Category Archives: Transhuman News

For millennia, if not for eonsanthropology continuously pushes backward the time of human originlife expectancy was short. The few people who grew old were assumed, because of their years, to have won the favor of the gods. The typical person was fortunate to reach 40.

Beginning in the 19th century, that slowly changed. Since 1840, life expectancy at birth has risen about three months with each passing year. In 1840, life expectancy at birth in Sweden, a much-studied nation owing to its record-keeping, was 45 years for women; today its 83 years. The United States displays roughly the same trend. When the 20th century began, life expectancy at birth in America was 47 years; now newborns are expected to live 79 years. If about three months continue to be added with each passing year, by the middle of this century, American life expectancy at birth will be 88 years. By the end of the century, it will be 100 years.

Viewed globally, the lengthening of life spans seems independent of any single, specific event. It didnt accelerate much as antibiotics and vaccines became common. Nor did it retreat much during wars or disease outbreaks. A graph of global life expectancy over time looks like an escalator rising smoothly. The trend holds, in most years, in individual nations rich and poor; the whole world is riding the escalator.

Projections of ever-longer life spans assume no incredible medical discoveriesrather, that the escalator ride simply continues. If anti-aging drugs or genetic therapies are found, the climb could accelerate. Centenarians may become the norm, rather than rarities who generate a headline in the local newspaper.

Pie in the sky? On a verdant hillside in Marin County, Californiahome to hipsters and towering redwoods, the place to which the Golden Gate Bridge leadssits the Buck Institute, the first private, independent research facility dedicated to extending the human life span. Since 1999, scientists and postdocs there have studied ways to make organisms live much longer, and with better health, than they naturally would. Already, the institutes researchers have quintupled the life span of laboratory worms. Most Americans have never heard of the Buck Institute, but someday this place may be very well known.

Buck is not alone in its pursuit. The University of Michigan, the University of Texas, and the University of California at San Francisco are studying ways to slow aging, as is the Mayo Clinic. Late in 2013, Google brought its trove of cash into the game, founding a spin-off called the California Life Company (known as Calico) to specialize in longevity research. Six months after Calicos charter was announced, Craig Venter, the biotech entrepreneur who in the 1990s conducted a dramatic race against government laboratories to sequence the human genome, also founded a start-up that seeks ways to slow aging.

Should research find a life-span breakthrough, the proportion of the U.S. population that is elderlyfated to rise anyway, considering declining fertility rates, the retirement of the Baby Boomers, and the continuing uplift of the escalatormay climb even more. Longer life has obvious appeal, but it entails societal risks. Politics may come to be dominated by the old, who might vote themselves ever more generous benefits for which the young must pay. Social Security and private pensions could be burdened well beyond what current actuarial tables suggest. If longer life expectancy simply leads to more years in which pensioners are disabled and demand expensive services, health-care costs may balloon as never before, while other social needs go unmet.

With each passing year, the newly born live about three months longer than those born the prior year.

But the story might have a happy ending. If medical interventions to slow aging result in added years of reasonable fitness, life might extend in a sanguine manner, with most men and women living longer in good vigor, and also working longer, keeping pension and health-care subsidies under control. Indeed, the most-exciting work being done in longevity science concerns making the later years vibrant, as opposed to simply adding time at the end.

Postwar medical research has focused on specific conditions: there are heart-disease laboratories, cancer institutes, and so on. Traditional research assumes the chronic later-life diseases that are among the nations leading killerscardiovascular blockage, stroke, Alzheimersarise individually and should be treated individually. What if, instead, aging is the root cause of many chronic diseases, and aging can be slowed? Not just life span but health span might increase.

Drugs that lengthen health span are becoming to medical researchers what vaccines and antibiotics were to previous generations in the lab: their grail. If health-span research is successful, pharmaceuticals as remarkable as those earlier generations of drugs may result. In the process, society might learn the answer to an ancient mystery: Given that every cell in a mammals body contains the DNA blueprint of a healthy young version of itself, why do we age at all?

Here in our freezers we have 100 or so compounds that extend life in invertebrates, says Gordon Lithgow, a geneticist at the Buck Institute. He walks with me through labs situated on a campus of modernistic buildings that command a dreamlike view of San Pablo Bay, and encourage dreamlike thoughts. The 100 compounds in the freezer? What we dont know is if they work in people.

The Buck Institute bustles with young researchers. Jeans and San Francisco 49ers caps are common sightsthis could be a Silicon Valley software start-up were not microscopes, cages, and biological-isolation chambers ubiquitous. The institute is named for Leonard and Beryl Buck, a Marin County couple who left oil stocks to a foundation charged with studying why people age, among other issues. When the institute opened, medical research aimed at slowing aging was viewed as quixoticthe sort of thing washed-up hippies talk about while sipping wine and watching the sunset. A mere 15 years into its existence, the Buck Institute is at the bow wave of biology.

In one lab, researchers laboriously tamper with yeast chromosomes. Yeast is expedient as a research subject because it lives out a lifetime before an analysts eyes, and because a third of yeast genes are similar to human genes. Deleting some genes kills yeast; deleting others causes yeast to live longer. Why deleting some genes extends life isnt knownBuck researchers are trying to figure this out, in the hope that they might then carry the effect over to mammals. The work is painstaking, with four microscopes in use at least 50 hours a week.

Buck employs Lilliputian electrocardiogram machines and toy-size CT scanners to examine the internal organs of mice, since the goal is not just to make them live longer but to keep them healthy longer, with less cancer or heart disease. Researchers curious about aging mainly work with mice, worms, flies, and yeast, because they are small and easily housed, and because they dont live long, so improvements to life expectancy are quickly observable. Twenty years ago it was a really big deal to extend the life span of worms. Now any postdoc can do that, says Simon Melov, a Buck geneticist. Experiments funded by the National Institute on Aging have shown that drugs can extend a mouses life span by about a quarter, and Buck researchers have been able to reverse age-related heart dysfunction in the same animal. Think how the world would be upended if human longevity quickly jumped another 25 percent.

The rubber will meet the road with human trials. We hope to find five to 10 small molecules that extend healthy life span in mice, then stage a human trial, says Brian Kennedy, the Buck Institutes CEO. A drug called rapamycinbeing tested at the institute and elsewhereseems closest to trial stage and has revolutionary potential. But in addition to being ethically fraught, human trials of a life-extension substance will be costly, and might take decades. The entry of Googles billions into the field makes human trials more likely. Calico is tight-lipped about its plansthe company agreed to let me visit, then backed out.

Anti-aging research is not without antecedents, some of which offer notes of caution. A generation ago, Linus Pauling, a winner of the Nobel Prize in chemistry, proposed that megadoses of vitamin C would retard aging. It turned out that at megadoses, vitamins can become toxic. If you take vitamins, swallow the amounts recommended by the Food and Drug Administration.

A decade ago, a biotech start-up called Sirtris sought to devise drugs that mimic the supposed health-giving properties of red wine. GlaxoSmithKline bought Sirtris for $790 million in todays dollars, money the company may wish it had back: Sirtris experiments have yet to lead to any practical product.

About 15 years ago, Bruce Ames, an accomplished scientist at the University of California at Berkeley, proposed that acetylcarnitine, which regulates the mitochondria of cells, combined with an antioxidant, might retard aging while treating mild Alzheimers. Antioxidant has become a buzzword of supplement marketing and Dr. Ozstyle quackery. Too much antioxidant would be unhealthy, since oxidation is essential to the bodys respiration. Ames thought he had found a compound that safely moderates the pace at which cells use themselves up. He began dosing himself with acetylcarnitine, and continues to work at Berkeley, at age 85; whether he would have enjoyed such longevity anyway is unknowable. Pharmaceutical companies have shown little interest in Amess ideabecause it occurs naturally, acetylcarnitine cannot be patented, and, worse from Big Pharmas standpoint, the substance is inexpensive.

Today, lab results show a clear relationship between a restricted-calorie diet and longevity in mice. That eating less extends the life spans of small mammals is the strongest finding of anti-aging research to this point. A restrictive diet seems to put mouse cells into a state vaguely similar to hibernation; whether caloric restriction would work in people isnt known. A campaign against calories might seem to possess broad practical appeal, since whats recommendedeating lesscosts nothing. But if the mice are any indication, one would need to eat a lot less, dropping caloric intake to the level at which a person feels hunger pangs throughout the day. Caloric restriction is a fad diet in Northern California, Melov told me. We had a caloric-restriction group come in to visit the institute. They did not look at all healthy.

Recently, separate teams at Harvard, Stanford, and UC San Francisco reported that transferring the blood of adolescent mice into old, declining mice had a rejuvenating effect on the latter. The thought of the old rich purchasing blood from the young poor is ghoulish on numerous levels. The research goal is to determine what chemical aspect of youthful blood benefits mature tissue. Perhaps compounds in adolescent blood excite dormant stem cells, and a drug could be developed that triggers the effect without transfusion.

The Buck Institute and other labs have been looking for health-span DNA that may exist in other mammals. Whales are a lot less likely than people are to get cancer. Polar bears consume an extremely high-fat diet yet dont develop arterial plaque. If the biological pathways for such qualities were understood, a drug might be designed to trigger the effect in people. Mimicking what nature has already developed seems more promising than trying to devise novel DNA.

In worms, genes called daf-2 and daf-16 can change in a way that causes the invertebrates to live twice as long as is natural, and in good vigor. A molecular biologist named Cynthia Kenyon, among the first hires at Calico, made that discovery more than two decades ago, when she was a researcher at UC San Francisco. By manipulating the same genes in mice, Kenyon has been able to cause them to live longer, with less cancer than mice in a control group: that is, with a better health span. The daf-16 gene is similar to a human gene called foxo3, a variant of which is linked to exceptional longevity. A drug that mimics this foxo3 variant is rumored to be among Calicos initial projects.

A long time has passed since Kenyons eureka moment about worm genes, and shes still far from proving that this insight can help people. But the tempo of the kind of work she does is accelerating. Twenty years ago, genetic sequencing and similar forms of DNA research were excruciatingly time-consuming. New techniques and equipment have altered that: for instance, one Silicon Valley lab-services firm, Sequetech, advertises, Go from [cell] colony to sequence in a day. The accelerating pace of genetic-information gathering may come in handy for health-span research.

The Buck Institute became cautiously optimistic about rapamycin when its life-extension properties were noticed in yeast. Lab mice dosed with rapamycin are dying off more slowly than they would naturally, and many of the old mice appear energetic and youthful. Devised to prevent rejection of transplanted organs, rapamycin seems to alter some chemistry associated with cellular senescence. (More on that later.) If the drug turns out to delay aging in people, it would be the greatest off-label pharmaceutical use ever. But dont ask your doctor for a prescriptionhealth-span therapy based on rapamycin is years away, if it ever happens. Kennedy, the Buck Institute CEO, does not dose himself with rapamycin, whose side effects are not understood.

Researchers at the Buck Institute are lean: societys obesity problems are not in evidence there. Everyone takes the stairs; elevators are viewed as strictly for visitors. If there is a candy machine on the 488-acre grounds, it is well hidden. I met some researchers for lunch in a glass-and-chrome conference room (Bucks buildings were designed by I. M. Pei and fairly shout Give me an architecture award!). Lunch was an ascetic affair: water and a small sandwich with greens; no sides, soda, or cookies. Kennedy says he seldom eats lunch, and runs up to 20 miles weekly. Yet, even doing everything right by the lights of current assumptions about how to stave off aging, at age 47, Kennedy has wrinkle lines around his eyes.

