We continue to grow as an organization and in readership, but the fight against aging is far from over. Here’s what’s been done in February.
Lifespan.io News
Team and activities
Our Organization Grows to Support Rejuvenation Research: Spring is not far away here in the Northern Hemisphere, and with it, the signs of life and new growth are appearing. Much like the change of seasons, our organization is also growing and preparing to continue the fight against age-related diseases.
As part of making our longevity knowledge hubs even better, we are adding interactive data visualizations. On What is the Average Life Expectancy Worldwide?, we added a brand new interactive chart that shows the averages of both lifespan and healthspan for most countries in the world. On What is the Average Life Expectancy in America?, the first interactive map shows the US counties and states and the life expectancy associated with each. The second shows life expectancy and healthy life expectancy in the US.
Our knowledge hubs are a great resource for people interested in longevity and the biology of aging that will always be 100% free.
Lifespan News
Gene Therapy Extends Mouse Lifespan: Emmett Short explains a recent study discussing a gene therapy that has allowed mice to express reprogramming factors. Cellular reprogramming is one of the hottest topics in longevity science right now. In fact, billions of dollars are flowing into this technology and companies like Altos Labs.
Wrinkle Vaccine: This episode features a way to deliver collagen-producing mRNA through extracellular vesicles, and this has been shown to reduce wrinkles and eliminate signs of skin aging in mice.
NMN and Breast Cancer: Emmett Short talks about a new study that discusses the well-known NAD+ precursor NMN as a potential treatment for triple negative breast cancer, a variant that is exceptionally difficult to treat.
Gene Therapy for Regeneration: Emmett Short discusses how gene therapy might be able to give people real regenerative abilities akin to zebrafish. Some animals, like zebrafish, can regenerate their body, their brain, retina, spinal cords, heart, and other complex tissues.
NAD+ and Heart Failure: This episode focuses on how a compound known as Kdm8 is critical in getting NAD+ to heart muscles and preventing dilated cardiac myopathy, a form of heart disease.
Interviews
Meet hack-age, Winners of the January 2023 LongHack: On January 22nd, hack-age won the 2023 LongHack competition, which carried a grand prize of 5,500 VITA and 3,500 USD. Lifespan.io caught up with the team behind the winning project to learn more about their idea and their experience competing in the hackathon.
Chris Mirabile on the NOVOS Approach: With multiple experts on its scientific advisory board, NOVOS offers supplements containing ingredients that recent research has linked to longevity. This company also markets biological age tests for people who want to monitor their progress. We spoke with NOVOS founder and CEO Chris Mirabile about the company’s ideology and approach.
Ending Atherosclerosis: Cyclarity and Dr. Matthew O’Connor: Cyclarity Therapeutics is striving to make powerful treatments for cardiovascular disease and, most importantly, make them accessible and affordable. Their cutting-edge cyclodextrin technology targets atherosclerosis, aiming to eliminate the buildup of non-degradable oxidized cholesterol that gets stuck inside cells in the arterial walls.
Rejuvenation Roundup Podcast
Ryan O’Shea of Future Grind hosts this month’s podcast, showcasing the events and research discussed here.
Journal Club
mRNA-Encapsulating Extracellular Vesicles for Collagen: The Journal Club, hosted by Dr. Oliver Medvedik, returned to the Lifespan.io Facebook page at 12:00 on Tuesday, February 28th. This month, we covered a recent paper that showed a method of restoring youthful collagen production in aged skin.
Advocacy and Analysis
Is Increasing Human Lifespan Unnatural?: Whenever the topic of any possible increased healthy longevity through science is discussed, a common objection to developing the technology is that it is unnatural. This argument usually arises during discussions of therapies that directly address the various processes of aging, and it is important to understand their basis and the reasons behind this line of thought.
Reviewing David Sinclair’s First Lifespan Book: David Sinclair, PhD, esteemed molecular geneticist at Harvard, believes that aging is a disease that should be attacked at its roots. Furthermore, he believes if we are to make efficient and sensible use our medical resources, we must move away from the “whack-a-mole” approach to treating individual age-related diseases.
Research Roundup
Ultrasound Rejuvenates Senescent Cells Through Autophagy: In a preprint paper, researchers have shown that low-frequency ultrasound treatment decreases senescence and improves the physical performance of aged mice.
