X-Message-Number: 15691
From: "Mark Plus" <>
Subject: Anti-Aging news stories (long)
Date: Mon, 19 Feb 2001 11:26:05 -0800
From:
http://www.sltrib.com/02192001/nation_w/72783.htm
Experts Doubt Theories on Life Expectancy
Monday, February 19, 2001
BY PAUL RECER
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN FRANCISCO -- Human life expectancy has increased by three decades
since 1900 and may reach 85 for babies born in this century, but that may be
near the upper limit unless science finds ways to dramatically slow the
aging process, some researchers said Sunday.
Claims by some scientists that humans in this century will have a life
expectancy of 100 or even 120 are not realistic and not supported by the
trends measuring the rates of death, said Jay Olshansky of the University of
Illinois, Chicago.
"We anticipate that many people here today will live long enough to
witness a life expectancy of 85 years, but everybody alive today will be
long dead before a life expectancy of 100 is achieved, if ever," he said.
The researcher was the head of a panel of experts that analyzed trends
in human life expectancy at the national meeting of the American Association
for the Advancement of Science on Sunday.
Leonard Hayflick, an expert on aging at the University of California,
San Francisco, denounced "outrageous claims" by some scientists that humans
are capable of living well beyond 100 years.
Hayflick said that even if the most common causes of death -- cancer,
heart disease and stroke -- were eliminated, "the increase in life
expectancy would be no more than 15 years."
With those death causes gone, he said, the true cause of death would be
revealed: the aging process. Aging, he said, is a decline on a molecular
level that makes people "increasingly vulnerable to disease" and that this
process is not receiving much research attention.
Instead, most aging research, said Hayflick, concentrates on the
age-related diseases that can be easily identified, such as heart attack,
stroke, and cancer.
Nature designed humans to peak physically at about age 20, to assure
reproduction and survival of the species, he said. After that, humans "coast
for another four to five decades" and it is the length of this coast that
determines longevity.
From:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2001/02/19/MN157804.DTL
Biologists Seeking Longevity in a Pill
Some think key is in our genes, but idea has plenty of skeptics
Keay Davidson, Chronicle Science Writer Monday, February 19, 2001
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"In this world, nothing can be said to be certain except death and taxes,"
Benjamin Franklin wrote more than 200 years ago.
And despite the plethora of today's "life-extending" vitamins, diets and
other nostrums, death is likely to remain inevitable for the foreseeable
future, many experts say.
Yet a major debate over how long the inevitable can be postponed is
enlivening the controversial field of longevity research, a debate between
optimistic scientists who expect future humans to live for centuries and
skeptics who don't.
The former claim to have found age-controlling genes in animals such as
wormy creatures called nematodes. If such genes are found in humans, the
say, then the genes might be manipulated to extend our all-too-brief time in
the sun.
Skeptics reply that death is unavoidable because indefinite life span makes
no sense in evolutionary terms: Once we've passed our usual reproductive
years,
the 20s and 30s, then biology has no more use for us. And even if modern
medicine were to cure all age-related diseases, life span wouldn't be
markedly longer than it is today, skeptics say.
The status of aging research was the topic of discussion at yesterday's
meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in
San Francisco, in a special session titled "How Long Can Humans Live?"
An optimist is Thomas E. Johnson, a biologist at the University of Colorado.
He claims to have discovered genes that can control the life spans of
nematodes, in some cases doubling them. If and when age-controlling genes
are discovered in humans, he says, they could lead to longevity drugs.
"I am absolutely convinced that my children - they're 6, 10 and 18 - will be
taking longevity drugs," Johnson says. "I think they'll all very probably be
centenarians, assuming we don't destroy the Earth first."
A skeptic is cell biologist Leonard Hayflick of the University of California
at San Francisco, one of the world's best-known aging authorities. Within
the human body, he says, processes at the atomic and molecular level
gradually wear down life-sustaining cells, organs and metabolic processes.
