Aging Matters
Aging destroys fitness. How could aging have evolved? Below is my answer to this question. This is mainstream science from peer-reviewed journals [Ref 1, Ref 2, Ref 3] , but it is my science, and as Richard Feynman warned us*, I’m the last one who can be objective about the merits of this theory. Too fit … Read more
Last month, a group of geneticists from UC Irvine published an article about Rhodiola root, confirming that feeding it to fruit flies makes them live 20% longer, and reporting a negative finding about how that might work: benefits of Rhodiola appear to be entirely separate from the response to hunger, the “CR Effect”. Why was … Read more
The Federal Center for Disease Control (CDC) commissioned a review of the health benefits of reducing salt intake, and a draft of the final report is available on line. The take-home message is that salt, in the quantities consumed by most Americans, is no longer considered a substantial health hazzard. The average American eats about … Read more
We know that cutting calories has multiple health benefits and makes you thinner. But suppose we play tricks to be thinner without eating less – is there still a benefit for health and longevity? This week we review Irvingia, Metformin, Pycnogenol, Green Coffee Extract, Acarbose, and old-fashioned amphetamides for weight loss. Also avoiding carbs and … Read more
I’ve been at the annual meeting of the American Aging Association this weekend. Here are some brief take-home messages from the presentations I’ve attended. Growth Hormone Several talks involved growth hormone one way or another. Growth hormone is hyped as an anti-aging remedy by many supplement sources, but its benefits are likely to be short-term, … Read more
Since this is a blog and not a more formal article, I get to tell a personal story this week. This will be a view of the evolution of my views on evolution. I’ve always been scared of death. I’ve jealously tried to preserve my youth, but the way in which I’ve understood aging has … Read more
Eating less helps you live longer, but eating less is hard. One line of experiment suggests that eating less of just one protein component, methionine, is sufficient to extend life span, perhaps as effectively as though less calories were being consumed. It’s an intriguing idea, though the research is fraught with contradictions, and to separate … Read more
A new report this week about signals from hypothalamus reminds us that some of the biggest influences on longevity are mediated through the nervous system. To this extent, the decision about how long to live comes from a calculation made in the brain. The new research suggests a hormone known as GnRH as a relatively … Read more
Eating less is the best-tested and surest way to a younger body and an increased life span. But it’s a hard discipline to maintain, and many of us would welcome an easier alternative. Perhaps we can realize some of the benefits applying a more temporary exercise of willpower, with intermittent fasting. It’s counter-intuitive, but seems … Read more
Last week we talked about a wrong turn taken by 20th Century evolutionary theory. Foundation for the theory was laid in the 1930s in a model put forward by a towering figure of statistical science, R. A. Fisher. Fisher’s model was based upon competition among individual genes distributed through members of a breeding population. He … Read more