Category Archives: Transhuman News

We want to make it possible to live healthily for a longer period of time

In the not-too-distant future, youll be able to check into the Human Longevity Laboratory to find out how old you really are, physiologically speaking.

If the news is less than optimal, clinicians will determine why and check a litany of body systems as well as your neurological and orthopaedic health. Then, youll be prescribed an intervention to stave off further decline or better yet restore your vitality.

Douglas Vaughan, MD, chair and Irving S. Cutter Professor of Medicine, and director of the new Potocsnak Longevity Institute.

Sounds sci-fi, but its actually the mission of the new Potocsnak Longevity Institute, which launched today at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

The Human Longevity Laboratory is just one part of the ambitious multi-center institute, whose goal is to foster new discoveries and build on Northwesterns ongoing research in the rapidly advancing science of aging.

The biological processes that drive aging may be malleable, said Douglas Vaughan, MD, director of the new institute and chair of medicine at Northwestern. We think we can slow that process down, delay it, even theoretically reverse it. The curtain is being pulled back on what drives aging. We want to contribute to that larger discovery process.

The goal of the institute, funded by a very generous gift from Chicago industrialist John Potocsnak and family, is to extend what Vaughan terms the human healthspan. Scientists and clinicians will address the period of life when people are at the greatest risk for aging-related comorbidities arthritis, dementia, heart disease, diabetes, aging-related cancer and hypertension and frailty.

We want to make it possible to live healthily for a longer period of time, not just live longer, said Vaughan, also the Irving S. Cutter Professor of Medicine. Aging is the most important risk factor for every disease we care for in adult medicine. If we can push that process back, we can push back the onset of disease.

The new institute builds on the decades of work by Vaughan and scientists across Northwestern, unifying programs studying populations that seem resistant to some of the negative consequences of aging. These include certain members of an Amish community in Berne, Indiana or a group of cognitively young octogenarians called SuperAgers.Other projects will continue to seek biological levers that drive aging and investigate approaches including new drugs to minimize the impact of aging and extend the healthy lifespan of older adults.

We are grateful for the opportunity to support the vision put forth by Northwesterns leaders, scientists, and physicians to help people live their longest, healthiest lives possible, said Potocsnak. The promise of the amazing work being done by Doug, Frank and many others holds the potential to profoundly impact quality of life for millions. My wife Laura, myself and my family are proud to support this important work as we strive to make the world a better place than when we got here.

The Potocsnak Longevity Institute is a momentous step forward for the science of aging and lifespan, said Eric G. Neilson, MD, vice president for medical affairs and Lewis Landsberg Dean. The potential impact of this institutes advancements cant be overstated; the time is now right to push the field forward.

Human Longevity Laboratory

Our tasks, challenges and opportunities at the institute and Human Longevity Laboratory are severalfold, said Frank Palella, MD, associate director of the institute and the Potocsnak Family C.S.C Professor at Northwestern. We plan to ascertain those factors and conditions that determine not just how long people live but how well they live. We will design therapeutic and interventional clinical trials to study important aspects of aging in order to identify ways to extend the healthspan and delay or prevent harmful aging processes.

Our goal is, ultimately, to prolong the period of time during which individuals can enjoy optimal physical and cognitive functioning, independence and a full life. The possibilities are staggering.

What HIV teaches us about aging

The science behind HIV and aging will be a cornerstone of the institutes research at the Potocsnak Center for Aging and HIV, led by Palella.

While the lifespan of people with HIV has been extended with potent antiviral therapy, these individuals experience accelerated aging in heart disease, cancer, dementia, frailty and other diseases. They also die earlier than people without HIV. One primary reason is chronic inflammation and a constantly activated immune system.

HIV becomes a good model in which to explore determinants and interventions for aging processes, Palella said. There is a cross-pollination here between studying what improves and extends the healthspan/lifespan of people with HIV and the general population.

People who treat HIV and people who are subspecialists in geriatrics, cardiology, neurology and other health care disciplines will join forces at the center to discuss approaches that will benefit persons with diverse aging syndromes and persons with HIV, Palella said.

