Where did COVID-19 come from?

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There is genetic evidence suggestive of human tinkering in the genome, and there are news stories suggesting the virus might have been developed either at the Wuhan Institute of Virology or at the American virology lab at Fort Detrick. There are even some suggestions that the American and Chinese bioweapons labs may be working together, … Read more

Overreaction

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I have become concerned that dangers of the COVID pandemic have been overstated, perhaps deliberately. The containment measures adopted in most Western countries have had little effect on the spread of the virus, but they have been maximally disruptive of our economic and cultural lives, and have produced loneliness and isolation, while throwing millions of … Read more

New Aging Clock based on Proteins in the Blood

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Methylation clocks are far and away the most accurate markers of a person’s age, and so are a promising tool for evaluating anti-aging interventions, but they are a bit of a black box. We know from statistics that certain places on chromosomes become steadily methylated (or demethylated) with age, but we often don’t know what … Read more

Pulsed Yamanaka Factors Set Back Epigenic Age

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(without going all the way back to the womb, or causing cancer) In a column last month, I posed the question whether the methylation clocks of Horvath are drivers of aging or responses to aging. If we intervene so as to set back the clock, are we signaling the body to be younger, or are … Read more

Telomeres: The Longer the Better

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Mice have much longer telomeres than we do, long enough that telomeres never get critically short in a mouse lifetime. Yet, when designer mice were engineered to have even longer telomeres (hyper-long by any standard, longer than we can account for the use of them), these mice lived longer and were healthier in every way … Read more

Interview with Josh Mitteldorf

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Transcript of interview 10/14/19. IP = Ira Pastor, Health and Longevity Ambassador for IdeaXme, founder of BioQuark JJM = Josh Mitteldorf, author of Cracking the Aging Code, and the AgingMatters ScienceBlog IP: We’ve been spending time on hierarchical levels of the aging process: the genome, the microbiome, systems biology. There is an extensive catalog of … Read more

Methylation Clocks and True Biological Age

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The good news is that the DataBETA project has found a home.  After several months of seeking a university partner, I am thrilled to be working with Moshe Szyf’s lab at McGill School of Medicine.  DataBETA is a broad survey of things people do to try to extend life expectancy, combined with evaluation of these … Read more

Scaling the Alzheimer’s Cure

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This edition of Aging Matters is stolen from Rhonda Patrick’s interview of Dale Bredesen. That hour is so packed with actionable information and theoretical background that I found myself going through it slowly to understand and digest it. The result was an appreciation for the breadth of vision embodied in Bredesen’s comprehensive program to combat … Read more