Except with regard to infectious diseases, medical cause and effect is notoriously hard to pin down. Coffee, salt, butter: good, bad, or neither? Studies are inconclusive. Why do some people develop heart disease while others with the same habits dont? The Framingham Heart Study, in its 66th year and following a third generation of subjects, still struggles with such questions. You should watch your weight, eat more greens and less sugar, exercise regularly, and get ample sleep. But you should do these things because they are common sensenot because there is any definitive proof that they will help you live longer.

The uncertainty inherent in the practice of medicine is amplified when the subject is longevity, because decades might pass before anyone knows whether a particular drug or lifestyle modification does any good. Scrutinizing the very old has not been the gold mine some researchers hoped it would be. Lifestyle studies of centenarians can be really puzzling, Kennedy says. They smoke more and drink less than we might guess. Few are vegetarians. Nothing jumps out as a definitive cause of their long lives.

Among the first wide-scale efforts to understand gerontology was the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of Aging, begun by federal researchers in 1958 and ongoing. Its current director, Luigi Ferrucci, says, The study has determined that disabilities among the elderly often have warning signs that can be detected in youth, and this insight might lead to early-life interventions that decrease late-life chronic disease. But on some of the big questions, such as whether longevity is caused mainly by genes or mainly by lifestyle and environment, we just have no idea at all.

Studies of twins suggest that about 30 percent of longevity is inherited. This is one of the factors that make researchers optimisticif 30 percent of longevity is inherited, perhaps laboratories can design a compound that causes anyones blood chemistry to mimic what happens in the bodies of those who were born with the DNA for long life. But when we sequence the genome, only 1 percent seems linked to longevity, Ferrucci told me. The other 99 percent of the presumed genetic effect is unexplained.

At medical conferences, Ferrucci likes to show physicians and researchers an elaborate medical profile of an anonymous patient, then ask them to guess her age. Guesses are off by as much as 20 years too high or low, he says. This is because medically, we do not know what age is. The sole means to determine age is by asking for date of birth. Thats what a basic level this research still is at.

Aging brings with it, of course, senescence. Cellular senescence, a subset of the overall phenomenon, is a subject of fascination in longevity research.

The tissues and organs that make up our bodies are prone to injury, and the cells are prone to malfunctions, cancer being the most prominent. When an injury must be healed, or cancerous tissue that is dividing must be stopped, nearby cells transmit chemical signals that trigger the repair of injured cells or the death of malignant ones. (Obviously this is a simplification.) In the young, the system works pretty well. But as cells turn senescent, they begin to send out false positives. The bodys healing ability falters as excess production of the repair signal leads to persistent inflammation, which is the foundation of heart disease, Alzheimers, arthritis, and other chronic maladies associated with the passage of time. Cars wear out because they cannot repair themselves; our bodies wear out because they lose the ability to repair themselves. If the loss of our ability to self-repair were slowed down, health during our later years would improve: a longer warranty, in the auto analogy.

If we can figure out how to eliminate senescent cells or switch off their secretions, says Judith Campisi, who runs the Buck Institutes research on this topic, then we could prevent or lessen the impact of many chronic diseases of aging. Its not a coincidence that incidence of these chronic diseases increases sharply after the age of 50, a time when senescent cells also increase in number. If you believe, as many scientists do, that aging is a prime cause of many chronic diseases, it is essential that we understand the accumulation of senescent cells. Rapamycin excites longevity researchers because it seems to switch off the repair signal mistakenly sent by senescent cells. Mayo Clinic researchers are studying other substances that dampen the effects of cellular senescence; some have proved to keep mice fit longer than normal, extending their health span. Many elderly people decline into years of progressive disability, then become invalids. If instead most people enjoyed reasonable vigor right up to the end, that would be just as exciting for society as adding years to life expectancy.

Big medical efforts tend to be structured as assaults on specific conditionsthe war on cancer and so on. One reason is psychological: a wealthy person who survived a heart attack, or lost a parent to one, endows a foundation to study the problem. Another reason is symbolic: we tend to view diseases as challenges thrown at us by nature, to be overcome one by one. If the passage of time itself turns out to be the challenge, interdisciplinary study of aging might overtake the disease-by-disease approach. As recently as a generation ago, it would have seemed totally crazy to suppose that aging could be cured. Now curing aging seems, well, only somewhat crazy.

The life-expectancy escalator has for nearly two centuries risen about three months a year, despite two world wars, the 1918 influenza pandemic, the AIDS epidemic, and the global populations growing sevenfoldthe latter deceptively important, because crowded conditions are assumed to more readily communicate disease. Will life-span increases continue regardless of what may happen in biotech? The yea position is represented by James Vaupel, the founder of Germanys Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research; the nay by Jay Olshansky, a professor of public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago.

In 2002, Vaupel published an influential article in Science documenting the eerily linear rise in life expectancy since 1840. Controversially, Vaupel concluded that reductions in mortality should not be seen as a disconnected sequence of unrepeatable revolutions but rather as a regular stream of continuing progress. No specific development or discovery has caused the rise: improvements in nutrition, public health, sanitation, and medical knowledge all have helped, but the operative impetus has been the stream of continuing progress.

Vaupel called it a reasonable scenario that increases will continue at least until life expectancy at birth surpasses 100. His views havent changed. The data still support the conclusions of the 2002 paper. Linear rise in life expectancy has continued, Vaupel told me earlier this year. In a recent report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the age-adjusted U.S. death rate declined to a record low in 2011. Today the first four causes of death in the United States are chronic, age-related conditions: heart disease, cancer, chronic lower-respiratory diseases, and stroke. As long as living standards continue to improve, Vaupel thinks, life expectancy will continue to increase.

On the opposite side of this coin, Olshansky told me the rise in life expectancy will hit a wall soon, if it hasnt already. He noted, Most of the 20th-century gains in longevity came from reduced infant mortality, and those were onetime gains. Infant mortality in the United States trails some other nations, but has dropped so muchdown to one in 170that little room for improvement remains. Theres tremendous statistical impact on life expectancy when the young are saved, Olshansky says. A reduction in infant mortality saves the entire span of a persons life. Avoiding mortality in a young personsay, by vaccinesaves most of the persons life. Changes in medicine or lifestyle that extend the lives of the old dont add much to the numbers. Olshansky calculates that if cancer were eliminated, American life expectancy would rise by only three years, because a host of other chronic fatal diseases are waiting to take its place. He thinks the 21st century will see the average life span extend another 10 years or so, with a bonus of more health span. Then the increase will slow noticeably, or stop.

Whether human age may have a biological limit does not factor into this debate. A French woman who lived from 1875 to 1997, Jeanne Calment, had the longest confirmed life span, at 122. Shes obviously an outlier, and while outliers dont tell us much, they do hint at whats possible. Her age at death was well beyond the average life span that either Vaupel or Olshansky are contemplating in their analyses. And in any case, various experts, at various times across the past century, have argued that life span was nearing a ceiling, only to be proved wrong.

Diminishing smoking and drunk driving have obviously contributed to declining mortality. Homicide has fallen so muchshootings arent necessarily down, but improved trauma response saves more victimsthat murder is no longer among the top 15 causes of death in the United States. Other health indicators seem positive as well. All forms of harmful air and water emissions except greenhouse gases are in long-term decline. Less smog, acid rain, and airborne soot foster longevitythe old are sensitive to respiratory diseasewhile declining levels of industrial toxins may contribute to declining cancer rates. Life expectancy can be as much as 18 years shorter in low-income U.S. counties than in high-income counties, but Obamacare should correct some of that imbalance: Romneycare, enacted in 2006 and in many ways Obamacares precursor, reduced mortality in low-income Massachusetts counties. These and many other elements of Vaupels stream of continuing progress seem to favor longevity. So does climate change: people live longer in warm climates than cold, and the world is warming.

Popular attention tends to focus on whether what we gulp down determines how long we live: Should people take fish oil and shop for organic probiotic kefir? The way our homes, families, and friendships are organized may matter just as much. Thomas Perls, a professor at Boston Medical Center who analyzes the genomes of centenarians, notes that Seventh-Day Adventists enjoy about a decade more life expectancy than peers of their birth years: They dont drink or smoke, most are vegetarians, they exercise regularly even when old, and take a true weekly day of rest. But what really strikes Perls about Seventh-Day Adventists is that they maintain large social groups. Constant interaction with other people can be annoying, but overall seems to keep us engaged with life.

For years, the American social trend has been away from constant interaction with other peoplefewer two-parent homes, fewer children per home, declining participation in religious and community activities, grandparents living on their own, electronic interaction replacing the face-to-face in everything from work to dating. Prosperity is associated with smaller households, yet the large multigeneration home may be best for long life. There are some indications that the Great Recession increased multigeneration living. This may turn out to boost longevity, at least for a time.

The single best yardstick for measuring a persons likely life span is education. John Rowe, a health-policy professor at Columbia University and a former CEO of Aetna, says, If someone walked into my office and asked me to predict how long he would live, I would ask two things: What is your age, and how many years of education did you receive?

Jay Olshanskys latest research suggests that American women with no high-school diploma have experienced relatively small life-span increases since the 1950s, while the life expectancy of highly educated women has soared since then. Today the best-educated Americans live 10 to 14 years longer than the least educated, on average. Nothing pops out of the data like the link between education and life expectancy, Olshansky says. The good news is that the share of the American population that is less educated is in gradual decline. The bad news is that lack of education seems even more lethal than it was in the past.

Education does not sync with life expectancy because reading Dostoyevsky lowers blood pressure; college is a proxy for other aspects of a persons life. Compared with the less educated, people with a bachelors degree have a higher income, smoke less, are less likely to be overweight, and are more likely to follow doctors instructions. College graduates are more likely to marry and stay married, and marriage is good for your health: the wedded suffer fewer heart attacks and strokes than the single or divorced.

Many of the social developments that improve longevitybetter sanitation, less pollution, improved emergency roomsare provided to all on an egalitarian basis. But todays public high schools are dreadful in many inner-city areas, and broadly across states including California. Legislatures are cutting support for public universities, while the cost of higher education rises faster than inflation. These issues are discussed in terms of fairness; perhaps health should be added as a concern in the debate. If education is the trump card of longevity, the top quintile may pull away from the rest.

Society is dominated by the oldold political leaders, old judges. With each passing year, as longevity increases, the intergenerational imbalance worsens. The old demand benefits for which the young must pay, while people in their 20s become disenchanted, feeling that the deck is stacked against them. National debt increases at an alarming rate. Innovation and fresh thinking disappear as energies are devoted to defending current pie-slicing arrangements.

This isnt a prediction about the future of the United States, but rather a description of Japan right now. The Land of the Rising Sun is the worlds grayest nation. Already the median age is 45 (in the U.S., by comparison, it is 37), and it will jump to 55 by 2040. As Nicholas Eberstadt, a demographer at the American Enterprise Institute, has noted, median age in the retirement haven of Palm Springs, California, is currently 52 years. Japan is on its way to becoming an entire nation of Palm Springs residents.

The number of Americans 65 or older could reach 108 million in 2050. Thats like adding three more Floridas, inhabited entirely by seniors.

Japans grayness stems from a very low fertility ratenot enough babies to bring down the average ageand strict barriers against immigration. The United States remains a nation of immigrants, and because of the continual inflow of young people, the U.S. median age wont go haywire even as life expectancy rises: the United Nations World Population Prospects estimates that the U.S. median age will rise to 41 by mid-century.

Nonetheless, that Japan is the first major nation to turn gray, and is also the deepest in debt, is not encouraging. Once, Japan was feared as the Godzilla of global trade, but as it grayed, its economy entered a long cycle of soft growth. In 2012 the centrist Democratic Party of Japan, then holding the Diet, backed a tax whose goal was not to pay down what the country owes but merely to slow the rate of borrowing. The party promptly got the heave-ho from voters. Last year Japans public debt hit $10 trillion, twice the nations GDP.