How some longer-living Amish could help us live longer, too

A few years ago, Vaughan discovered an extended family of Old Order Amish in Indiana have a genetic variant that protects them against multiple aspects of biological aging. Amish people with this mutation have significantly less diabetes and a younger vascular age than those who dont have the mutation. It turns out these individuals have very low levels of PAI-1 (plasminogen activator inhibitor), a protein that comprises part of a molecular fingerprint related to aging or senescence (death) of cells.

We are collecting data from this natural experiment, and Mother Nature is going to tell us how a drug that blocks PAI-1 could prevent or block aging in an average human being, Vaughan said.

Northwestern has contributed to the development of experimental drug with a Japanese company that blocks PAI-1 that is now being tested in clinical trials. One of these trials is in patients with COVID-19 at Northwestern. PAI-1 causes blood clotting, which is a primary driver of morbidity and organ damage in the coronavirus.

The Geroscience Academy will train and educate clinicians, students and scientists about the rapidly progressing science of aging.

There has been tremendous progress made in understanding what aging is all about, Vaughan said. It is moving beyond the realm of science fiction to imagine altering the velocity of aging in humans. The potential impact it may have on us and on our children and grandchildren cannot be overstated.

We want to be recognized not only as one of the epicenters of aging research but also in teaching our students, faculty and the world about the rapidly evolving science of aging.

Center for Population Science and Aging

Scientists in this center will utilize and refine existing tools to demystify the aging process in large populations of humans at all ages.

There are already well-defined biochemical and genetic markers that can be used to calculate the physiological age of a person and predict their risk for aging-related diseases, Vaughan said. These tools will only get better and more precise in the years to come.

Our biological age is not determined by how many times weve orbited the sun as passengers on planet Earth. The complex biological changes associated with aging impact nearly every aspect of a persons health, but some populations seem less affected by aging than others.

Center for Nanoscience and Aging

This center will leverage some of Northwesterns unique strengths to develop nanotechnological devices, novel diagnostic measures and innovative anti-aging therapies and drug-delivery platforms.

This center will improve our ability to measure the biological age of patients and bring new precision therapies into being that will alter the trajectory of aging, Vaughan said. Scientists will develop novel devices to measure specific physiological parameters that reflect age. For example, the older you get, the slower you walk, your heart rate variability goes down and blood pressure goes up. We might be able to track these types of functional changes in real time in patients enrolled in clinical trials. The goal will be to see if we can impact the patients physiological age, maybe with specific lifestyle interventions or new therapeutics.

Basic and Translational Biology

There is already a tremendous amount of basic and translational research in the field of aging taking place at Northwestern. Research funding from the National Institute of Aging (NIA) has risen to more than to nearly $40 million since 2016, placing it at number 13 in overall funding from the NIA.

We anticipate the resources and new scientific momentum created by the Longevity Institute will allow Northwestern to be recognized as one the leading institutions in the world in the field of human aging and longevity, Vaughan said.

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New Potocsnak Longevity Institute Hopes to Lengthen Human ...

Human longevitywho lives longer, who doesn't, and how that ratio might be tweakedis still a mystery that has captured the imagination and intense study of researchers. In recent years, studies have provided tantalizing clues about who lives longer, why, and how that might be predicted. New research suggests there's one potential indicator that can predict how long you'll live: A simple eye test. Read on to find out moreand to ensure your health and the health of others, don't miss these Sure Signs You've Already Had COVID.

The retinaa membrane in the back of the eye that contains light-sensitive cells and a tiny network of blood vesselsis crucial to sight. It may also be a bellwether of how long you're going to live.

Scientists already knew that cells in the retina deteriorate as we get older. (Glaucoma, an eye disease that becomes more common with age, damages retinal cells and causes them to die.) But according to a new study published in the British Journal of Ophthalmology, people whose retinas were "older" than their actual age were closer to the end of life themselvesthey were more likely to die within the next decade.

"The retina offers a unique, accessible 'window' to evaluate underlying pathological processes of systemic vascular and neurological diseases that are associated with increased risks of mortality," said study co-author Dr. Mingguang He from the Center for Eye Research Australia.

RELATED: Signs You Have a "Hidden" Health Problem, According to Experts

The study involved more than 47,000 adults between the ages of 40 and 69, who were tracked by the researchers for an average of 11 years. Each person had their retinas scanned. The scientists then compared each retina's "biological age" with that person's chronological age. They discovered many participants had a "retinal age gap."

