StemCell Therapy

According to a popular quip, age is down to mind over matter: If you dont mind, then it doesnt matter. But enough people do mind that the anti-aging industry is worth some $100 billionand countingevery year.

Sadly for those people, and the rest of us, attempts to halt the clock seem as futile now as when our ancestors searched for the Fountain of Youth. The modern but ghastly practice of so-called vampire infusions of young bloodcosting $8,000 a literbecame the latest age-defeating bunk consigned to the trash, following a warning last year from the Food and Drug Administration that they dont work.

No great surprise therenor that people were willing to try it. As I move through my 40s, conventional anti-aging advice from scientists and doctors has remained much the same: Eat your greens, exercise, dont drink and get plenty of sleep. Thanks for nothing. Cant science in 2020 do better?

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Actually it can. After centuries of snake oil and false promises, work on anti-aging is moving from untested quackery to the lab.

For starters, scientists now have a more accurate way to measure aging than simply counting birthdays. Its called an epigenetic clock. In exchange for $300 and a small vial of my blood,a company called myDNAge measured mine last year. I did this out of both professional and personal curiosityand because I was secretly convinced that beneath my middle-aged exterior lies a much younger man, and I wanted science to confirm that.

Developed by Steve Horvath of UCLA, the test analyzed more than 2,000 locations on my DNAfor signs of biochemical changes called methylation. These changes, the addition of tiny chemical tags, accumulate over time, depending on our lifestyles, and affect how genes work. Ive never smoked, dont drink as much as I used to and no longer receive birthday cards from local takeout restaurants, so I thought my DNA would be in good shape.

I was wrong. In a short and unemotional report, the company told me that sample BL745677 showed my DNA age was 48: 12 months older than my calendar age. It got worse. Of all the other 47-year-olds who took the test, some two-thirds of them have younger genes than I do. Id like to say my first reaction was shock and humility. Instead I assumed the test was wrong. And then I read Horvaths take on that: Its really more likely that planet Earth will be hit by an asteroid tomorrow than that this predictor doesnt work. Ive never heard a scientist talk like that, with no comforting caveats to soften the blow (or counteract lawsuits and peer objections) and no margin for error offered to console my bruised vanity.

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Still, what can be measured can be managed, and epigenetic clocks could finally offer a robust way for science to extend our life spans. It gives us a chance to see what worksand the motivation to use it. I got my results in June, and spurred into action, Ive started to run again. Ive lost 10 pounds and now drink alcohol only on weekends. Next year I plan to get my DNA age checked again, and I hope to have lost that extra year and then some.

If that sounds too much like hard work, youll be pleased to learn that shortcuts are being developed. Several anti-aging scientists have told me they take a common diabetes drug called metformin. And test results published last year suggest why: Metformin can help wind back the epigenetic clock. Blood tests taken before and after showed that the subjectsall men in their 50s and 60s who took the drugs for 12 months in a small trialshed an average of 2.5 years.

Scientists arent sure yet how metformin does this, but bigger trials exploring epigenetic clocks are planned to confirm its so. Only then would it be widely available. At the moment, however, many committed users must buy the drug online. Thats not for me: Its impossible to know for sure what youre getting. Countering the earlier motto, I do mind about my age, but it doesnt matter so much that Id take that risk. Its unlikely that either exercise or metformin will take me to 120 years, but that we can measure progress at alland shave a few years off our agetells me future interventions should indeed get us to an extended, healthy life span. Until then, Ill continue to run against the clock.

Read the rest here:
No More Snake Oil: Science Has Finally Uncovered Legitimate Ways to Boost Our Life Span - Robb Report

This entry was posted on December 15, 2019 at 7:43 am and is filed under Longevity. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed. |