Sheila Smith, a Japan specialist at the Council on Foreign Relations, told me, Young people in Japan have some of the worlds worst voter-participation rates. They think the old have the system so rigged in their favor, theres no point in political activity. The young dont seem excited by the future. News accounts of young Japanese becoming so apathetic that theyve lost interest in having sex sound hard to believe, but may bear some truth.

Young urban Japanese surely are aware that their elders are ringing up bills to be handed to them, but theyre also aware that if funding for the retired is cut, Grandma may want to move into their very small apartment. As life expectancy rises, a Japanese person entering the happy-go-lucky phase of early adulthood may find that parents and grandparents both expect to be looked after. Because the only child is common in Japans newest generation, a big cast of aging people may turn to one young person for financial support or caregiving or both. Acceding to public borrowing may have become, to young Japanese, a way to keep older generations out of the apartmenteven if it means crushing national debt down the road.

That America may become more like Japansteadily older, with rising debt and declining economic growthis unsettling. From the second half of the George W. Bush administration until 2013, U.S. national debt more than doubled. The federal government borrowed like there was no tomorrow. The debt binge, for which leaders of both political parties bear blame, was a prelude to the retirement of the Baby Boomers. Tomorrow has a way of coming.

Suppose the escalator slows, and conservative assumptions about life expectancy prevail. In a 2009 study, Olshansky projected future demographics under the hit a wall scenario. The number of Americans 65 or older, 43 million today, could reach 108 million in 2050that would be like adding three more Floridas, inhabited entirely by seniors. The oldest old cohort, those 85 and older, may increase at least fivefold, to more than 6 percent of the U.S. citizenry. Olshansky projected that by 2050, life expectancy will extend three to eight years past the age used by the Social Security Administration to assess the solvency of its system, while forecasting that by 2050, Medicare and Social Security will rack up between $3.2 trillion and $8.3 trillion in unfunded obligations. (State and local governments have at least another $1 trillion in unfunded pension liabilities.) These disconcerting numbers flow from the leading analyst who thinks that the life-span increase is slowing down.

When President Obama took office, Social Securitys trustees said the current benefits structure was funded until 2037. Now the Congressional Budget Office says the year of reckoning may come as soon as 2031. States may be funding their pension obligations using fuzzy math: New York issues promissory notes; Illinois and New Jersey sell debt instruments distressingly similar to junk bonds. Many private pension plans are underfunded, and the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation, which on paper appears to insure them, is an accident looking for a place to happen. Twice in the past three years, Congress has voted to allow corporations to delay contributions to pension plans. This causes them to pay more taxes in the present year, giving Congress more to spend, while amplifying problems down the road. Social Securitys disability fund may fail as soon as late 2016. Medicare spending is rising faster than Social Security spending, and is harder to predict. Projections show the main component of Medicare, its hospital fund, failing by 2030.

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that over the next decade, all federal spending growth will come from entitlementsmainly Social Security and Medicareand from interest on the national debt. The nonpartisan think tank Third Way has calculated that at the beginning of the Kennedy presidency, the federal government spent $2.50 on public investmentsinfrastructure, education, and researchfor every $1 it spent on entitlements. By 2022, Third Way predicts, the government will spend $5 on entitlements for every $1 on public investments. Infrastructure, education, and research lead to economic growth; entitlement subsidies merely allow the nation to tread water.

If health span can be improved, the costs of aging-related disability may be manageable. Not that long ago, vast sums were spent on iron lungs and sanitariums for treatment of polio: preventing the disease has proved much less expensive than treating it. If chronic ailments related to aging can be prevented or significantly delayed, big-ticket line items in Medicare might not go off the rails.

But if health span does not improve, longer life could make disability in aging an economic crisis. Today, Medicare and Medicaid spend about $150 billion annually on Alzheimers patients. Absent progress against aging, the number of people with Alzheimers could treble by 2050, with society paying as much for Alzheimers care as for the current defense budget.

Many disabilities associated with advanced years cannot be addressed with pharmaceuticals or high-tech procedures; caregivers are required. Providing personal care for an aged invalid is a task few wish to undertake. Already many lists of careers with the most job openings are headed by caregiver or nurses aide, professions in which turnover is high.

As longevity increases, so too does the number of living grandparents. Families that once might have had one oldest old relative find themselves with three or four, all expecting care or money. At the same time, traditional family trees are being replaced with diagrams that resemble maps of the London Underground. Will children of blended families feel the same obligation to care for aging stepparents as they feel for biological parents? Just the entry of the phrase birth parent into the national lexicon suggests the magnitude of the change.

With Japan at the leading edge of lengthening life expectancy, its interest in robotics can be eerie. Foxconn, the Asian electronics giant, is manufacturing for the Japanese market a creepy mechanized thing named Pepper that is intended to provide company for the elderly. More-sophisticated devices may be in store. A future in which large numbers of very old, incapacitated people stare into the distance as robot attendants click and hum would be a bad science-fiction movie if it didnt stand a serious chance of happening.

As the population ages, so do the political powers that beand theyre aging in place. Computerized block-by-block voting analysis and shameless gerrymanderingMarylands new sixth congressional district is such a strange shape, it would have embarrassed Elbridge Gerrylock incumbents into power as never before. Campaign-finance laws appear to promote reform, but in fact have been rigged to discourage challengers. Between rising life expectancy and the mounting power of incumbency, both houses of Congress are the oldest theyve ever been: the average senator is 62 years old; the average representative, 57.

A graying Congress would be expected to be concerned foremost with protection of the status quo. Government may grow sclerotic at the very time the aging of the populace demands new ideas. Theres already a tremendous advantage to incumbency, one experienced political operative told me. As people live longer, incumbents will become more entrenched. Strom Thurmond might not be unusual anymore. Many from both parties could cling to power too long, freezing out fresh thinking. It wont be good for democracy. The speaker was no starry-eyed radical: he was Karl Rove.

Now think of the Supreme Court as life expectancy increases. The nine justices on the first Court sat an average of nine years; the last nine to depart, an average of 27 years. John Paul Stevens, the most recent to retire, was a justice for 35 years. If Clarence Thomas lives to the actuarial life expectancy of a male his current age, he could be a Supreme Court justice for 40 years.

The Framers would be aghast at the idea of a small cadre of unelected potentates lording it over the body politic for decades. When the Constitution was written, no one could have anticipated how much life span would increase, nor how much power the Supreme Court would accrue. If democracy is to remain vibrant as society ages, campaign laws must change to help challengers stand a chance versus incumbents, and the Constitution must be amended to impose a term limit on the Supreme Court, so confirmation as a justice stops being a lifetime appointment to royalty.

In 1940, the typical American who reached age 65 would ultimately spend about 17 percent of his or her life retired. Now the figure is 22 percent, and still rising. Yet Social Security remains structured as if longevity were stuck in a previous century. The early-retirement option, added by Congress in 1961start drawing at age 62, though with lower benefitsis appealing if life is short, but backfires as life span extends. People who opt for early Social Security may reach their 80s having burned through savings, and face years of living on a small amount rather than the full benefit they might have received. Polls show that Americans consistently underestimate how long they will livea convenient assumption that justifies retiring early and spending now, while causing dependency over the long run.

James Vaupel has warned that refusing to acknowledge longevitys steady march distorts peoples decisions about how much to save and when to retire and gives license to politicians to postpone painful adjustments to Social Security. Ronald Reagan was the last president to push through legislation to account for life-span changes. His administration increased the future eligible age of full Social Security benefits from 65 to 66 or 67, depending on ones birth year. Perhaps 99 percent of members of Congress would agree in private that retirement economics must change; none will touch this third rail. Generating more Social Security revenue by lifting the payroll-tax cap, currently $117,000, is the sole politically attractive option, because only the well-to-do would be impacted. But the Congressional Budget Office recently concluded that even this soak-the-rich option is insufficient to prevent insolvency for Social Security. At least one other change, such as later retirement or revised cost-of-living formulas, is required. A fair guess is that the government will do nothing about Social Security reform until a crisis strikesand then make panicked, ill-considered moves that foresight might have avoided.

Americans may decry government gridlock, but they cant blame anyone else for their own decisions. Peoples retirement savings simply must increase, though this means financial self-discipline, which Americans are not known for. Beyond that, most individuals will likely need to take a new view of what retirement should be: not a toggle switchno work at all, after years of full-time laborbut a continuum on which a person gradually downshifts to half-time, then to working now and then. Lets call it the retirement track rather than retirement: a phase of continuing to earn and save as full-time work winds down.

Widespread adoption of a retirement track would necessitate changes in public policy and in employers attitudes. Banks dont think in terms of smallish loans to help a person in the second half of life start a home-based business, but such lending might be vital to a graying population. Many employers are required to continue offering health insurance to those who stay on the job past 65, even though they are eligible for Medicare. Employers premiums for these workers are much higher than for young workers, which means employers may have a logical reason to want anyone past 65 off the payroll. Ending this requirement would make seniors more attractive to employers.

Many people may find continuing to work but under the lower-stress circumstances of part-time employment to be preferable to a gold watch, then idleness. Gradual downshifting could help ease aging people into volunteer service roles, where theres never any end of things to do. The retirement track could be more appealing than traditional retirement. A longer health span will be essential to making it possible.

Understanding the evolutionary biology of aging might help the quest for improved health span. Each cell of the body contains DNA code for a fresh, healthy cell, yet that blueprint is not called on as we grow old. Evolutionists including Alfred Russel Wallace have toyed with the idea of programmed deaththe notion that natural selection wants old animals to die in order to free up resources for younger animals, which may carry evolved genetic structures. Current thinking tends to hold that rather than trying to make older animals die, natural selection simply has no mechanism to reward longevity.

Felipe Sierra, a researcher at the National Institute on Aging, says, Evolution doesnt care about you past your reproductive age. It doesnt want you either to live longer or to die, it just doesnt care. From the standpoint of natural selection, an animal that has finished reproducing and performed the initial stage of raising young might as well be eaten by something, since any favorable genetic quality that expresses later in life cannot be passed along. Because a mutation that favors long life cannot make an animal more likely to succeed at reproducing, selection pressure works only on the young.

A generation ago, theorists suspected that menopause was an evolutionary adaptation exclusive to the Homo genuswomen stop expending energy to bear children so they can care longer for those already born, as mothers and grandmothers. This, the theory goes, increases childrens chances of survival, allowing them to pass along family genes. Yet recent research has shown that animals including lions and baboons also go through menopause, which increasingly looks more like a malfunction of aging cells than a quality brought about by selection pressure. As for the idea that grandparents help their grandchildren prosper, favoring longevitythe grandmother effectthis notion, too, has fared poorly in research.

The key point is: if nothing that happens after a person reproduces bears on which genes flourish, then nature has never selected for qualities that extend longevity. Evolution favors strength, intelligence, reflexes, sexual appeal; it does not favor keeping an organism running a long time. For example, a growing body needs calcium, so nature selected for the ability to metabolize this element. In later life, calcium causes stiffening of the arteries, a problem that evolution has no mechanism to correct, since hardened arteries do not occur until its too late for natural selection to side with any beneficial mutation. Testosterone is essential to a youthful man; in an aging man, it can be a factor in prostate cancer. Evolution never selected for a defense against that.

Similar examples abound; the most important may be senescent cells. Natural selection probably favors traits that reduce the risk of cancer, because cancer can strike the young before reproductive age is reached. Senescence doesnt occur until evolution is no longer in play, so natural selection has left all mammal bodies with a defect that leads to aging and death.

If senescence could be slowed, men and women hardly would become immortal. Violence, accidents, and contagious disease still would kill. Even if freed of chronic conditions, eventually our bodies would fail.

