Category Archives: Life Span

Scientific American on TOR and Aging

If you follow aging science—and my guess is that you’re one of those mortal, aging types who do—you might want to take a look at the latest issue of Scientific American (the January 2012 issue), which has a cover story I wrote for the magazine about research on target of rapamycin (TOR) and its implications [...]
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Yes, Red Wine May Hold Some Answers. Recheck Dosage.

If you’ve tuned into the resveratrol story over the past five years, you’ve probably heard that you’d need to take giant doses of the red-wine ingredient to do any good. That idea was based on mouse studies in 2006 that showed massive doses of the compound blocked bad effects of eating too much fat. A [...]
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Sirtuin News For Mammals

The negative buzz about sirtuins recently grew louder when Science ran a lengthy news piece on Dec. 2 titled, “Aging Genes: The Sirtuin Story Unravels.” The article played up studies in lower organisms casting doubt on earlier high-profile reports that sirtuin enzmes play major roles in aging, which in turn challenged the idea that they [...]
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Does obesity speed up aging?

Obesity is a major risk factor for a list of diseases that seems to be getting longer every week. Recent additions include metastasizing prostate cancer and cirrhosis of the liver. Over the past few years, brain shrinkage and Alzheimer’s disease have been added, as have arthritis, various cancers, and even incontinence. Scanning the multitude of [...]
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More on Demi, Ashton and Aging

If you’re tracking developments in aging research, don’t miss the issue of National Enquirer that hit newsstands today (dated Feb. 28)—it contains a full-page spread based on the Ashton-Demi Gerontology Seminar on the Beach that graced celebrity news outlets last week. You might also want to take a look at the related piece I did [...]
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One for the Record Book

Here’s a curious coincidence: The current world records for human longevity and for running the mile were both set back in the 20th century. The longest-lived human was France’s Jeanne Calment, who reached 122 years and 164 days of age before her death in 1997. In 1999, Morocco’s Hicham El Guerrouj ran the world’s fastest [...]
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