Large gaps in retinal age were associated with a 49 to 67 percent higher risk of death from any cause other than cardiovascular disease or cancer. That was after adjusting for potential contributing factors such as high blood pressure, BMI, lifestyle habits, and ethnicity.

And for every one-year increase in the age gap, the researchers saw a 2% increase in the risk of death from any cause and a 3% increase in the risk of death from a specific cause other than cardiovascular disease and cancer.

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The retina contains a network of small blood vessels that are crucial to sight. (In a condition called retinopathy, older blood vessels are damaged and new ones form, potentially leading to blindness.) Several studies, including this new one, suggest the vessels cause also gauge the health of the brain and circulatory system overall.

"Our novel findings have determined that the retinal age gap is an independent predictor of increased mortality risk, especially of non-cardiovascular disease/ non-cancer mortality. These findings suggest that retinal age may be a clinically significant biomarker of aging," the researchers wrote. And to get through this pandemic at your healthiest, don't miss these 35 Places You're Most Likely to Catch COVID.

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This Simple Eye Test Can Reveal How Long You'll Live Eat This Not That - Eat This, Not That

Star Bradbury| Guest columnist

Did you happen to read the story recently about the oldest living human being? Kane Tanaka, who is Japanese, is 119 years old. She is what is known as a supercentenarian.

What has changed? Are people really living much longer?

As many as half of todays 5 year olds in the United States can expect to live to the age of 100 and, according to the Stanford Center on Longevity, this may become the norm for newborns by 2050. Why are people living longer? Better health care and nutrition, a focus on disease prevention, better education and rising standards of living for a larger portion of the world population.

Everything I just listed is expected to improve in all countries, even the poorest. If you doubt this, pick up the book Factfulness, by Hans Rosling, past advisor to the World Health Organization and UNICEF. This book was a real eye-opener for me on world trends and how the world is in a much better state than we think.

It is hard to believe that the average lifespan in 1950 was just 47. Human life expectancy has doubled between 1900 and 2000 and is still rising, despite the COVID pandemic. Currently in the U.S. there are over 75 million aging baby boomers, and many are expected to live well past 90.

The possibility of living for nine, ten or more decades raises a uniquely twenty-first-century question: what are we going to do with our century-long lives? The Stanford Center on Longevity poses this question and does an excellent job of answering it. In 2018 it launched an initiative called The New Map of Life, believing that one of the most profound transformations of the human experience calls for equally momentous and creative changes in the ways we lead these 100-year lives, at every stage.

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This study is truly inspirational, as it calls on all of us to completely reevaluate what it means to grow old. We need to reinvent ourselves on many levels such as the way we work and for how long, housing, financial planning and new policies for health care. Instead of focusing on lifespan, we need to look at what they call health span, or the years in which people are healthy, active, mentally sharp and free of pain.

The Stanford Longevity Center has a goal: … we take a forward-facing perspective on the economic potential of a more age-diverse population in which older adults contribute increasingly significant and measurable ways to the social good and to GDP, so that opportunities for healthy longevity are shared across races, geographical regions, and socioeconomic status.

All of us need to re-think everything from front-loading education into the first two decades of life, to retiring at age 65. What if education was a continuum of lifelong learning, acquiring knowledge at each stage of life? If you thought you could live to 100 with a reasonable quality of life, would you go back to school at 50, have multiple flexible careers, take better care of yourself?

Currently workers over the age of 55 make up 25% of the work force. Contrary to old stereotypes, evidence suggests that older workers show superior judgement, reliability and mentoring skills, and are fully capable of mastering the technology needed.

Meet Earth's 5 oldest people, all born in the 1800s

Five people born in the 1800s are still with us - and they're all women. Three of these supercentenarians live in the United States.

With so many younger people leaving the workforce, employers need to consider the value of hiring older workers on a flexible schedule. They offer a vast amount of life experiences whether as paid workers, mentors or volunteers. Having a truly age-diverse workforce also has the added benefit of improving intergenerational communications, something we could all benefit from.

Before you say you dont want to live to be 100, read this study and see their predictions for the future. The emerging field of geroscience will transform how we age, able to re-program the genetic, molecular and cellular mechanisms that result in age being the primary factor for degenerative conditions.