But it is not credulous futurism to suppose that drugs or even genetic therapy may alter the human body in ways that extend longevity. Brian Kennedy, of the Buck Institute, notes, Because natural selection did not improve us for aging, theres a chance for rapid gains. The latest BMWs are close to perfect. How can an engineer improve on them? But the Model T would be easy to improve on now. When young, genetically we are BMWs. In aging, we become Model Ts. The evolutionary improvements havent started yet.

In the wild, young animals outnumber the old; humanity is moving toward a society where the elderly outnumber the recently arrived. Such a world will differ from todays in many outward aspects. Warm-weather locations are likely to grow even more popular, though with climate change, warm-weather locations may come to include Buffalo, New York. Ratings for football, which is loud and aggressive, may wane, while baseball and theatergoing enjoy a renaissance. The shift back toward cities, initiated by the educated young, may give way to another car-centric suburban and exurban growth phase.

The university, a significant aspect of the contemporary economy, centuries ago was a place where the fresh-faced would be prepared for a short life; today the university is a place where adults watch children and grandchildren walk to Pomp and Circumstance. The university of the future may be one that serves all ages. Colleges will reposition themselves economically as offering just as much to the aging as to the adolescent: courses priced individually for later-life knowledge seekers; lots of campus events of interest to students, parents, and the community as a whole; a pleasant college-town atmosphere to retire near. In decades to come, college professors may address students ranging from age 18 to 80.

Products marketed to senior citizens are already a major presence on television, especially during newscasts and weathercasts. Advertising pitched to the elderly may come to dominate the airwaves, assuming there still is television. But consumerism might decline. Neurological studies of healthy aging people show that the parts of the brain associated with reward-seeking light up less as time goes on. Whether its hot new fashions or hot-fudge sundaes, older people on the whole dont desire acquisitions as much as the young and middle-aged do. Denounced for generations by writers and clergy, wretched excess has repelled all assaults. Longer life spans may at last be the counterweight to materialism.

If health span extends, the nuclear family might be seen as less central. Bearing and raising children would no longer be the all-consuming life event.

Deeper changes may be in store as well. People in their late teens to late 20s are far more likely to commit crimes than people of other ages; as society grays, the decline of crime should continue. Violence in all guises should continue downward, too. Horrible headlines from Afghanistan or Syria are exceptions to an overall trend toward less warfare and less low-intensity conflict. As Steven Pinker showed in the 2011 book Better Angels of Our Nature, total casualties of combat, including indirect casualties from the economic harm associated with fighting, have been declining, even as the global population has risen. In 1950, one person in 5,000 worldwide died owing to combat; by 2010, this measure was down to one person in 300,000. In recent years, far more people have been killed by car crashes than by battle. Simultaneously, per capita military expenditure has shrunk. My favorite statistic about the world: the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute reports that, adjusting to todays dollars, global per capita military spending has declined by one-third in the past quarter century.

The end of the Cold War, and the proxy conflicts it spawned, is an obvious influence on the subsiding of warfare, as is economic interconnectedness. But aging may also be a factor. Counterculture optics notwithstanding, polls showed that the young were more likely to support the Vietnam War than the old were; the young were more likely to support the 2003 invasion of Iraq, too. Research by John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University, suggests that as people age, they become less enthusiastic about war. Perhaps this is because older people tend to be wiser than the youngand couldnt the world use more wisdom?

Older people also report, to pollsters and psychologists, a greater sense of well-being than the young and middle-aged do. By the latter phases of life, material and romantic desires have been attained or given up on; passions have cooled; and for most, a rich store of memories has been compiled. Among the core contentions of the well-being research of the Princeton University psychologist Daniel Kahneman is that in the end, memories are all you keepwhats in the mind matters more than what you own. Regardless of net worth, the old are well off in this sense.

Should large numbers of people enjoy longer lives in decent health, the overall well-being of the human family may rise substantially. In As You Like It, Jaques declares, Man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages. The first five embody promise and powerinfant, schoolboy, lover, soldier, and success. The late phases are entirely negativepantaloon, a period as the butt of jokes for looking old and becoming impotent; then second childishness, a descent into senile dependency. As life expectancy and health span increase, the seven ages may demand revision, with the late phases of life seen as a positive experience of culmination and contentment.

Further along may be a rethinking of life as better structured around friendship than around family, the basic unit of human society since the mists of prehistory. In the brief life of previous centuries, all a man or woman could hope to accomplish was to bear and raise children; enervation followed. Today, life is longer, but an education-based economy requires greater investments in childrencontemporary parents are still assisting offspring well into a childs 20s. As before, when the child-rearing finally is done, decline commences.

But if health span extends, the nuclear family might be seen as less central. For most people, bearing and raising children would no longer be the all-consuming life event. After child-rearing, a phase of decades of friendships could awaitpotentially more fulfilling than the emotionally charged but fast-burning bonds of youth. A change such as this might have greater ramifications for society than changes in work schedules or health-care economics.

Regardless of where increasing life expectancy leads, the direction will be into the unknownfor society and for the natural world. Felipe Sierra, the researcher at the National Institute on Aging, puts it this way: The human ethical belief that death should be postponed as long as possible does not exist in naturefrom which we are now, in any case, diverging.

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What Happens When We All Live to 100? - The Atlantic

Stem Cell 100 is designed to rejuvenate your body and slow the aging process to help you feel and function more like a young person. This can help you feel better, look younger and improve your health.

Most of the cells in your body lose function with age. Everyone has special cells called adult stem cells which are needed to repair damaged and old tissues, but adult stem cells themselves are also aging.

Until now there was not much you could do about it. Stem Cell 100 rejuvenates adult stem cells and their micro-environments with the proprietary SC100 formula. Stem Cell 100+ is a more powerful and faster acting version of the same nutraceutical.

Developed by experts in the anti-aging field, patent-pending Stem Cell 100 is the only supplement proven to double maximum lifespan of an animal model. No other product or therapy including caloric restriction even comes close.

Harness the Power of Your Own Stem Cells

Millions of people suffer from chronic conditions of aging and disease. Based on international scientific studies in many academic and industry laboratories, there is new hope that many of the conditions afflicting mankind can some day be cured or greatly improved using stem cell regenerative medicine.

Stem Cell 100 offers a way to receive some of the benefits of stem cell therapy today by improving the effectiveness of your own adult stem cells.

Stem Cell 100 Helps to Support:

The statements above have not been reviewed by the FDA. Stem Cell 100 is not a preventive or treatment for any disease.

Help Rejuvenate Your Body by Boosting Your Own Stem Cells

As a child, we are protected from the ravages of aging and can rapidly recover from injury or illness because of the ability of the young regenerative stem cells of children have a superior ability to repair and regenerate most damaged tissues.

As we age, our stem cell populations become depleted and/or slowly lose their capacity to repair. Moreover, the micro-environment (i.e. niches) around stem cells becomes less nurturing with age, so cell turnover and repair are further reduced. This natural progression occurs so slowly that we are barely aware of it, but we start to notice the body changes in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and especially after 50 years of age.

Stem Cell 100 helps adults regain their youthful regenerative potential by stabilizing stem cell function.

Stem Cell 100 works differently than other stem cell products on the market

You may have seen a number of products that are advertised as stimulating or enhancing the number of stem cells. Each person only has a limited number of stem cells so using them up faster may not be a good strategy. Stem Cell 100 is about improving the effectiveness and longevity of your stem cells as well as preserving the stem cell micro-environment. That should be the goal of any effective stem cell therapy and is what Stem Cell 100 is designed to do and what other stem cell products cannot do.

Stem Cell 100 Extends Drosophila (Fruit Fly) Lifespan

In extensive laboratory testing Stem Cell 100 greatly extended both the average and maximum lifespan of Drosophila fruit flies. The study (see Charts below) included three cages of Drosophila fruit flies that were treated with Stem Cell 100 (Cages T1 to T3) and three cages which were untreated controls (Cages C1 to C3). Each cage started with 500 fruit flies including 250 males and 250 females.

The experiment showed that median lifespan more than doubled with a 123% increase.

While fruit flies are not people they are more like us than you might think. Drosophila have a heart and circulatory system, and the most common cause of death is heart failure. Like humans and other mammals (e.g. mice), it is difficult to increase their lifespan significantly.

These observed results outperform every lifespan enhancing treatment ever tested including experiments using genetic modification and dietary restriction.

The longest living fruit fly receiving Stem Cell 100 lived 89 days compared to the longest living untreated control which lived 48 days. It is possible that the single longest living fruit fly lived longer for other reasons such as genetic mutation, however, there were many others that lived almost as long so it was not just an aberation.

The oldest 5% of the treated fruit flies lived 77% longer than the oldest 5% of the control group. It is also important that the study showed an improved ability of the fruit flies to survive stress and illness at all ages not just during old age. Even after the first few days of the study there were already more of the

Stem Cell 100 treated fruit flies alive that survived youth than the control group of untreated fruit flies. For additional information about the study please go to our Longevity page.

SK, Santa Fe, New Mexico

I have been using Stem Cell 100 for about one year. Initially I noticed a boost in energy level, which now remains steady-hence not noticed I have experienced no adverse effects from taking this product. I heartily recommend Stem Cell 100 and plan to continue on it.*

Leslie

Stem Cell 100 has made a noticeable difference in me, including turning my gray hair back to its original color, which supposedly is impossible. The reversal of the gray hair to original color began a couple of months after starting the pill. After about 10 months, the gray hair is mostly gone. At the current rate of improvement, I expect my hair to completely be back to its original color within 1 to 2 months. I think my beard will take longer, but it was the first to gray.

Also, my skin became smoother and younger looking. The skin and hair rely heavily on stem cells, and they seem to benefit strongly from this product. Im so excited about telling people my results because there is nothing that can reverse the graying of hair. It will give me evidence that this supplement thing is really powerful.

Unfortunately, I dont have before and after pictures because I didnt read any claims that the product would affect hair color. I would just say that Im a person who totally believes that it does me no good to imagine things or interpret tings in a way favorable to what I want to believe. When Im convinced enough to make a statement, you can count on it.*

Joey, California

I am a 48 year old working woman. A friend of mine introduced me to Stem Cell 100. After taking Stem Cell 100 for about 4 months my anxiety level has really been diminished. Its a great supplement and I would recommend it to everyone!*

Paul, California

I am an active 61 year old man in excellent health, but had experienced a serious drop in my energy level at the time I enrolled in a 4-month trial of Stem Cell 100. Within a month, my energy increased noticeably and I began to take to my physical activities (running, cycling) with a renewed enthusiasm and intensity level. My mood began to elevate steadily, and soon I had even lost those few stubborn pounds that had eluded me for years. I am very enthusiastic about Stem Cell 100. I look forward to continuing with the new, improved formulation, and would not hesitate to recommend it.*

Mike, Texas

After taking the Stem Cell 100 for the last month my sinuses have also cleared, unplugging my ears for the first time since mid September.*

Tom, Australia

Only after about 2-3 weeks of taking Stem Cell 100 my eye sight returned back to a level where I did not need glasses to work on my computer monitors. My eyes had always been good but had started to deteriorate about a year ago where 50% of the time I had to wear my glasses. I was shocked to find the improvement so quick. I found I was less stressed. No other changes to lifestyle yet a measureable difference.