A Light-Sensitive Drug to Remove Senescent Cells: Research published in Nature Aging has shown that a photosensitive senolytic drug can be used to selectively remove senescent cells, slowing functional organ aging in mice.
Senolytic Improves Metabolism in Mice: Scientists have shown that the popular senolytic combination of dasatinib and quercetin improves glucose tolerance and fasting blood glucose levels in aged mice.
Diagnosing Alzheimer’s in the Near Infrared: In Nature Biomedical Engineering, a team of researchers has published an innovative method of making tau tangles and amyloid beta visible in the near infrared, allowing doctors and researchers to see through bone with relatively simple equipment.
Retroviruses Contribute to the Spread of Cellular Senescence: Scientists have found that the remnants of the ancient retrovirus family HERVK, which reside in our genome, are transcribed more frequently in aged cells. This is caused by cellular senescence and accelerates it, including in the neighboring cells, when those are infected by retroviral particles.
Viral Exposure Might Increase the Risk of Neurodegeneration: In a paper published in Neuron, researchers have shown an association between exposure to various viruses and an increased risk of several neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases.
Extracellular Vesicles for Tendon Healing: Researchers publishing in Journal of Nanobiotechnology have found that extracellular vesicles derived from young cells are effective in treating a model of tendinopathy, a common tendon disease.
A Relationship Between NAD+ and Gradual Heart Failure: A paper published in Nature Cardiovascular Research has explained a relationship between dilated cardiac myopathy (DCM), epigenetic dysregulation, NAD+, and the epigenetic regulatory molecule Kdm8.
Lithium Is Linked to Lower Mortality: In an epidemiological study published in Aging, scientists have shown that patients who take lithium have much lower all-cause mortality than patients on other psychotropic drugs. Lithium has long been prescribed for certain psychiatric conditions, mainly bipolar disorder.
Young Ovarian Tissue Rejuvenates Old Mice: In a paper published in Frontiers in Endocrinology, researchers have shown that transplanted young ovarian tissue improves the immune function of old recipient mice even if they are hormone-depleted.
Human Organoids for Brain Regeneration: Researchers publishing in Cell Stem Cell have used organoids derived from human cells to regrow the brain tissue of rats. Further experiments and human clinical trials will determine if such methods can be used to restore cognitive ability and quality of life to people who have experienced brain damage.
Nicotinamide Riboside Improves Muscle Energy in Trial: Scientists have shown that long-term treatment with a popular NAD+ precursor can raise NAD+ levels in blood and muscle and increase mitochondria content and function NAD+ levels decrease with aging, which has been shown to underlie other age-related diseases.
High Cholesterol Associated With Lower Bone Mineral Density: A team of researchers has described an association between reduced bone density in the lumbar spine and high total cholesterol in a paper published in Aging.
Midday Exercise Might Be Better In Preventing Mortality: Scientists have found that the time of day when you exercise might be an important factor in lowering all-cause and cardiovascular mortality.
High Protein Intake Associated With Sarcopenia: Researchers publishing in Age and Ageing have found that, rather than being protective, an increase in dietary protein is associated with an increased chance of sarcopenia, a well-known muscle disorder that occurs with aging.
Caloric Restriction Might Slow Down Human Aging: In a paper published in Nature Aging, researchers have shown that caloric restriction modestly slows down the pace of aging in healthy young people as measured by one of the DNA methylation clocks.
The State of the Art in Immune Cell Therapy: A pair of researchers from Stanford University have published a detailed review of the current state of CAR T immune cell therapies in Nature. Chimeric antigen receptor (CAR) is a technology that allows researchers to alter T cells to attack specifically chosen targets.
Removal of Neuronal APOE4 Alleviates Alzheimer’s in Mice: In a new study published in Nature Aging, scientists have shown that targeted ablation of neuronal APOE4, which produces the ApoE4 protein, significantly protects against Alzheimer’s disease in a mouse model.
Senescent Cells Contribute to Brain Cancer: Combining results from human tumors and a mouse model, researchers publishing in Nature Communications have shown that senescent cells promote the growth of glioblastoma, a form of brain cancer.
Nonlinear Analysis for a Better Epigenetic Clock: A team publishing in Human Genomics has developed a new model for analyzing epigenetic changes that uses nonlinear analysis and advanced mathematical techniques.
Oral hygiene, mouthwash usage and cardiovascular mortality during 18.8 years of follow-up: Good oral hygiene significantly lowered the risk of cardiovascular mortality. Mouthwash usage did not show any long-term harm or benefit on cardiovascular mortality beyond the benefits rendered by brushing and flossing.
