Society, I did. You'll > see it in the first thousand emails or so that were exchanged that I > am the lists creator not Brian Delaney (Brian did eventually take over > the mailing list from me and go on to build a web page and call it the > CR Society), but I started it. Anyway, the point is that I started > this list for a reason, I knew from my own personal experience that it > is very hard to practice Caloric Restriction (CR) in everyday life. > Matter fact it is next to impossible to practice it and win over the > long term. A little know fact that is often overlooked in the CR > Society posting.
> Don't believe me? How many of the original 100 or so CR Society > members are still practicing CR. My best guess is that 2 or 3 if that. > I read a little while ago that Brian had given up (I'm sure that was a > short term thing brought on by the fact that you'll tend to find that > women aren't very supportive or attracted to guys who are as thin as > thin can be). I hope that his relationships with Lisa Walford will > lead to some sort of long term relationship that will place him in a > sphere of support where he can revisit CR in a more determined fashion. > But the point is that I realized years and years ago that CR is very > difficult to practice and will really only work if you have a social > network to conduct it in, hence the mailing list.
> But after about a year with the mailing list I realized that two things > were being overlooked, a focus on cutting edge research that would > answer basic questions and an understanding of the importance of a > social reason and environment to conduct CR in. Yes debating the > merits of brocolli vs carrots is importance, but winning the game is > far more important.
> If we are going to progress. I think we need two things a voice for our > cause so that funds are devoted to it i.e. a lobbying group would be a > good place to start, and place to call home. Not the home that we have > here on the net, but an organization and social structure to support us > in our journey.
> In closing let me relate to you the last conversation I had with Roy L > Walford and perhaps you might glean how large the stakes are of what we > are discussing here today. I read Roy's first great work "Maximim Life > Span" almost 20 years ago. It was a pivotal work that introduced to me > to Caloric Restriction. Unfortunately, it didn't really give you any > idea of how to implement it. I went on a crash caloric restriction > diet and to the lowest body weight levels I have ever been at as an > adult, wafer wafer thin. Then several years later while I struggled > with a working implementation of CR Roy came out with his ground > breaking book "The 120 Year Diet". A great work that helped with > understanding how to implement CR. I then had the good fortune to meet > Roy a couple of times at an Anti-Aging conference in Las Vegas. Where > I got the idea to form a CR society mailing list to keep people in > contact after discussing things with Roy (Roy of course didn't want to > be a involved as he didn't want it to be his mailing list, rather a > true society). This caused me to lose contact with Roy for a > considerable period of time. Well many years after that I heard that > Roy had ALS on the net. I was saddened, and I decided to look him up > in the phone book and give him a call to let him know that someone > cared about him. During the course of the brief conversation I relayed > to Roy that his work would live on after him and that could take some > solace in the fact that I and others like me heard and understood the > significance of Caloric Restriction and what he had written about it. > Well Roy tried to put a bright spin on it and told me "It's not all > that bad", they really had overblown it in the media. One year later > Roy L Walford was dead, and it really was all that bad.