My fingers would sometimes get stiff in the mornings after long days on the keyboard. This stiffness disappeared. Some of my hair is getting darker. I have a full body of hair that had virtually all turned grey but I noticed that some of my hair was starting regrow brown my original colour. I had some age spots in my left leg that are disappearing. Generally, I feel great.*

Willie, California

As I was sprinting this morning around 6:00am I noticed that I was not hurting anymore! I have been having sore knees, ankles, hamstrings and back for the last couple of years. I usually just ran through it, but I noticed since I have been taking the Stem Cell 100 capsules for about 45 days now, those nagging pains are gone away!*

*DIsclaimer: The testimonials reflect the real life experiences written and voluntarily submitted to us by individuals who used our products. Individual results may vary. We do not claim that any individual experience recounted is typical or representative of what any other consumer might experience.

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Supplement Facts

Stem Cell 100 and Stem Cell 100+ are Patent-Pending Life Code Nutraceuticals.

All Life Code products arenutraceutical grade and provide the best of science along with the balance of nature. Stem Cell 100 is vegetarian.

Serving Size: One type O capsule

Servings Per Container: 60 Capsules

Recommended Use: Typical usage of Stem Cell 100 is two capsules per day, preferably at meal times. While both capsules can be taken at the same time, it is preferable to separate the two capsules by at least 4 hours. Since Stem Cell 100 is a potent formulation, do not take more than three capsules per day. One capsule per day may be sufficient for those below 110 pounds.

Recommended Users: Anyone from ages 22 and up could benefit from Stem Cell 100 or Stem Cell 100+. Those in their 20s and 30s will like the boost in endurance during sports or exercise, while older users will notice better energy and general health with the potential for some weight loss.

Stem Cell 100 was our first multi-pathway longevity nutraceutical. Stem Cell 100+ is a more advanced, faster acting and powerful version of Stem Cell 100.

Click label to enlarge

Active Stem Cell 100 Ingredients: There are ten herbal components that make up the patent-pending combination in Stem Cell 100. The herbal components are highly extracted natural herbs that are standardized for active components that promote adult stem cells and lower inflammation:

1) Polysaccharides, flavonoids, and astragalosides extracted from Astragalus membranaceus, which has many positive effects on stem cells and the cardiovascular and immune systems.

2) Proprietary natural bilberry flavonoids and other compounds from a stabilized nutraceutical grade medicinal Vaccinium extract. Activate metabolic PPARS and helps produce healthy levels of cholesterol and inflammation. Also has anti-fungal and anti-viral activity.

3) Flavonoids and oligo-proanthocyanidins (OPCs) extracted from Pine Bark, which greatly reduce oxidative stress, DNA damage, and inflammation.

4) L-Theanine, which is a natural amino acid from Camellia sinesis that reduces mental stress and inflammation while improving cognition and protecting brain cells from ischemic or toxic injury.

5) Pterocarpus Marsupium, which contains two stable resveratrol analogs which promote stem cells, lower inflammation, and stabilized metabolism.

6) Polygonum Multiflorium stem stem is a popular Chinese herbal tonic that fights premature aging and promotes youthfulness. Polygonum is reported to enhance fertility by improving sperm count in men and egg vitality in women. Polygonum is also widely used in Asia to strengthen muscle and is thus used by many athletes as an essential tonic for providing strength and stamina to the body.

Modern research has supported Polygonum multiflorium stem in that animal studies have proven that it can extend lifespan and improve the quality of life. Polygonum appears to protect the liver and brain against damage, perhaps by improving immune and cardiovascular health. The stem sections of Polygonum multiflorium are also calming to the nervous system and promote sounder sleep. Life Code uses a proprietary Polygonum multiflorium stem extract.

7) Schisandra Berry is used by many Chinese women to preserve their youthful beauty. For thousands of years, Schisandra has been prized as an antiaging tonic that increases stamina and mental clarity, while fighting stress and fatigue. In Chinese traditional medicine, Schisandra berry has been used for liver disorders and to enhance resistance to infection and promote skin health and better sleep.

Schisandra berry is classified as an adaptogen, which can stimulate the central nervous system, increase brain efficiency, improve reflexes, and enhance endurance. Modern research indicates that Schisandra berry extracts have a protective effect on the liver and promote immunity. A double-blind human trial suggested that Schisandra berry may help patients with viral hepatitis, which is very prevalent in China.

Recent work indicates that the liver is protected by the enhanced production of glutathione peroxidase, which helps detoxify the liver. Life Code uses a proprietary Schisandra berry extract.

8) Fo-Ti Root (aka He-Shou-Wu) is one of the most widely used Chinese herbal medicines to restore blood, kidney, liver, and cardiovascular health. Fo-Ti is claimed to have powerful rejuvenating effects on the brain, endocrine glands, the immune system, and sexual vigor.

Legend has it that Professor Li Chung Yun took daily doses of Fo-Ti to live to be 256 and is said to have outlived 23 wives and spawned 11 generations of descendents before his death in 1933. While it is unlikely that he really lived to such an old age there is scientific support for Fo-Ti as beneficial for health and longevity.

Like the Indian Keno bark, Fo-ti contains resveratrol analogs and likely acts by various mechanism, which includes liver detoxification and protection of skin from UVB radiation. Life Code uses a proprietary Fo-Ti root extract.

9) Camellia sinensis has many bioactive polyphenols including the potent epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). A 2006 Japanese study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that adults aged 40 to 79 years of age who drank an average of 5 or more cups of tea per day had a significantly lower risk of dying from all causes (23% lower for females and 12% lower for males). The study tracked more than 40,000 adults for up to 11 years and found dramatically lower rates of cardiovascular disease and strokes in those drinking 5 or more cups of tea.

Many studies have found that adults drinking 3 or more cups of tea per day have significantly less cancer. Other studies have found that green tea helps protect against age-related cognitive decline, kidney disease, periodontal disease, and type 2 diabetes. Green tea also promotes visceral fat loss and higher endurance levels.

Summarizing all of the thousands of studies on tea and tea polyphenols that have been published, it can be concluded that tea polyphenols preserve health and youth. This conclusion is backed up by gene studies showing that tea polyphenols decrease insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), which is a highly conserved genetic pathway that has been strongly linked to aging in yeast, worms, mice, and humans. If everyone could drink 4 to 5 cups of green tea each day, they could enjoy these important health benefits, but for most people drinking that much green tea can disturb their sleep patterns.

Life Code uses a nutraceutical grade green tea extract that has 98% polyphenols and 50% ESCG that provides the polyphenol and ESCG equivalent of 4 to 5 cups of green tea with only 2% of the caffeine. Thus, most or all of the benefits of green tea are provided without concerns about disturbing sleep.

10) Drynaria Rhizome is used extensively in traditional Chinese medicine as an effective herb for healing bones, ligaments, tendons, and lower back problems. Eastern martial art practitioners have used Drynaria for thousands of years to help in recovering from sprains, bruises, and stress fractures.

Drynaria has also helped in many cases of bleeding gums and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). The active components of Drynaria protect bone forming cells by enhancing calcium absorption and other mechanisms. Drynaria is also reported to act as a kidney tonic and to promote hair growth and wound healing. Life Code uses a proprietary Drynaria rhizome extract.

Safety: The extracts in both versions of Stem Cell 100 are pharmaceutical grade and have been individually tested in both animals and humans without significant safety issues. Those with pre-existing conditions of diabetes or hypertension should coordinate this product with your doctor, as lower blood glucose or reduced blood pressure can result from taking the recommended dose of this product.

Warnings: may lower glucose and/or blood pressure in some individuals. The supplement is not recommended for pregnant, lactating, or hypoglycemic individuals.

References

1. Yu, Q., Y.S. Bai, and J. Lin, [Effect of astragalus injection combined with mesenchymal stem cells transplantation for repairing the Spinal cord injury in rats]. Zhongguo Zhong Xi Yi Jie He Za Zhi, 2010. 30(4): p. 393-7.

2. Xu, C.J., et al., [Effect of astragalus polysaccharides on the proliferation and ultrastructure of dog bone marrow stem cells induced into osteoblasts in vitro]. Hua Xi Kou Qiang Yi Xue Za Zhi, 2007. 25(5): p. 432-6.

3. Xu, C.J., et al., [Effects of astragalus polysaccharides-chitosan/polylactic acid scaffolds and bone marrow stem cells on repairing supra-alveolar periodontal defects in dogs]. Zhong Nan Da Xue Xue Bao Yi Xue Ban, 2006. 31(4): p. 512-7.

4. Zhu, X. and B. Zhu, [Effect of Astragalus membranaceus injection on megakaryocyte hematopoiesis in anemic mice]. Hua Xi Yi Ke Da Xue Xue Bao, 2001. 32(4): p. 590-2.

5. Qiu, L.H., X.J. Xie, and B.Q. Zhang, Astragaloside IV improves homocysteine-induced acute phase endothelial dysfunction via antioxidation. Biol Pharm Bull, 2010. 33(4): p. 641-6.

6. Araghi-Niknam, M., et al., Pine bark extract reduces platelet aggregation. Integr Med, 2000. 2(2): p. 73-77.

7. Rohdewald, P., A review of the French maritime pine bark extract (Pycnogenol), a herbal medication with a diverse clinical pharmacology. Int J Clin Pharmacol Ther, 2002. 40(4): p. 158-68.

8. Koch, R., Comparative study of Venostasin and Pycnogenol in chronic venous insufficiency. Phytother Res, 2002. 16 Suppl 1: p. S1-5.

9. Rimando, A.M., et al., Pterostilbene, a new agonist for the peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor alpha-isoform, lowers plasma lipoproteins and cholesterol in hypercholesterolemic hamsters. J Agric Food Chem, 2005. 53(9): p. 3403-7.

10. Manickam, M., et al., Antihyperglycemic activity of phenolics from Pterocarpus marsupium. J Nat Prod, 1997. 60(6): p. 609-10.

11. Grover, J.K., V. Vats, and S.S. Yadav, Pterocarpus marsupium extract (Vijayasar) prevented the alteration in metabolic patterns induced in the normal rat by feeding an adequate diet containing fructose as sole carbohydrate. Diabetes Obes Metab, 2005. 7(4): p. 414-20.

12. Mao, X.Q., et al., Astragalus polysaccharide reduces hepatic endoplasmic reticulum stress and restores glucose homeostasis in a diabetic KKAy mouse model. Acta Pharmacol Sin, 2007. 28(12): p. 1947-56.

13. Schafer, A. and P. Hogger, Oligomeric procyanidins of French maritime pine bark extract (Pycnogenol) effectively inhibit alpha-glucosidase. Diabetes Res Clin Pract, 2007. 77(1): p. 41-6.

14. Kwak, C.J., et al., Antihypertensive effect of French maritime pine bark extract (Flavangenol): possible involvement of endothelial nitric oxide-dependent vasorelaxation. J Hypertens, 2009. 27(1): p. 92-101.

15. Xue, B., et al., Effect of total flavonoid fraction of Astragalus complanatus R.Brown on angiotensin II-induced portal-vein contraction in hypertensive rats. Phytomedicine, 2008.

16. Mizuno, C.S., et al., Design, synthesis, biological evaluation and docking studies of pterostilbene analogs inside PPARalpha. Bioorg Med Chem, 2008. 16(7): p. 3800-8.

17. Sato, M., et al., Dietary pine bark extract reduces atherosclerotic lesion development in male ApoE-deficient mice by lowering the serum cholesterol level. Biosci Biotechnol Biochem, 2009. 73(6): p. 1314-7.

18. Kimura, Y. and M. Sumiyoshi, French Maritime Pine Bark (Pinus maritima Lam.) Extract (Flavangenol) Prevents Chronic UVB Radiation-induced Skin Damage and Carcinogenesis in Melanin-possessing Hairless Mice. Photochem Photobiol, 2010.

19. Pavlou, P., et al., In-vivo data on the influence of tobacco smoke and UV light on murine skin. Toxicol Ind Health, 2009. 25(4-5): p. 231-9.