These processes, Hayflick believes, involve "the generalized loss of energy
(in the form of chemical bonds between atoms) that keeps the structure of
complex molecules intact." As the energy is lost, the body's long and vital
chains of amino acids known as proteins become deranged and, thus,
dysfunctional.
And no matter how many drugs one takes, no matter how many organ
replacements one undergoes, this pervasive bodily deterioration will win in
the end, Hayflick says.
"There is no evidence to support the many outrageous claims of extraordinary
increase in human life expectation that might occur in our lifetime or that
of our children," Hayflick declared in an article published in the Nov. 9
issue of Nature.
Hayflick's article sent a tremor through the field of longevity research. He
is possibly the best-known researcher in the field of aging, thanks to his
discovery in the 1960s that normal human cells can't divide more than a set
number of times. That limit on cellular division is known as the Hayflick
Limit.
Hayflick is particularly skeptical that one's rate of aging can be blamed on
one's genes. "Aging is not a programmed process governed directly by genes,
" he declared in his Nature article.
Johnson begs to differ. He says his and others' experiments show that
nematodes have more than 60 types of genes, each of which - if switched on -
can significantly lengthen or shorten the creatures' life expectancies.
Johnson and his colleagues' original studies, in the late 1980s, constituted
what he calls "a paradigm shift in aging research." Hence, he says,
he had great trouble getting his original research published.
"Evolutionary biologists literally thought we were either falsifying the
data or just plain stupid," says Johnson, 52. Since then, numerous other
age- controlling genes have been discovered by Johnson and others.
Longevity is an old dream. In the 1960s, visionaries foresaw dramatic
extensions in life span by the end of the century. But those forecasts
haven't come true. In fact, over the past few decades the long-term rise in
Americans' life spans has slowed rather than accelerated.
"Twenty-one of the 27-year increase in life expectation that occurred during
the 20th century took place during the first 70 years," considerably due to
the conquest of mass infectious diseases, Hayflick says. "Only a six- year
increase in life expectation occurred in the following 27 years."
Meanwhile, Hayflick says, so-called "aging" research has made little
headway.
"Research on aging entered the mainstream of biological (research) about 30
years ago," he wrote in Nature, "but no notable advances have occurred in
our understanding of the human aging process. Success has only been achieved
in our knowledge of age-related diseases," that is, diseases common among
the elderly such as cardiovascular disease and cancer.
One reason that aging research hasn't progressed much is that it doesn't
really concern aging, Hayflick says. "Our politicians and the public have
been sold a bill of goods that research on diseases is research on aging,"
Hayflick charges.
Yet if every major disease were conquered, human life span wouldn't be
markedly longer than it is today, because our bodies will continue aging at
the atomic and molecular level, Hayflick says. He notes that the total
conquest of Alzheimer's disease would add only 19 days - that's right, days
- to the average American's life expectancy.
Some medical researchers don't acknowledge the irrelevance of their work to
aging because they're dependent on federal funds from the National Institute
on Aging, says Hayflick, 72.
"They have their asses to protect," Hayflick declares. "If you're getting
all these grants from the National Institute on Aging, you don't want to
tell them what you're working on is not really aging research. You've got
all kinds of economic and social interests to protect."
Hayflick's conclusion couldn't be gloomier: "If all causes of death
currently appearing on death certificates are resolved, from what will we
die?" he asks. His answer: We'll die from aging itself, the phenomenon that
he calls the "increasingly irreparable loss of molecular fidelity."
And in that event, how much longer would we live? In Hayflick's best-case
scenario, we'd gain an average of 15 years extra life - that's it.
Of course, an extra 15 years of life would be nothing to sneeze at. In their
last, frosty-haired years, some people creatively blossom for the first
time, while others venture in exciting new directions. Within eyesight of
the grave, Grandma Moses emerged as a popular painter; Bertrand Russell
campaigned against atomic bombs; Linus Pauling became the guru of Vitamin C;
Don Ameche revived his film career and won an Academy Award; Will and Ariel
Durant finished the last volumes of their world history.
