Aging Matters
As we age, we all lose sensitivity to insulin and begin, gradually or rapidly, to poison our bodies with excess sugar in the blood. This happens to almost everyone, and it is only when the symptom is particularly severe that it is diagnosed as (type 2) diabetes. Metformin is a drug that has been used … Read more
Oxidative damage was the prevailing theory of aging in the 1990s, and anti-oxidants became the preferred prescription for youthfulness. But in lab animals and in human studies, the cure didn’t pan out – anti-oxidants never did fulfill their potential, and this left the theorists scratching their heads. Then, in recent years the situation became curiouser … Read more
I read a few weeks ago about a study where vitamin D supplementation reduced all-cause mortality rates by 6%. How many years would that add to life expectancy? I wondered. 6% of a 75-year life span would mean 4½ extra years, I thought, naïvely. I pulled up a mortality table (from the Social Security Admin) … Read more
I’ve been to three conferences and one company visit, all in the last two weeks. Telomerase has been a common theme. When cells divide, their chromosomes lose a bit of their tails (telomeres) at each end. Though no information is lost, this is a process that can’t go on forever. Indeed, cells are programmed to … Read more