20. Ni, Z., Y. Mu, and O. Gulati, Treatment of melasma with Pycnogenol. Phytother Res, 2002. 16(6): p. 567-71.

21. Bito, T., et al., Pine bark extract pycnogenol downregulates IFN-gamma-induced adhesion of T cells to human keratinocytes by inhibiting inducible ICAM-1 expression. Free Radic Biol Med, 2000. 28(2): p. 219-27.

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Stem Cell 100 Longevity Telomere Support Supplement SC100 ...

Happiness is a mental or emotional state of well-being defined by positive or pleasant emotions ranging from contentment to intense joy.[1] Happy mental states may also reflect judgements by a person about their overall well-being.[2] A variety of biological, psychological, economic, religious and philosophical approaches have striven to define happiness and identify its sources. Various research groups, including positive psychology and happiness economics are employing the scientific method to research questions about what "happiness" is, and how it might be attained.

The United Nations declared 20 March the International Day of Happiness to recognise the relevance of happiness and well-being as universal goals.

Philosophers and religious thinkers often define happiness in terms of living a good life, or flourishing, rather than simply as an emotion. Happiness in this sense was used to translate the Greek Eudaimonia, and is still used in virtue ethics. There has been a transition over time from emphasis on the happiness of virtue to the virtue of happiness.[3] Since the turn of the millennium, the human flourishing approach, advanced particularly by Amartya Sen has attracted increasing interest in psychological, especially prominent in the work of Martin Seligman, Ed Diener and Ruut Veenhoven, and international development and medical research in the work of Paul Anand.[citation needed]

A widely discussed political value expressed in the United States Declaration of Independence of 1776, written by Thomas Jefferson, is the universal right to "the pursuit of happiness."[4] This suggests a subjective interpretation but one that nonetheless goes beyond emotions alone.[citation needed]

Happiness is a fuzzy concept and can mean many different things to many people. Part of the challenge of a science of happiness is to identify different concepts of happiness, and where applicable, split them into their components. Related concepts are well-being, quality of life and flourishing. At least one author defines happiness as contentment.[5] Some commentators focus on the difference between the hedonistic tradition of seeking pleasant and avoiding unpleasant experiences, and the eudaimonic tradition of living life in a full and deeply satisfying way.[6]

The 2012 World Happiness Report stated that in subjective well-being measures, the primary distinction is between cognitive life evaluations and emotional reports.[7] Happiness is used in both life evaluation, as in How happy are you with your life as a whole?, and in emotional reports, as in How happy are you now?, and people seem able to use happiness as appropriate in these verbal contexts. Using these measures, the World Happiness Report identifies the countries with the highest levels of happiness.[citation needed]

Since the 1960s, happiness research has been conducted in a wide variety of scientific disciplines, including gerontology, social psychology, clinical and medical research and happiness economics. During the past two decades, however, the field of happiness studies has expanded drastically in terms of scientific publications, and has produced many different views on causes of happiness, and on factors that correlate with happiness,[8] but no validated method has been found to substantially improve long-term happiness in a meaningful way for most people.

Sonja Lyubomirsky concludes in her book The How of Happiness that 50 percent of a given human's happiness level is genetically determined (based on twin studies), 10 percent is affected by life circumstances and situation, and a remaining 40 percent of happiness is subject to self-control.[citation needed]

The results of the 75-year Grant Study of Harvard undergraduates show a high correlation of loving relationship, especially with parents, with later life wellbeing.[9]

In the 2nd Edition of the Handbook of Emotions (2000), evolutionary psychologists Leda Cosmides and John Tooby say that happiness comes from "encountering unexpected positive events". In the 3rd Edition of the Handbook of Emotions (2008), Michael Lewis says "happiness can be elicited by seeing a significant other". According to Mark Leary, as reported in a November 1995 issue of Psychology Today, "we are happiest when basking in the acceptance and praise of others". Sara Algoe and Jonathan Haidt say that "happiness" may be the label for a family of related emotional states, such as joy, amusement, satisfaction, gratification, euphoria, and triumph.[10]

It has been argued that money cannot effectively "buy" much happiness unless it is used in certain ways.[11] "Beyond the point at which people have enough to comfortably feed, clothe, and house themselves, having more money - even a lot more money - makes them only a little bit happier."[according to whom?] A Harvard Business School study found that "spending money on others actually makes us happier than spending it on ourselves".[12]

Meditation has been found to lead to high activity in the brain's left prefrontal cortex, which in turn has been found to correlate with happiness.[13]

Psychologist Martin Seligman asserts that happiness is not solely derived from external, momentary pleasures,[14] and provides the acronym PERMA to summarize Positive Psychology's correlational findings: humans seem happiest when they have

There have also been some studies of how religion relates to happiness. Causal relationships remain unclear, but more religion is seen in happier people. This correlation may be the result of community membership and not necessarily belief in religion itself. Another component may have to do with ritual.[15]

Abraham Harold Maslow, an American professor of psychology, founded humanistic psychology in the 1930s. A visual aid he created to explain his theory, which he called the hierarchy of needs, is a pyramid depicting the levels of human needs, psychological, and physical. When a human being ascends the steps of the pyramid, he reaches self-actualization. Beyond the routine of needs fulfillment, Maslow envisioned moments of extraordinary experience, known as peak experiences, profound moments of love, understanding, happiness, or rapture, during which a person feels more whole, alive, self-sufficient, and yet a part of the world. This is similar to the flow concept of Mihly Cskszentmihlyi.[citation needed]

Self-determination theory relates intrinsic motivation to three needs: competence, autonomy, and relatedness.

Cross-sectional studies worldwide support a relationship between happiness and fruit and vegetable intake. Those eating fruits and vegetables each day have a higher likelihood of being classified as very happy, suggesting a strong and positive correlation between fruit and vegetable consumption and happiness.[16] Whether it be in South Korea,[17] Iran,[18] Chile,[19] USA,[20] or UK,[21] greater fruit and vegetable consumption had a positive association with greater happiness, independent of factors such as smoking, exercise, body mass index, or socio-economic factors.

Religion and happiness have been studied by a number of researchers, and religion features many elements addressing the components of happiness, as identified by positive psychology. Its association with happiness is facilitated in part by the social connections of organized religion,[22] and by the neuropsychological benefits of prayer[23] and belief.

There are a number of mechanisms through which religion may make a person happier, including social contact and support that result from religious pursuits, the mental activity that comes with optimism and volunteering, learned coping strategies that enhance one's ability to deal with stress, and psychological factors such as "reason for being." It may also be that religious people engage in behaviors related to good health, such as less substance abuse, since the use of psychotropic substances is sometimes considered abuse.[24][25][26][27][28][29]

The Handbook of Religion and Health describes a survey by Feigelman (1992) that examined happiness in Americans who have given up religion, in which it was found that there was little relationship between religious disaffiliation and unhappiness.[30] A survey by Kosmin & Lachman (1993), also cited in this handbook, indicates that people with no religious affiliation appear to be at greater risk for depressive symptoms than those affiliated with a religion.[31] A review of studies by 147 independent investigators found, "the correlation between religiousness and depressive symptoms was -.096, indicating that greater religiousness is mildly associated with fewer symptoms."[32]

The Legatum Prosperity Index reflects the repeated finding of research on the science of happiness that there is a positive link between religious engagement and wellbeing: people who report that God is very important in their lives are on average more satisfied with their lives, after accounting for their income, age and other individual characteristics.[33]

Surveys by Gallup, the National Opinion Research Centre and the Pew Organisation conclude that spiritually committed people are twice as likely to report being "very happy" than the least religiously committed people.[34] An analysis of over 200 social studies contends that "high religiousness predicts a lower risk of depression and drug abuse and fewer suicide attempts, and more reports of satisfaction with sex life and a sense of well-being. However, the links between religion and happiness are always very broad in nature, highly reliant on scripture and small sample number. To that extent there is a much larger connection between religion and suffering (Lincoln 1034)."[32] And a review of 498 studies published in peer-reviewed journals concluded that a large majority of them showed a positive correlation between religious commitment and higher levels of perceived well-being and self-esteem and lower levels of hypertension, depression, and clinical delinquency.[35] A meta-analysis of 34 recent studies published between 1990 and 2001 found that religiosity has a salutary relationship with psychological adjustment, being related to less psychological distress, more life satisfaction, and better self-actualization.[36] Finally, a recent systematic review of 850 research papers on the topic concluded that "the majority of well-conducted studies found that higher levels of religious involvement are positively associated with indicators of psychological well-being (life satisfaction, happiness, positive affect, and higher morale) and with less depression, suicidal thoughts and behaviour, drug/alcohol use/abuse."[37]

However, there remains strong disagreement among scholars about whether the effects of religious observance, particularly attending church or otherwise belonging to religious groups, is due to the spiritual or the social aspectsi.e. those who attend church or belong to similar religious organizations may well be receiving only the effects of the social connections involved. While these benefits are real enough, they may thus be the same one would gain by joining other, secular groups, clubs, or similar organizations.[38]

Terror management theory maintains that people suffer cognitive dissonance (anxiety) when they are reminded of their inevitable death. Through terror management, individuals are motivated to seek consonant elements symbols which make sense of mortality and death in satisfactory ways (i.e. boosting self-esteem).

Research has found that strong belief in religious or secular meaning systems affords psychological security and hope. It is moderates (e.g. agnostics, slightly religious individuals) who likely suffer the most anxiety from their meaning systems. Religious meaning systems are especially adapted to manage death anxiety because they are unlikely to be disconfirmed (for various reasons), they are all encompassing, and they promise literal immortality.[39][40]

Whether emotional effects are beneficial or adverse seems to vary with the nature of the belief. Belief in a benevolent God is associated with lower incidence of general anxiety, social anxiety, paranoia, obsession, and compulsion whereas belief in a punitive God is associated with greater symptoms. (An alternative explanation is that people seek out beliefs that fit their psychological and emotional states.)[41]

Citizens of the world's poorest countries are the most likely to be religious, and researchers suggest this is because of religion's powerful coping abilities.[42][43] Luke Galen also supports terror management theory as a partial explanation of the above findings. Galen describes evidence (including his own research) that the benefits of religion are due to strong convictions and membership in a social group.[44][45][46]

Happiness forms a central theme of Buddhist teachings.[47] For ultimate freedom from suffering, the Noble Eightfold Path leads its practitioner to Nirvana, a state of everlasting peace. Ultimate happiness is only achieved by overcoming craving in all forms. More mundane forms of happiness, such as acquiring wealth and maintaining good friendships, are also recognized as worthy goals for lay people (see sukha). Buddhism also encourages the generation of loving kindness and compassion, the desire for the happiness and welfare of all beings.[48][49][unreliable source?]