Advanced interventions will be possible that may be able to slow or even reverse some aging processes. Imagine a wearable exoskeleton that allows you to stay mobile or ride a bike at age 90!

Start by asking yourself personally what you would do differently if you knew you were going to live to 100 and draw your own Map of Life. You might be surprised by the changes youd make.

Star Bradbury (www.starbradbury.com) is the owner of Senior Living Strategies in Gainesville.

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Read more from the original source:
Living to 100 years old is becoming the new normal - Gainesville Sun

Chautauqua County is eyeing raises for its part-time sheriffs deputies.

During a meeting last week of the legislatures Public Safety Committee, members approved a labor contract with the CSEA Unit 6322 to give a 5% raise in 2022, a 5% raise in 2023, a 3% raise in 2024, a 3% raise in 2025, and a longevity payment of $75 per year upon completion of three years of service.

CSEA 6322 would be our part-time deputy sheriff contract. That was the final last and final contract that we negotiated for 2021, explained Human Resources Director Jean Riley.

They did have a tentative agreement in December; however, due to the holiday schedule, they were unable to present the resolution to the full legislature for a vote.

Riley said the union has 49 members and they unanimously backed the four-year contract. Theres really no benefits associated with this. Its really just salary and rate of pay, she said.

If approved by the full legislature, initial hires would start at $20.27 an hour. Riley said theyve looked at part-time deputy sheriff pay across the state, and that is $21.59 an hour, so the new rate would still be under the average.

She noted the longevity payment impact is minimal because most part-time deputies become full time in a couple of years. Out of this 49, we might have a dozen that might be more than three years in title, she said.

According to Riley, the impact to the county budget would be $50,000 to $75,000 a year and that is before the state reimburses the county for court officers. This contract was not budgeted for due to where negotiations were at when the budget was passed.

Committee Chairman Terry Niebel said he backs the resolution, which he believes will help with recruitment and retention. This contract is very much needed, it appears, he said.

The committee unanimously backed the resolution, which will now go to the full legislature for final approval.

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New contract proposed for part-time sheriff deputies - Evening Observer

Youve probably heard of the placebo effect. And perhaps youre aware that sugar pills can accelerate healing.

But did you know that your overall expectations of your own fitness can influence your risk of an actual heart attack?

What about the notion that labels for diet foods can make you hungrier than if you had eaten nothing at all?

Or that people who associate ageing with personal growth live for seven years longer than those who associate it with frailty and disability?

When New Scientist Live comes to Manchester Central this March, science writer and author David Robson will discuss all this and more as he explains the power of your mindset to influence your health, fitness, happiness and longevity.

Drawing on a pioneering new theory of the brain, Davids event is just one of many thought-provoking talks, ground-breaking discoveries, interactive experiences and hands-on activities, workshops and performances you can expect at the mind-blowing festival of ideas.

Renowned Professor of Theoretical Physics, Jim Al-Khalili will explore how thinking scientifically can help us navigate todays world, and science writer Michael Marshall will delve into the quest for lifes origin one of the most profound questions we can ask.

Dr Daniel Jolley will help us understand why some people believe in conspiracy theories, and Dr Beth Singler will explore the hopes and fears that AI and robots inspire in us.

Metabolic researcher Dr Giles Yeo will explain how our body works harder to extract calories from some food compared to others, which is why calories dont always count, while Dr Jennifer Wild will reveal seven key tools to help tackle stress and fear.

Other topics for talks include Dr Emma Yhnell on the risks of personal genetic testing, Dr Fraser Smith on the battle for male mental health, Jon Copley on how humanity is exploring the deep ocean, and Stephanie Wright on how the material that makes up plastic bottles can enter the human body via our airways, with future health impacts.

It will be the first time New Scientist Live has come to Manchester, a world-class hub of scientific and technological learning, research, innovation and industry.

Over 9,000 visitors, 40 speakers and 30 exhibitors are expected at the event, alongside a global audience of 5,000 online, with the first two days, a Saturday and Sunday, open to all, and the final day, Monday, dedicated to schools and home learners.