But no matter how many body parts one might surgically replace, "ultimately
the body is going to fail. Something will go wrong, try as we might to make
ourselves live forever," says S. Jay Olshansky, co-organizer of yesterday's
AAAS symposium on aging and a demographer at the University of Chicago's
Center on Aging. He and biologist Bruce A. Carnes, also at the University of
Chicago, recently wrote a book, "The Quest for Immortality" (Norton, 2001).
In the March issue of Scientific American, Olshansky, Carnes and their co-
author Bob Butler argue that the human body wasn't designed to last as long
as we typically live nowadays. To illustrate their point, they present
tongue-in- cheek images of what the human body should look like if it were
to survive for 70-plus years.
Among their proposed bodily modifications: a redesigned optic nerve to
prevent detached retinas, which are common in the elderly; a reconfigured
bladder in females, to prevent bladder infections after multiple
childbirths; redesigned knee joints, to sustain a modern lifetime of
walking, running and jumping; bigger buttocks to protect against falls, and
so on.
Olshansky despises sales pitches for "life extension" treatments and
techniques, "by people trying to sell longevity in a bottle. It's a huge,
multibillion-dollar industry designed to convince people they can stop or
reverse the aging process.
"The time for the pseudoscience has to stop. . . . All these anti-aging
schemes (are) an incredible waste of money and time."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BUILT TO LAST
What the human body might look like if it were designed to survive for more
than 70 years. -- Shorter stature: Would provide a lower center of gravity,
perhaps preventing the falls that often fracture demineralized bones. --
Forward-tilting upper torso: Would relieve pressure on vertebrae, thereby
lessening the risk of ruptured or slipped discs, which contribute, along
with weakening abdominal muscles, to lower-back pain.-- Thicker bones: Would
protect against breakage during falls. -- Cage with added ribs: Could help
prevent hernias and other problems by holding organs in place more
effectively. -- Extra muscles and fat: Would add weight on the bones, which
would help counter the effects of demineralization; they would also cushion
bones against breaking during falls. -- Knee able to bend backward: Would
make the bones less likely to grind and deteriorate, especially if the knee
never locked in place. But the absence of a locking mechanism would make it
hard to stand for very long, so further modifications would be needed.--
Curved neck with enlarged vertebrae: Would counterbalance the tilted torso
and enable the head to stay up and face forward. -- Enlarged, mobile outer
ear: Would collect sound with greater efficiency, to compensate for interal
breakdowns. -- Thicker discs: Would resist destructive pressures. -- Leg
veins with more check valves: Would combat the development of varicose veins
-- Larger hamstrings and tendons: Would help support the leg and hip.Source:
Scientific AmericanTom Murray/The Chronicle
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From:
http://archives.seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi-bin/texis/web/vortex/display?slug=growth13m&date=20010213
Copyright 2001 The Seattle Times Company
Health & Science : Tuesday, February 13, 2001
Lots of claims, but no proof that anti-aging products work, authorities say
By Judith Blake
Seattle Times staff reporter
Anti-aging products are proliferating on the Internet and in health-food
stores, and users sing their praises. The products claim to help build
bigger muscles, trim fat, increase energy, boost sex drive, reduce wrinkles
or improve sleep.
But authorities - including doctors, researchers and the National Institute
on Aging - say the products, called human-growth-hormone supplements, have
not be proved to work and may in fact hurt the people who swear by them.
Human-growth hormone, when given by injection under doctor's care, offers
proven benefits in certain cases, such as stimulating growth in children who
are severely lacking in the hormone and might otherwise have stunted growth.
The Food and Drug Administration has approved only two uses: to counter
serious deficiencies and to fight the body-wasting of AIDS. Injections given
by doctors for other reasons are considered "off-label," though legal.