Body shape perception in men and women without obesity during caloric restriction: a secondary analysis from the CALERIE study: CR is associated with reduced concern for body shape in men and women without obesity and with no history of eating disorders. Body shape perception among this sample was complex and influenced by multiple factors.
Long-term intensive endurance exercise training is associated to reduced markers of cellular senescence in the colon mucosa of older adults: These data suggest that chronic high-volume high-intensity endurance exercise can play a role in preventing the accumulation of senescent cells in cancer-prone tissues like colon mucosa with age.
Senolytic effect of high intensity interval exercise on human skeletal muscle: This effect was particularly prominent in the muscle that showed significant biomarkers of senescence, suggesting that exercise intensity determines the amount of selection pressure on muscle stem cells in the late senescent stage.
NAD+ metabolism and arterial stiffness after long-term NMN supplementation: NMN safely and effectively elevated NAD+ metabolism in healthy middle-aged adults. Additionally, NMN supplementation showed potential in alleviating arterial stiffness.
The additive effects of NMN and melatonin on mitochondria, autophagy, and microRNA-499 in the aged rat heart with reperfusion injury: Co-application of NMN/melatonin within the setting of I/R injury in the aged rat heart induced noticeable cardioprotection through modulation of a coordinated network.
Melatonin/NMN/ubiquinol provide superior cardioprotection against ischemia/reperfusion injury in a common co-morbidities modelled rat: Combination therapy with melatonin, NMN, and ubiquinol significantly protected the heart and improved mitochondrial function and biogenesis in this model.
Association of metformin exposure with low risks of frailty and adverse outcomes in patients with diabetes: Metformin use is associated with a reduced risk of frailty. In addition, frailty may attenuate the protective effects of metformin on adverse outcomes in diabetic patients.
Loss of smelling is an early marker of aging and is associated with inflammation and DNA damage in C57BL/6J mice: Supplementation of NAD+ through NR in water improved longevity and partially enhanced the olfactory abilities of aged mice.
The effect of a pharmaceutical ghrelin agonist on lifespan in C57BL/6J male mice: A controlled experiment: A drug that acts upon ghrelin, which modulates hunger, significantly increased lifespan compared to placebo.
Aggrelyte-2 promotes protein solubility and decreases lens stiffness through lysine acetylation and disulfide reduction: Aging proteins in the lens become increasingly aggregated and insoluble, contributing to presbyopia. These results suggest that aggrelyte-2 might be useful in treating presbyopia in humans.
DNAmFitAge: biological age indicator incorporating physical fitness: These new DNAm biomarkers provide researchers a new method to incorporate physical fitness into epigenetic clocks.
Extracellular Vesicles in Aging: An Emerging Hallmark?: The robust consensus on the altered extracellular vesicle release in aging suggests that it could be considered an emerging hallmark of aging.
Mitochondrial ROS production, oxidative stress and aging within and between species: Once the basic mechanisms are discerned, molecular approaches to counter aging in the mitochondria may be designed and developed to prevent or reverse functional decline, and to modify longevity.
News Nuggets
Announcing the Formation of the Longevity Science Caucus: The Alliance for Longevity Initiatives (A4LI) would like to applaud the efforts of Congressman Gus Bilirakis (R-FL) and Congressman Paul Tonko (D-NY) for co-chairing and launching the newly formed bipartisan Congressional Caucus for Longevity Science.
Kizoo Portfolio Company Cellvie Closes $5.5M of Funding: The company cellvie, part of the portfolio of biotechnology holding company Kizoo Technology Capital, recently received $5.5 million to develop a mitochondria-based therapy.
Coming Up
International Longevity Summit: Held on August 23-24 in South Africa, this event will focus on precision health, innovation, and interventions. Lifespan.io Executive Director Stephanie Dainow will be speaking at this event.
Longevity Investors Conference: The Longevity Investors Conference is returning to promote rejuvenation investment at the Grand Bellevue in Gstaad, Switzerland in 2023. Many longevity biotechnology luminaries will be speaking at this conference.
Longevity Summit Dublin: With keynotes from luminaries including Irina Conboy, George Church, Vera Gorbunova, and Aubrey de Grey, the annual conference of LEV Foundation returns to Dublin, Ireland in 2023.