Jump to content
Science Forums

Recommended Posts

Posted

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere

 

Every time our chromosomes divide, the telomeres shorten, which causes aging. Telomerase apparently lengthens telomeres thus slowing down the aging process.

 

Dr. Dave has been talking about the benefits of telomerase before everyone else:

http://www.healthiertalk.com/telomeres-big-boss-aging-3397

 

ta 65 is very expensive though, something like $1200.00/year (Dr. Dave developed a secondary ta 65 product, which is not as potent but much cheaper) but apparently the benefits are worth it.

 

I hope the following link won't be considered as soliciting but this particular doctor is (in my opinion) a leader in the area of health and age-related research. Not only that but his products do what he says they will:

http://www.drdavesbest.com/frontend/proddetail.aspx?awt_l=4xZgZ&awt_m=IwkmekAWAL1UZP&pn=DDB-TA65

Posted

as i understand it, ta65 doesn't lengthen the telomeres, but rather keeps them from shortening. additionally i have not heard of any human trials.

 

so far, caloric restriction seems the experimental leader in extending human life.

 

>> http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2001/11/calorie-restriction-explained.php

 

...Calorie restriction (usually abbreviated to CR) is a strategy proven to extend healthy and maximum life span in rodents and primates. Some animal studies conducted over the past 20 years have shown up to a 40% increase in maximum life span.

 

Calorie restriction also provides numerous secondary benefits, such as a greatly lowered risk for most degenerative conditions of aging, and improved measures of general health. In recent years, human studies have demonstrated that these same secondary health benefits are available to you and I, not just to laboratory animals. Many researchers believe that the evidence to date shows the practice of CR will extend the healthy human life span, but a consensus has not yet been reached on this topic.

 

...

Posted

You're right, it's not possible to lengthen telomeres but it is possible to keep telomeres from deteriorating further.

 

CR makes sense but it will be interesting to see if ta65 might jumpstart the anti-aging process. However, if people continue on the same unhealthy high fat diets, then of course, that would sabotage any good the ta65 might do.

 

So I guess in the long run, CR makes much more sense and it's a lot cheaper.

Posted

As someone who really wants to live more than the usual 80 or so years, I’m a great enthusiast of anti-aging medicine!

 

You're right, it's not possible to lengthen telomeres but it is possible to keep telomeres from deteriorating further.

This isn’t true.

 

Telomerase lengthens the telomere region on the ends of each chromosome – that’s essentially all the enzyme’s for. It’s a transcription factor, a biochemical “factory” that manufactures the telomere sequence TTAGGG. In principle, a strand of DNA ending TTAGGG can be extended indefinitely, with repeats of this sequence, by exposing it to telomerase indefinitely.

 

This doesn’t happen in cells, because the genes that create (express) telomerase do so sparingly. If this were not the case, after many cell divisions, our chromosomes would be impractically long – ultimately, too long to fix in their cells nuclei – and consist almost entirely of telomeres.

 

When chromosomes replicate, the various transcription factors that split the chromosome and assemble the halves into copies can’t do so to the ends, resulting the chromosome becoming shorter, the loss occurring in the telomeres. When the telomeres become too short, the cell not only stops dividing, but suicides.

 

The balance of the action of telomerase adding telomere sequences to chromosomes and replication of them removing telomere sequences is important. Cells must be allowed to divide many times for an animal to grow from a single cell into many cells, but mature somatic (body) cells must not be allowed to replicate too many times, as their chromosomes may become damaged, and begin expressing abnormal proteins. This balancing act, only one of many necessary for complex organisms to survive as long as they do, is complicated, and only partially understood.

 

Cells where this balance is upset, and the telomerase genes express too much telomerase, allowing the cell to reproduce too many times, can be very dangerous. Most – about 90% - of cancerous cells do this. Some of the most promising possible anti-cancer therapies being researched today involve finding ways to deactivate cancer cells’ telomerase genes, or damage their telomerase or telomeres. This is why, I’ve discovered, when you use the phrase “telomerase therapy” in conversation with medical clinicians or researchers, you need to explain you’re talking about life-extension therapy, as most will assume you’re talking about anti-cancer therapy.