Some doctors across the country, including a few in Seattle, are giving
growth-hormone injections at a cost of up to $15,000 a year.
Paul Jellinger, president of the American Association of Clinical
Endocrinologists, quoted in USA Today, assailed off-label uses as
"inappropriate use ... with exaggerated expectations."
The National Institute on Aging is studying or paying for studies on the
effects of growth-hormone replacement on aging individuals. Early findings
point to possible benefits, especially in building muscles and reducing fat,
but also to potential side effects, such as diabetes, carpal-tunnel
syndrome, joint pain and fluid retention that might raise the risk of
congestive heart failure.
Until the information is more conclusive, doctors are cautious.
"I discourage people (from using them)," said Dr. Stanley Slater of the
National Institute on Aging. "My attitude is, until it's proven, I don't
recommend it."
And as far as he and other critics are concerned, the benefits and safety
remain unproven, though many scientists are researching growth hormone's
potential to help recharge aging bodies.
Because the body produces less growth hormone with age - and because some
studies suggest boosted levels may offer benefits - most of the supplements
aim for older people. They also attract young-adult body-builders and
athletes.
But doctors say that unless people have had their growth-hormone levels
measured, they can't know whether they don't have enough.
Tinkering with the body's powerful hormone system should occur only under a
doctor's care, physicians say.
"There's nothing more complex in the human body than the (hormonal) system,"
said Mark Juhn, a family- and sports-medicine physician at the University of
Washington.
"It affects how the rest of the body's systems work. It astounds me that
people are willing to mess with that."
The fact, experts say, is that human-growth hormone is legally available
only with a prescription, so over-the-counter products aren't growth hormone
but something to stimulate the pituitary gland to produce it.
Even if a product were to contain growth hormone, it would do little good,
experts say, because the hormone molecule can't work if it is administered
orally. It must be given by injection.
Boosting hormone levels could be bad for some people, said hormone
researcher Dr. George Merriam of the Veterans Administration Puget Sound
Health Care System and the University of Washington.
Seattle naturopathic doctor Bruce Milliman, a board member of the Washington
Association of Naturopathic Physicians, said taking growth hormone or a
stimulator without first having a blood test to measure need is risky.
Some products explain that their active ingredients are not hormones but
amino acids (protein components) and other nutrients that stimulate the
pituitary gland to release growth hormone. Certain amino acids do have that
effect, but they're not very potent, Merriam said.
Still other products describe themselves as homeopathic solutions made by
diluting growth hormone to undetectable levels. Homeopathic theory contends
that such a hugely diluted solution can still have a hormone-stimulating or
other desired effect on the body. Mainstream medicine views this theory as
controversial.
The manufacturer of one such product, Liddell Vital HGH, says that
scientifically sound, independent tests have proved it safe and effective.
Vital not only boosts the body's growth-hormone output but also raises it to
no more than normal levels for a person's age, answering a key safety issue,
says Liddell President Randy Powers.
While advocates credit the supplements with improving their bodies, critics
say other lifestyle changes or a placebo effect - the power of positive
thinking - may be the cause of any changes in people.
In several studies, Merriam and his colleagues are monitoring the effects of
growth-hormone injections on aging patients who are deficient in it and on
others who aren't.
In another project, they're giving older patients an oral medication that
mimics the action of a natural growth-hormone stimulator. Collaborating with
Merriam are Dr. Michael Vitiello at the UW and Dr. Robert Schwartz at the
University of Colorado.
If using growth hormone to counter normal aging ever became commonplace, it
would have a well-known hormonal precedent: estrogen. Though prescribed to
millions of menopausal women, replacement estrogen remains controversial,
and some think growth-hormone-replacement would, too.
A decline in this hormone with age is normal, some point out, and no one
knows for sure the long-range impact of artificially altering that.
_________________________________________________________________
Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com
Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=15691