Or if you would rather enjoy the event from the comfort of your home, all the stage talks from Saturday and Sunday will be streamed live, and the Engage Stage will be connecting a virtual audience with the stimulating experiences and engaging activities that New Scientist Live is famous for.

All the talks from the Saturday and Sunday of the event will also be available on-demand for 12 months afterwards, so if you miss any of the talks or just want to relive your favourite moments from the weekend, you can do so at your leisure.

Fun, entertaining, informative and inspirational, New Scientist Live will stimulate the mind and senses like no other event.

New Scientist Live will come to Manchester Central on 12th-13th March 2022, with 14th March a schools only day. The talks will also be available online.

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Can your mindset shape your health, happiness and longevity? - I Love Manchester

According to the researchers, two cannabinoid acids commonly found in hemp varietals of cannabis, cannabigerolic acid (CBGA) and cannabidiolic acid (CBDA) were found to bound to the coronavirus spike proteins, which are the proteins that allow the virus to enter human cells. By biding to the spike protein, the cannabis compounds help prevent infection by stopping the virus from entering cells in the first place.

The findings also revealed that the cannabinoids were effective against new variants of the virus, which is of primary concern.

These variants are well known for evading antibodies against early lineage SARS-CoV-2, which is obviously concerning given that current vaccination strategies rely on the early lineage spike protein as an antigen, said study lead Richard van Breemen.

Our data show CBDA and CBGA are effective against the two variants we looked at, and we hope that trend will extend to other existing and future variants.

This is not the first study to highlight the potential that cannabis has when it comes to combating COVID-19.

Read the original here:
Is Cannabis The Secret To Combatting COVID-19? - Longevity LIVE - Longevity LIVE

Altos Labs, a new biotechnology company dedicated to unraveling the deep biology of cellular rejuvenation programming, was launched on Jan 18(Tuesday).

Altos said it will work on restoring cell health and resilience to reverse disease, injury, and the disabilities that can occur throughout life.

Altos is among a number of startups pursuing reprogramming technology, specifically aimed at rejuvenating parts or all of the human body. rejuvenate cells in the lab that some scientists think could be extended to revitalize entire animal bodies, ultimately prolonging human life.

Altos will be initially based in the US in the San Francisco Bay Area and San Diego, and in the UK in Cambridge. The company will also have significant collaborations in Japan.

The biological reprogramming company is said to be funded by Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner.

The company has assembled an impressive community of leading scientists, clinicians, and leaders from both academia and industry.

Nobel Laurates As Advisors

Shinya Yamanaka, who shared a 2012 Nobel Prize for the discovery of reprogramming (induced pluripotent stem cells), will serve as Altos senior scientific advisor without remuneration and guide the activities of the lab in Japan.

Yamanaka is among the world's leading authorities on stem cell science. He currently serves as the director of the Center for iPS Cell Research and Application (CiRA) at Kyoto University and a senior investigator at the Gladstone Institutes.

Yamanaka said, "I am delighted to be a part of Altos and believe it to be one of the most important and exciting new global scientific endeavors. The possibility of rejuvenation programming has only recently become a scientific reality and has the potential to enable us to approach human disease in an entirely new way. I am glad that I will help scientists in Japan to work in this exciting field."

Another notable scientist who will be part of the venture is Spanish developmental biologist Izpisua Belmonte.

Belmonte, who is currently a professor and chair at the Salk Institute, in La Jolla, California, is known for his research work on mixing human and monkey embryos. He also predicted that human lifespans could be increased by 50 years.

His team injected monkey embryos with human stem cells and watched them develop. They observed human and monkey cells divide and grow together in a dish, with at least 3 embryos surviving to 19 days after fertilization.

Besides Yamanaka, the company will have at least three other nobel laurates as part of the advisory group

Frances Arnold, PhD (Linus Pauling Professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry at the California Institute of Technology and Nobel Laureate)

Jennifer Doudna (Li Ka Shing Chancellor's Chair and Professor of Chemistry and Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California, Berkeley, President of the Innovative Genomics Institute, and Nobel Laureate)

David Baltimore, PhD (President Emeritus and Judge Shirley Hufstedler Professor of Biology at the California Institute of Technology and Nobel Laureate),

Executive Team

Hal Barron, who is is currently the President of R&D and Chief Scientific Officer at GSK, will come on board as CEO and co-chair of the board.