 

This is also a reason to be wary of experimenting with telomerase in people. In seeking to make normal cells live longer, there’s a risk that you’d cause some the many cancer cells that our immune systems constantly kills to prevent us from having detectable cancer to thrive, cause cancer.

 

Every time our chromosomes divide, the telomeres shorten, which causes aging. Telomerase apparently lengthens telomeres thus slowing down the aging process.

This is true, but a bit oversimplified. Aging has many biochemical causes, not just the shortening of telomeres. I personally suspect that “telomere therapies” may allow human lifespans to be increased, but only a little. I don’t think there is a “big boss of aging”, as Doctor Woynarowski has claimed, but many little ones – “a community of aging”, you might say.

 

Dr. Dave [Woynarowski] has been talking about the benefits of telomerase before everyone else:

http://www.healthiertalk.com/telomeres-big-boss-aging-3397

I don’t think this is true. I was talking about life-extending with telomerase (mostly trying to talk research biochemists into letting me be a research subject as soon as the therapies became available, as I had a hunch they might be kept secret from clinicians and the general public) in the early 1990s.

 

If I had to pick a “founding father or telomerase life-extension”, and life-extension , I’d pick Michael Fossel, who was writing about it in the mid 1990s (eg: the 1996 book Reversing Human Aging). Fossel’s focus, however, has been mostly on treating premature aging diseases, so his writing has not been as attractive to healthy people seeking to live longer as it might have been.

 

ta 65 is very expensive though, something like $1200.00/year (Dr. Dave developed a secondary ta 65 product, which is not as potent but much cheaper) but apparently the benefits are worth it.

I’d be careful of assuming much about the benefits of TA-65. It’s been tested only as a dietary supplement, not a medicine. This means that its makers have satisfied food safety regulator that, because it’s made of a non-toxic plant, TA-65 isn’t dangerous. They’ve not satisfied, or even attempted to satisfy, pharmacological regulators that it will make you live longer, or do anything at all.

 

Read the claims Dr. Woynarowski makes about TA-65 carefully. He doesn’t appear to claim (appear, because this FAQ page where Woynarowki present his claims and supporting research was too long and technical for me to more than skim, so I’ve only a guess as to what it contains) to have found that it lengthens telomeres in somatic or stem cells – the cells that need to be made to avoid senility if we are to live longer – but to result in a slight decrease in senescent (that is, ones with shorter telomeres) cytotoxic (CD8+/CD28-) T cells in people who take TA-65. This strongly suggest TA-65 has a medicinal effect, but only weakly, IMO, suggests that it lengthens telomeres in cells in genereal, or even in T cells specifically. Another explanation of the slight decrease in senile T cells is that the TA-65 directly or indirectly killed them.

 

I doubt that it TA-65 lengthens telomeres. To do so, it would have to activate telomerase genes – in other words, it would have to be effectively a human hormone similar to those that cause cancer. However, TA-65 is derived from a non-carcinogenic plant extract. The biochemistry is complicated, and I’m not a biochemists, so I’m just guessing, but I’m skeptical.

 

In closing, thanks, Dduck, for starting this thread. :thumbs_up Though I didn’t in my digging find what I think is much information about a credible new anti-aging therapy, I did, while checking Dr. Woynarowski mention of board certification in anti-aging medicine, discover that there actually is a pretty large (22,000 member) professional organization for the advancement of anti-aging medicine: the A4M. Dr. Woynarowski listed as a member.

  • 1 month later...
Posted

Sorry, I'm late getting back to this topic. So then CraigD, should we be increasing telomerase activation? And if so is there something healthy that slows down the aging process?

 

Perhaps just eating healthy and moderate exercise is still the best thing for us? :)

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

Loading...
×
×
  • Create New...