A glimpse of the future... the solution to SS budget prob...

[zidane1strife]

http://edition.cnn.com/2003/HEALTH/08/25/longlife.molecule.reut/index.html

This looks promising...

Edit
Here's the most interesting portion of the article...

Sinclair and his team have been looking for what he calls the Holy Grail of aging research: molecules that activate the enzymes that in turn influence the genes that regulate aging.

Now, they say, they have found those molecules.

Sinclair's team partnered with BIOMOL, a Pennsylvania company, to screen thousands of molecules to see which ones might activate the enzymes.

Not only did they find a group of 18 molecules that fit the bill -- resveratrol being just one -- but all of them came from plants and were produced in response to harsh environmental conditions like drought.

"We think we know why these plants make these molecules. We think it's part of their own defense response, and we also believe that animals and fungi that live on the plants can pick up on these clues," he said.

 

[zidane1strife]

From another article...

But the findings strengthen an increasingly popular notion among many scientists that the cellular enzymes at the core of the experiments -- called sirtuins -- are universal regulators of aging in virtually all living organisms and represent a prime target for new anti-aging drugs.

Now I know many of you might say "so what if life is extended, even doubled", but that is not the point...

The point is that along with that your resistance to all forms of cancers, neurodegenerative diseases, muscle tissue loss, bone mass loss, is ridiculously increased.

I've heard of many studies of mice with human age equiv. of 80 having undistinguishable muscle mass to when they were hequiv 40yrs olds!!!

Rodents with human age equiv. of 100+ with their mental abilities as good as others with h.equiv. of 20yrs old.

Resistances to tons of diseases are equally boosted...

I've heard of 100yr old men who bike to their martial arts classes...

If these substances are capable of mimicking those effects by acting on the same mechanisms...

For years researchers have known that life span can be extended by 50 percent or more in many kinds of creatures, including flies, worms and mice, if the animal is fed a diet that is nutritious but contains about 30 percent fewer calories than usual. Recently scientists found that the life-extending benefits of calorie restriction do not occur if the animal has been genetically altered to lack sirtuins, indicating these enzymes are crucial to this process.

Research that's being conducted on primates is beginning to show similar results...

Human pop.s whose culture has brought about slightly lower cal intake and increased nutrition, have shown a glimpse of the future...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39677-2003Aug24.html

Readeth and beholdeth... the article also provides the spice of skeptics...
So it's quite interesting indeed, and shows both sides of the arg...

PS
It has been my belief for along time, that the real near-term power of genomic information, would be not gene-eng, but the discovery/creation of substances to alter gene expression...

Substances that would increase areas like brain perf, memory, phys res, longevity, etc... hmmm...

edited2

PS
My response to those skeptics would very well be... to look at this...

life-extending benefits of calorie restriction do not occur if the animal has been genetically altered to lack sirtuins, indicating these enzymes are crucial to this process.

 

[DemoCoder]

It will make the SS problem worse if the laws aren't changed. A worker who retires at 65, but lives to 150, will destroy the system much more quickly.

 

[K.I.L.E.R]

It will make the SS problem worse if the laws aren't changed. A worker who retires at 65, but lives to 150, will destroy the system much more quickly.

New laws will have to be introduced then eh?

 

[zidane1strife]

exactly.

 

[epicstruggle]

It will make the SS problem worse if the laws aren't changed. A worker who retires at 65, but lives to 150, will destroy the system much more quickly.

exactly what i was going to post when i read the first post.

later,

 

[zidane1strife]

The best results were seen with smaller amounts of resveratrol, at levels of 10 micromolars and 100 micromolars (a measurement of a substance's concentration in a solution). When the researchers upped the dosage to 500 micromolars, the yeast tended not to live any longer than the yeast in glucose only.

The concept that less resveratrol works better than more extends to humans, according to Sinclair. "A glass of any type of red wine should give you enough of the chemical resveratrol to potentially have the health benefits," he said. "I would hope that this work doesn't give people an excuse to drink excessive amounts of red wine."

Now from what I've googled the MW of this thing is 22X(either 225 or 228).
That means that 10micro moles(molar?) is about 2.2Xmg of resveratrol. A glass of the red wine with highest resveratrol gives you about 640micro grams of this stuff...

This is for a solution with yeast cells, now shouldn't the amount of wine necessary be significantly more than one glass(since it's less concentrated than what was used in the yeast and in addition it'll be significantly diluted in the body)?

So what's going on here?!?

 

[zidane1strife]

Well, found something that clears things up:

"A very broad range of doses were very effective in yeast. However, it was different with human cells.

"There appeared to be a very narrow range at the low end. If doses were too high they appeared to have the opposite effect," said Dr Howitz.