Rick Klausner, a former director of the National Cancer Institute and an entrepreneur, will serve as the Chief Scientist.

Klausner is the co-founder of Altos along Hans Bishop, a former CEO of GRAIL and Juno Therapeutics. Bishop will serve as the president. Ann Lee-Karlon, a former Senior Vice President at Genentech, will serve as the chief operating office.

Altos said that the it will structure itself to integrate the best features of academia and industry -- from academia the freedom to pursue the most challenging problems in biology, and from industry the focus on a shared mission, ability to foster deep collaborations, and the passion and commitment to transform science into medicines.

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Altos Labs: A Startup In Silicon Valley Is Betting On Cellular Rejuvenation Programming To Enable 'Longevity' - Swarajya

Women whose paternal grandfathers and great-grandfathers started smoking before the age of 13 share one trait: they reportedly have higher body fat mass, according to new research. While research so far has focused attention on early smoking to health issues like asthma and lung impact, the genetic link impacting body fat is underresearched.

Published in the journal Scientific Reports last week, the study is among the first pieces of evidence to argue peoples exposure to certain substances may affect generations that follow.The present research gleaned information from three generations within a family, drawing parallels between the health and social aspects.

Whats quite pioneering is the longevity and scope of the study. The research, under the Children of the 90s project and led by the University of Bristol, has been studying a cohort of more than 14,000 individuals born in 1991 and 1992 in the U.K., along with their parents, for 30 years. The present study chose to pick the dataset pertaining to male smoking, with the researchers noting smoking among grandmothers and great-grandmothers would have been a relatively rarer habit.

This is not the first time the phenomenon was discovered. Earlierresearch from 2014 showed a fathers smoking habits, if they started before reaching puberty (before 11 years of age), influenced the sons body fat more than expected.Additionally, other experiments done on animals have found that when the male is exposed to chemicals before breeding, it can impact the anatomy of the offspring. However, scientific evidence has remained tepid in substantiating whether this trend is present in humans and what factors could be at play here.

If these associations are confirmed in other datasets, this will be one of the first human studies with data suitable to start to look at these associations and to begin to unpick the origin of potentially important cross-generation relationships, said Jean Golding, the founder of the Children of the 90s study and the reports lead author,in a news release.

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How Secondhand Smoke Is Harmful In the Long and Short Term

The study highlighted strong relationships which were sex-specific, both regarding the sex of the exposed grandparent and the sex of the affected grandchild. The body fat and smoking link were observed between paternal grandfathers and women only. Moreover, another finding from last year linked exposure to smoking in the paternal side of the family before puberty was associated with increased risk of asthma, reduced lung capacity, and increased fat mass in the offspring.

Arguably, the intergenerational link between ancestors and childrens anatomy is observed in other cases. 20 years ago, research found women who eat oily fish during pregnancy were more likely to have children with sharper eyesight. This was among the first correlations between a womans diet and a childs visual development. Some links were also made in children as young as eight-years-old, and finding markers of Type 2 diabetes in their blood from such a young age about 50 years before its commonly diagnosed. The researchers noted, this is about liability to disease and how genetics can tell us something about how the disease develops.

The interaction between smoking and genetics binds both how we view both smoking and obesity as public health challenges. A similar study in 2018 suggested smoking has a greater effect on the body mass index (BMI) and obesity-related traits than expected. In other words, a persons odds of being a smoker was higher if they had excess body fat even though smoking has long been associated with being relatively thin. Published in PLOS Genetics, the research highlighted the potential of using biomarkers as a measure of an individuals past environment and lifestyle. Moreover, the environment we experience may have long-term effects by altering the way our genetic makeup influences our health and related traits.

There also seems to be a circularity between smoking and obesity. United Nations scientists in 2018 cited research to state obese people were more likely to smoke; identifying a common biological basis for addictive behaviors, such as nicotine addiction and higher energy intake.

If there is a genetic relation here, it may shed new light on how we view obesity. One of the reasons why children become overweight maybe not so much to do with their current diet and exercise, rather than the lifestyle of their ancestors, added Golding.

For now, there remains much more to explore.

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New Study Finds a Generational Link Between Smoking and Body Fat - The Swaddle