Happiness or simcha (Hebrew: ) in Judaism is considered an important element in the service of God.[50] The biblical verse "worship The Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs," (Psalm 100:2) stresses joy in the service of God.[citation needed] A popular teaching by Rabbi Nachman of Breslov, a 19th-century Chassidic Rabbi, is "Mitzvah Gedolah Le'hiyot Besimcha Tamid," it is a great mitzvah (commandment) to always be in a state of happiness. When a person is happy they are much more capable of serving God and going about their daily activities than when depressed or upset.[51]

The primary meaning of "happiness" in various European languages involves good fortune, chance or happening. The meaning in Greek philosophy, however, refers primarily to ethics. In Catholicism, the ultimate end of human existence consists in felicity, Latin equivalent to the Greek eudaimonia, or "blessed happiness", described by the 13th-century philosopher-theologian Thomas Aquinas as a Beatific Vision of God's essence in the next life.[52] Human complexities, like reason and cognition, can produce well-being or happiness, but such form is limited and transitory. In temporal life, the contemplation of God, the infinitely Beautiful, is the supreme delight of the will. Beatitudo, or perfect happiness, as complete well-being, is to be attained not in this life, but the next.[53]

While religion is often formalised and community-oriented, spirituality tends to be individually based and not as formalised. In a 2014 study, 320 children, ages 812, in both public and private schools, were given a Spiritual Well-Being Questionnaire assessing the correlation between spirituality and happiness. Spirituality and not religious practices (praying, attending church services) correlated positively with the child's happiness; the more spiritual the child was, the happier the child was. Spirituality accounted for about 326% of the variance in happiness.[54]

The Chinese Confucian thinker Mencius, who 2300 years ago sought to give advice to the ruthless political leaders of the warring states period, was convinced that the mind played a mediating role between the "lesser self" (the physiological self) and the "greater self" (the moral self) and that getting the priorities right between these two would lead to sage-hood. He argued that if we did not feel satisfaction or pleasure in nourishing one's "vital force" with "righteous deeds", that force would shrivel up (Mencius,6A:15 2A:2). More specifically, he mentions the experience of intoxicating joy if one celebrates the practice of the great virtues, especially through music.[55]

Al-Ghazali (10581111) the Muslim Sufi thinker wrote the Alchemy of Happiness, a manual of spiritual instruction throughout the Muslim world and widely practiced today.[citation needed]

The Hindu thinker Patanjali, author of the Yoga Sutras, wrote quite exhaustively on the psychological and ontological roots of bliss.[56]

In the Nicomachean Ethics, written in 350 BCE, Aristotle stated that happiness (also being well and doing well) is the only thing that humans desire for its own sake, unlike riches, honor, health or friendship. He observed that men sought riches, or honor, or health not only for their own sake but also in order to be happy. Note that eudaimonia, the term we translate as "happiness", is for Aristotle an activity rather than an emotion or a state.[57] Thus understood, the happy life is the good life, that is, a life in which a person fulfills human nature in an excellent way. Specifically, Aristotle argues that the good life is the life of excellent rational activity. He arrives at this claim with the Function Argument. Basically, if it's right, every living thing has a function, that which it uniquely does. For humans, Aristotle contends, our function is to reason, since it is that alone that we uniquely do. And performing one's function well, or excellently, is one's good. Thus, the life of excellent rational activity is the happy life. Aristotle does not leave it that, however. For he argues that there is a second best life for those incapable of excellent rational activity.This second best life is the life of moral virtue.[citation needed]

Many ethicists make arguments for how humans should behave, either individually or collectively, based on the resulting happiness of such behavior. Utilitarians, such as John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham, advocated the greatest happiness principle as a guide for ethical behavior.[citation needed]

Friedrich Nietzsche savagely critiqued the English Utilitarians' focus on attaining the greatest happiness, stating "Man does not strive for happiness, only the Englishman does." Nietzsche meant that the making happiness one's ultimate goal, the aim of one's existence "makes one contemptible;" Nietzsche instead yearned for a culture that would set higher, more difficult goals than "mere happiness." Thus Nietzsche introduces the quasi-dystopic figure of the "last man" as a kind of thought experiment against the utilitarians and happiness-seekers; these small, "last men" who seek after only their own pleasure and health, avoiding all danger, exertion, difficulty, challenge, struggle are meant to seem contemptible to Nietzsche's reader. Nietzsche instead wants us to consider the value of what is difficult, what can only be earned through struggle, difficulty, pain and thus to come to see the affirmative value suffering and unhappiness truly play in creating everything of great worth in life, including all the highest achievements of human culture, not least of all philosophy.[58][59]

According to St. Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, man's last end is happiness: "all men agree in desiring the last end, which is happiness."[60] However, where utilitarians focused on reasoning about consequences as the primary tool for reaching happiness, Aquinas agreed with Aristotle that happiness cannot be reached solely through reasoning about consequences of acts, but also requires a pursuit of good causes for acts, such as habits according to virtue.[61] In turn, which habits and acts that normally lead to happiness is according to Aquinas caused by laws: natural law and divine law. These laws, in turn, were according to Aquinas caused by a first cause, or God.[citation needed]

According to Aquinas, happiness consists in an "operation of the speculative intellect": "Consequently happiness consists principally in such an operation, viz. in the contemplation of Divine things." And, "the last end cannot consist in the active life, which pertains to the practical intellect." So: "Therefore the last and perfect happiness, which we await in the life to come, consists entirely in contemplation. But imperfect happiness, such as can be had here, consists first and principally in contemplation, but secondarily, in an operation of the practical intellect directing human actions and passions."[62]

Common market health measures such as GDP and GNP have been used as a measure of successful policy. On average richer nations tend to be happier than poorer nations, but this effect seems to diminish with wealth.[63][64] This has been explained by the fact that the dependency is not linear but logarithmic, i.e., the same percentual increase in the GNP produces the same increase in happiness for wealthy countries as for poor countries.[65][66][67][68] Increasingly, academic economists and international economic organisations are arguing for and developing multi-dimensional dashboards which combine subjective and objective indicators to provide a more direct and explicit assessment of human wellbeing. Work by Paul Anand and colleagues helps to highlight the fact that there many different contributors to adult wellbeing, that happiness judgement reflect, in part, the presence of salient constraints, and that fairness, autonomy, community and engagement are key aspects of happiness and wellbeing throughout the life course.

Libertarian think tank Cato Institute claims that economic freedom correlates strongly with happiness[69] preferably within the context of a western mixed economy, with free press and a democracy. According to certain standards, East European countries (ruled by Communist parties) were less happy than Western ones, even less happy than other equally poor countries.[70]

However, much empirical research in the field of happiness economics, such as that by Benjamin Radcliff, professor of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame, supports the contention that (at least in democratic countries) life satisfaction is strongly and positively related to the social democratic model of a generous social safety net, pro-worker labor market regulations, and strong labor unions.[71] Similarly, there is evidence that public policies that reduce poverty and support a strong middle class, such as a higher minimum wage, strongly affects average levels of well-being.[72]

It has been argued that happiness measures could be used not as a replacement for more traditional measures, but as a supplement.[73] According to professor Edward Glaeser, people constantly make choices that decrease their happiness, because they have also more important aims. Therefore, the government should not decrease the alternatives available for the citizen by patronizing them but let the citizen keep a maximal freedom of choice.[74]

It has been argued that happiness at work is one of the driving forces behind positive outcomes at work, rather than just being a resultant product.[75]

Several scales have been used to measure happiness:

The UK began to measure national well being in 2012,[83] following Bhutan which already measured gross national happiness.[citation needed]

A positive relationship has been found between the volume of gray matter in the right precuneus area of the brain and the subject's subjective happiness score.[84] Interestingly meditation, including mindfulness, based interventions have been found to correlate with a significant gray matter increase within the precuneus.[85][86][87][88][89]

In 2005 a study conducted by Andrew Steptow and Michael Marmot at University College London, found that happiness is related to biological markers that play an important role in health.[90] The researchers aimed to analyze whether there was any association between well-being and three biological markers: heart rate, cortisol levels, and plasma fibrinogen levels. Interestingly, the participants who rated themselves the least happy had cortisol levels that were 48% higher than those who rated themselves as the most happy. The least happy subjects also had a large plasma fibrinogen response to two stress-inducing tasks: the Stroop test, and tracing a star seen in a mirror image. Repeating their studies three years later Steptow and Marmot found that participants who scored high in positive emotion continued to have lower levels of cortisol and fibrinogen, as well as a lower heart rate.[citation needed]

In Happy People Live Longer (2011),[91] Bruno Frey reported that happy people live 14% longer, increasing longevity 7.5 to 10 years and Richard Davidson's bestseller (2012) The Emotional Life of Your Brain argues that positive emotion and happiness benefit long-term health.[citation needed]

However, in 2015 a study building on earlier research found that happiness has no effect on mortality.[92] "This "basic belief that if you're happier you're going to live longer. That's just not true."[93] Consistent results are that "apart from good health, happy people were more likely to be older, not smoke, have fewer educational qualifications, do strenuous exercise, live with a partner, do religious or group activities and sleep for eight hours a night."[93]

Happiness does however seem to have a protective impact on immunity. The tendency to experience positive emotions was associated with greater resistance to colds and flu in interventional studies irrespective of other factors such as smoking, drinking, exercise, and sleep.[94][95]

Despite a large body of positive psychological research into the relationship between happiness and productivity,[96][97][98] happiness at work has traditionally been seen as a potential by-product of positive outcomes at work, rather than a pathway to success in business. However a growing number of scholars, including Boehm and Lyubomirsky, argue that it should be viewed as one of the major sources of positive outcomes in the workplace.[75][99]

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Happiness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Stem Cell 100 is formulated to rejuvenate your body and slow the aging process to help you feel and function more like a young person. This can help you feel better, look younger and improve your health. Most of the cells in your body lose function with age. Everyone has special cells called adult stem cells which are needed to rejuvenate damaged and old tissues, but adult stem cells themselves are also aging. Until now there was not much you could do about it. Stem Cell 100 rejuvenates adult stem cells and their micro-environments. Stem Cell 100+ is a more advanced and faster acting version of Stem Cell 100.

Developed by experts in the anti-aging field, patent-pending Stem Cell 100 is the only supplement proven to double maximum lifespan of an animal model. No other product or therapy including caloric restriction even comes close.

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Harness the Power of Your Own Stem Cells

Millions of people suffer from chronic conditions of aging and disease. Based on international scientific studies in many academic and industry laboratories, there is new hope that many of the conditions afflicting mankind can some day be cured or greatly improved using stem cell regenerative medicine. Stem Cell 100 offers a way to receive some of the benefits of stem cell therapy today by improving the activity and effectiveness of your own adult stem cells.

Stem Cell 100 Helps to Support:

The statements above have not been reviewed by the FDA. Stem Cell 100 is not a preventive or treatment for any disease.

Help Rejuvenate Your Body by Boosting Your Own Stem Cells

As a child, we are protected from the ravages of aging and can rapidly recover from injury or illness because of the ability of the young regenerative stem cells of children have a superior ability to repair and regenerate most damaged tissues. As we age, our stem cell populations become depleted and/or slowly lose their capacity to repair. Moreover, the micro-environment (i.e. niches) around stem cells becomes less nurturing with age, so cell turnover and repair are further reduced. This natural progression occurs so slowly that we are barely aware of it, but we start to notice the body changes in our 20s, 30s, 40s, and especially after 50 years of age. Stem Cell 100 helps adults regain their youthful regenerative potential by stabilizing stem cell function.

Stem Cell 100 works differently than other stem cell products on the market

You may have seen a number of products that are advertised as stimulating or enhancing the number of stem cells. Each person only has a limited number of stem cells so using them up faster may not be a good strategy. Stem Cell 100 is about improving the effectiveness and longevity of your stem cells as well as preserving the stem cell micro-environment. That should be the goal of any effective stem cell therapy and is what Stem Cell 100 is designed to do and what other stem cell products cannot do.

Stem Cell 100 Extends Drosophila (Fruit Fly) Lifespan

In extensive laboratory testing Stem Cell 100 greatly extended both the average and maximum lifespan of Drosophila fruit flies. The study (see Charts below) included three cages of Drosophila fruit flies that were treated with Stem Cell 100 (Cages T1 to T3) and three cages which were untreated controls (Cages C1 to C3). Each cage started with 500 fruit flies including 250 males and 250 females. The experiment showed that median lifespan more than doubled with a 123% increase. While fruit flies are not people they are more like us than you might think. Drosophila have a heart and circulatory system, and the most common cause of death is heart failure. Like humans and other mammals (e.g. mice), it is difficult to increase their lifespan significantly. These observed results outperform every lifespan enhancing treatment ever tested - including experiments using genetic modification and dietary restriction.

