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Longevity News and Review provides readers with the latest information
in breakthroughs pertaining to the extension of the healthy human lifespan.
These news summaries are compiled by the American Academy of Anti-Aging
Medicine (A4M; www.worldhealth.net), a non-profit medical society composed
of 20,000 physician and scientist members from 90 nations, united in
a mission to advance biomedical technologies to detect, prevent, and
treat aging-related disease and to promote research into methods to
retard and optimize the human aging process. Ronald Klatz, MD, DO,
A4M President and Robert Goldman, MD, PhD, DO, FAASP, A4M Chairman,
physician co-founders of the anti-aging medical movement, distill these
headlines and provide their insightful commentary.
Beta-Carotene Supplementation Benefits Aging Mens' Brains
In that oxidative stress contributes to age-related cognitive decline, antioxidant
supplementation has been found to protect the brain. Francine Grodstein, of
Harvard Medical School, and colleagues found long-term benefits for men taking
beta-carotene supplements (50 mg every other day) for 15 or more years. Long-term
beta-carotene supplementation was associated with a significantly higher score
on tests of general cognition and verbal memory. Because beta-carotene is converted
into vitamin A in the body, the team suggests that beta-carotenes exert their
protective benefits on cognition by preventing the build-up of plaques associated
with beta-amyloid deposits, which are associated with loss of cognitive function
and an increased risk of Alzheimer's Disease.
Grodstein F, Kang JH, Glynn RJ, Cook NR, Gaziano JM. A randomized trial of
beta-carotene supplementation and cognitive function in men: The Physicians'
Health Study II. Arch Intern Med. 2007 Nov 12;167(20):2184-90.
Dr. Goldman remarks: "Upwards of 12 million people in the United States
and European Union suffer from Alzheimer's. In the US alone, the disease
costs more than $100 billion annually. This is the first study that looks
at long-term antioxidant supplementation and how it can avert the cognitive
decline
so common in the aging population. It shows that beta-carotene should be
considered as a critically important preventative measure to ward off cognitive
decline,
as supplementation is both safe and cost-effective over the long-term."
World's First
Cloned Embryo from A Monkey – Are
Humans Next?
Shoukhrat Mitalipov, of the Oregon Health and Science University
(Beaverton, Oregon), and colleagues have created the world's
first cloned embryo from a monkey. Using somatic cell nuclear
transfer
(SCNT), the same method
that led to Dolly the Sheep and other genetically duplicated animals such
as mice, pigs, cats, cows, and dogs, this marks the very first
time a cloned primate
has been successfully produced. Dr. Mitalipov harvested 304 eggs from 14
female monkeys and produced 35 early-stage embryos from the SCNT
procedure; this,
in turn, led to two lines of self-dividing embryonic stem cells. The researchers
comment in their published paper that "Our results represent successful
nuclear reprogramming of adult somatic cells into pluripotent embryonic
stem cells and demonstrate proof-of-concept for therapeutic cloning in
primates."
Byrne JA, Pedersen DA, Clepper LL, Nelson M, Sanger WG, Gokhale S, Wolf
DP, Mitalipov SM. Producing primate embryonic stem cells by somatic cell
nuclear
transfer. Nature. Advance online publication 14 November 2007.
Dr. Klatz comments: "Dr. Mitalipov's breakthrough research paves
the way for cloning of human cells for use in medical research and therapeutics.
No longer do scientists need to harvest embryos to use in stem cell therapies;
soon they will be able to be created in the laboratory without the ethical
dilemmas currently plaguing stem cell therapeutics."
From Longevity News
and Review; Volume 2007, Issue 6
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