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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."
Byrne1 JA, Pedersen DA, Clepperl 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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