The longest living fruit fly receiving Stem Cell 100 lived 89 days compared to the longest living untreated control which lived 48 days. It is possible that the single longest living fruit fly lived longer for other reasons such as genetic mutation, however, there were many others that lived almost as long so it was not just an aberation. The oldest 5% of the treated fruit flies lived 77% longer than the oldest 5% of the control group. It is also important that the study showed an improved ability of the fruit flies to survive stress and illness at all ages not just during old age. Even after the first few days of the study there were already more of the Stem Cell 100 treated fruit flies alive that survived youth than the control group of untreated fruit flies. For additional information about the study please go to our Longevity page.

Supplement Facts

Stem Cell 100 is a Patent-Pending Life Code Nutraceutical. All Life Code products are nutraceutical grade and provide the best of science along with the balance of nature.

All Life Code products are nutraceutical grade and provide the best of science along with the balance of nature.

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Stem Cell 100 Plus+ is a more powerful and faster acting version of Stem Cell 100.

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Serving Size: One type O capsule

Servings Per Container: 60 Capsules

Recommended Use: Typical usage of Stem Cell 100 is two capsules per day, preferably at meal times. While both capsules can be taken at the same time, it is preferable to separate the two capsules by at least 4 hours. Since Stem Cell 100 is a potent formulation, do not take more than three capsules per day. One capsule per day may be sufficient for those below 110 pounds.

Recommended Users: Anyone from ages 22 and up could benefit from Stem Cell 100. Those in their 20s and 30s will like the boost in endurance during sports or exercise, while older users will notice better energy and general health with the potential for some weight loss.

Active Ingredients in Stem Cell 100: There are ten herbal components that make up the patent-pending combination in Stem Cell 100. The herbal components are highly extracted natural herbs that are standardized for active components that promote adult stem cells and lower inflammation:

1) Polysaccharides, flavonoids, and astragalosides extracted from Astragalus membranaceus, which has many positive effects on stem cells and the cardiovascular and immune systems.

2) Proprietary natural bilberry flavonoids and other compounds from a stabilized nutraceutical grade medicinal Vaccinium extract. Activate metabolic PPARS and helps produce healthy levels of cholesterol and silent inflammation. Also has anti-fungal and anti-viral activity.

3) Flavonoids and oligo-proanthocyanidins (OPCs) extracted from Pine Bark, which greatly reduce oxidative stress, DNA damage, and inflammation.

4) L-Theanine, which is a natural amino acid from Camellia sinesis that reduces mental stress and inflammation while improving cognition and protecting brain cells from ischemic or toxic injury.

5) Pterocarpus Marsupium, which contains two stable resveratrol analogs which promote stem cells, lower inflammation, and stabilized metabolism.

6) Polygonum Multiflorium stem stem is a popular Chinese herbal tonic that fights premature aging and promotes youthfulness. Polygonum is reported to enhance fertility by improving sperm count in men and egg vitality in women. Polygonum is also widely used in Asia to strengthen muscle and is thus used by many athletes as an essential tonic for providing strength and stamina to the body. Modern research has supported Polygonum multiflorium stem in that animal studies have proven that it can extend lifespan and improve the quality of life. Polygonum appears to protect the liver and brain against damage, perhaps by improving immune and cardiovascular health. The stem sections of Polygonum multiflorium are also calming to the nervous system and promote sounder sleep. Life Code uses a proprietary Polygonum multiflorium stem extract.

7) Schisandra Berry is used by many Chinese women to preserve their youthful beauty. For thousands of years, Schisandra has been prized as an antiaging tonic that increases stamina and mental clarity, while fighting stress and fatigue. In Chinese traditional medicine, Schisandra berry has been used for liver disorders and to enhance resistance to infection and promote skin health and better sleep. Schisandra berry is classified as an adaptogen, which can stimulate the central nervous system, increase brain efficiency, improve reflexes, and enhance endurance. Modern research indicates that Schisandra berry extracts have a protective effect on the liver and promote immunity. A double-blind human trial suggested that Schisandra berry may help patients with viral hepatitis, which is very prevalent in China. Recent work indicates that the liver is protected by the enhanced production of glutathione peroxidase, which helps detoxify the liver. Life Code uses a proprietary Schisandra berry extract.

8) Fo-Ti Root (aka He-Shou-Wu) is one of the most widely used Chinese herbal medicines to restore blood, kidney, liver, and cardiovascular health. Fo-Ti is claimed to have powerful rejuvenating effects on the brain, endocrine glands, the immune system, and sexual vigor. Legend has it that Professor Li Chung Yun took daily doses of Fo-Ti to live to be 256 and is said to have outlived 23 wives and spawned 11 generations of descendents before his death in 1933. While it is unlikely that he really lived to such an old age there is scientific support for Fo-Ti as beneficial for health and longevity. Like the Indian Keno bark, Fo-ti contains resveratrol analogs and likely acts by various mechanism, which includes liver detoxification and protection of skin from UVB radiation. Life CodeTM uses a proprietary Fo-Ti root extract.

9 ) Camellia sinensis has many bioactive polyphenols including the potent epigallocatechin-3-gallate (EGCG). A 2006 Japanese study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association reports that adults aged 40 to 79 years of age who drank an average of 5 or more cups of tea per day had a significantly lower risk of dying from all causes (23% lower for females and 12% lower for males). The study tracked more than 40,000 adults for up to 11 years and found dramatically lower rates of cardiovascular disease and strokes in those drinking 5 or more cups of tea. Many studies have found that adults drinking 3 or more cups of tea per day have significantly less cancer. Other studies have found that green tea helps protect against age-related cognitive decline, kidney disease, periodontal disease, and type 2 diabetes. Green tea also promotes visceral fat loss and higher endurance levels. Summarizing all of the thousands of studies on tea and tea polyphenols that have been published, it can be concluded that tea polyphenols preserve health and youth. This conclusion is backed up by gene studies showing that tea polyphenols decrease insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1), which is a highly conserved genetic pathway that has been strongly linked to aging in yeast, worms, mice, and humans. If everyone could drink 4 to 5 cups of green tea each day, they could enjoy these important health benefits, but for most people drinking that much green tea can disturb their sleep patterns. Life Code uses a nutraceutical grade green tea extract that has 98% polyphenols and 50% ESCG that provides the polyphenol and ESCG equivalent of 4 to 5 cups of green tea with only 2% of the caffeine. Thus, most or all of the benefits of green tea are provided without concerns about disturbing sleep.

10) Drynaria Rhizome is used extensively in traditional Chinese medicine as an effective herb for healing bones, ligaments, tendons, and lower back problems. Eastern martial art practitioners have used Drynaria for thousands of years to help in recovering from sprains, bruises, and stress fractures. Drynaria has also helped in many cases of bleeding gums and tinnitus (ringing in the ears). The active components of Drynaria protect bone forming cells by enhancing calcium absorption and other mechanisms. Drynaria is also reported to act as a kidney tonic and to promote hair growth and wound healing. Life Code uses a proprietary Drynaria rhizome extract.

Active Ingredients in Stem Cell 100+ There are 11 herbal extracts in Stem Cell 100+ along with two nutraceutical grade vitamins Methyl Folate (5-MTHF) and Methyl B12 that are bioavailable vitamin supplements that are highly potent but rarely found. The highly extracted natural herbs are standardized for active components that promote adult stem cells and lower inflammation and have been tested as a synergistic herbal formulation with the proper dosage of each component:

1) Polysaccharides, flavonoids, and astragalosides extracted from Astragalus membranaceus, which has many positive effects on stem cells and the cardiovascular and immune systems. Astragalus has been used for thousands of years in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) to promote cardiovascular and immune health. Astragalus is also known as a primary stimulator of Qi (Life Force). Life Code uses a high quality proprietary TCM extract that tested highest in our longevity experiments.

2) Proprietary natural bilberry flavonoids and other compounds from a stabilized nutraceutical grade medicinal Vaccinium extract. Activate metabolic PPARS and helps produce healthy levels of cholesterol and silent inflammation. Also has anti-fungal and anti-viral activity.

3) Flavonoids and oligo-proanthocyanidins (OPCs) extracted from Pine Bark, which promote the vascular system and reduce oxidative stress, DNA damage, and inflammation.

4) L-Theanine, which is a natural amino acid from Camellia sinesis that reduces mental stress and inflammation while improving cognition and protecting brain cells from ischemic or toxic injury. Life Code tested supplement with Mass Spec to verify high purity.

5) Genistein, which is an isoflavone phytoestrogen, activates telomerase, metabolic PPARs, autophagy (cell waste disposal), and smooth muscles. It also inhibits DNA methylation and the carbohydrate transporter GLUT1. Life Code tested supplement with Mass Spec to verify high purity.

6) Harataki Extract (aka Terminalia chebula) contains rejuvenating tannin flavonoids that have doubled human cell longevity in culture while maintaining telomere length. In Traditional Indian Medicine, Harataki has been used to treat skin disorders and heart disease, among many other uses.

7) Two stable resveratrol analogs from extracts of Pterocarpus Marsupium, which promote stem cells, less silent inflammation, and better metabolism. Life Code uses a highly purified proprietary source that is only available to Indian doctors. Life Code does not recommend taking resveratrol supplements or synthetic analogs, as these supplements are inherently unstable.

8) He-Shou-Wu is one of the most widely used Chinese herbal medicines to restore blood, kidney, liver, and cardiovascular health. He-Shou-Wu is claimed to have powerful rejuvenating effects on the brain, endocrine glands, the immune system, and sexual vigor. Legend has it that Professor Li Chung Yun took daily doses to live to 256 years and is said to have outlived 23 wives and spawned 11 generations of descendants before his death in 1933. While it is unlikely that he really lived to such an old age, there is scientific support for He-Shou-Wu as beneficial for health and longevity. Life Code uses a proprietary TCM He-Shou-Wu root extract.

9) Schisandra Berry is used by many Chinese women to preserve their youthful beauty. For thousands of years, Schisandra has been prized as an antiaging tonic that increases stamina and mental clarity, while fighting stress and fatigue. In TCM, Schisandra berry has been used for liver disorders and to enhance resistance to infection and promote skin health and better sleep. Schisandra berry is classified as an adaptogen, which can stimulate the central nervous system, increase brain efficiency, improve reflexes, and enhance endurance. Life Code uses a proprietary TCM extract.

10) Drynaria Rhizome is used extensively in TCM as an effective herb for healing bones, ligaments, tendons, and lower back problems. Eastern martial art practitioners have used Drynaria for thousands of years to help in recovering from sprains, bruises, and stress fractures. The active components of Drynaria protect bone forming cells by enhancing calcium absorption and other mechanisms. Drynaria is also reported to act as a kidney tonic and to promote hair growth and wound healing. Life Code uses a proprietary TCM Drynaria rhizome extract.

11) BioPerine is a proprietary brand of peperine extracted from black pepper. BioPerine has been shown to enhance bioavailability of herbal extracts. Piperine has been shown in rats to have cognitive enhancing effects and to help control silent inflammation.

Safety: The extracts in Stem Cell 100 and Stem Cell 100+ are nutraceutical grade and have been individually tested in both animals and humans without significant safety issues. Those with pre-existing conditions of diabetes or hypertension should coordinate this product with your doctor, as lower blood glucose or reduced blood pressure can result from taking the recommended dose of this product.

Warnings: may lower glucose and/or blood pressure in some individuals. The supplement is not recommended for pregnant, lactating, or hypoglycemic individuals.

References

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Stem Cell 100 - Powerful Rejuvenation and Anti-Aging ...