is getting old a disease? science weighs in

[Jodievt]

Popular science mag talks about thos...

Article:  

On June 24, researchers will meet with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for a very specific reason: they want to test a drug that might slow the aging process. If they succeed, they will show for the first time that aging is in fact a condition that can be treated with medicine, which could boost progress—and funding—for anti-aging research. And based on some comments made by officials late last month, the FDA seems inclined to say yes,according to Nature News.

When it comes to health and pharmaceutical research, the goal is often to treat a specific disease or condition. But often, if a patient is elderly, the body is unable to regenerate enough to cure itself completely. Patients are treated for one life-threatening disease only to contract another and die from it shortly thereafter.

Aging researchers don't claim to seek immortality; rather, they want to keep more people healthier for longer. Drugs that have been developed over the past decade have been ineffective and sold with false promises. But the researchers behind the proposed experiment, called Targeting Aging with Metformin (TAME), say they're in a better position now thanks to animal studies that have hinted at particular physiological pathways that can lead to greater longevity.

The drug the researchers would test in the trial,metformin, is already used to treat type 2 diabetes by suppressing glucose production in the liver and makes the body more sensitive to insulin. But data collected over the 60 years it has been used suggests it could have other effects as well, delaying the onset of heart disease, cancer, and cognitive decline.

The trial would enroll 3,000 participants aged 70-80 who have one or two of the above conditions. Over 5-7 years, the researchers will monitor the patients to see if the drug slows the progression of the disease. The $50 million the researchers will need for the trial has not yet been secured, but others in the field say their science is sound. By engaging the FDA, the researchers hope to make it easier to find the funding so that they can begin the trial in the next few years.

nature article: http://www.nature.com/news/anti-ageing-pill-pushed-as-bona-fide-drug-1.17769?con=&dom=pscau&src=syndication

[retroHelen]

As a diabetic myself, I cannot see how Metformin can stop ageing. Metformin takes an while to kick in, 30 to 40 minutes, and then get working. A diabetic's blood sugars will rise to bad levels before the metformin kicks in and brings the levels eventually back down. That is why many diabetics on metformin will still suffer the damage of high blood sugars eventually despite being on meds. Metformin is a powerful drug to deal with. If you don't cover the drug with enough carbohydrate consumption, you can quickly suffer hypoglycemia that could lead to coma and death if not treated immediately. Metformin is useful for diabetics whose pancreas has all but packed up, but giving a powerful drug that can have such swing effects on the blood/sugar system generally is not a good idea. 

 

Alzheimers has been called a Type 3 diabetes by recent researchers because glucose sticks to certain proteins to make them adhere and render useless parts of the brain. Metformin would not stop this action due to the 40 minute delay to kick in and reduce blood sugar levels before the glucose had crossed the blood brain barrier.

 

One type of ageing occurs where too much glucose in the system causes it to get into the blood stream and then too much into the cells and it can in certain forms mimic proteins and be taken into protein molecules, but causes them to distort. In skin cells, some scientists are now starting to say, that this is why people on high sugar/carbohydrate diets get more wrinkled aged skin. Metformin's delays would not stop this occurring either. 

 

Why keep treating people's over-consumption of sugars/carbohydrates with drugs so they can live longer? Why not suggest a lower carbohydrate/sugar/glucose forming diet, so their livers don't need to process so much cell-damaging glucose in the first place. This is what Doctors, who practice more than just the standard  'matching patients symptoms with drugs', but functional medicine /preventable medicine with diet and lifestyle have been trying to advocate for some years now, especially for diabetics, so that their patients with sugar/carbohydrate indigestions can stave off the ageing and damaging effects of high liver glucose levels. Many diabetics of Type 2 (Type 1 is a whole other disease) have followed the functional medicine programs and lowered their meds and some have been able to come off them and been far healthier with 'normal blood sugars' even if they still can't process as much carb/sugar as other people - they thus avoid or hold back retinopathy and neuropathy and other age hastening blood sugar problems.

 

Giving diet advice to support and not antagonise the liver though cannot be patented. No one can make money off it. I suggest that this research may be funded by the Metformin pharmaceutical industry, just as there have been lots of reports in the UK of pharmaceutical companies with biased science trying to get Doctors to ignore the bad side effects of statins and get everyone over 40 on them daily rather than giving cholesterol lowering diet advice instead.

 

Ageing also has to do with the length of telemeres and number of turn over times for cells. There does seem to be an unexplained finite time to these factors - which may be Jehovah not intervening to keep them switched on forever, even if we were to eat the healthiest diet on the planet & live on the cleanest place we could find away from predators and dangerous activities/governments. We have been promised that soon, but not in this corrupt system!

[Jodievt]

I find it interesting corporation wieghing in on an innate want and trying to cash in. Your right, won't happen without Jehovah.

[New World Explorer]

Is getting old a disease?

Answer: No !

 

The first man and woman had perfect bodies along with free will. Sadly, they misused that free will by rebelling against their Maker. (Genesis 2:16, 17; 3:6-11) Their disobedience, or sin, caused them to have profound guilt and shame. It also resulted in damage to their bodies, triggering a slow, inexorable (impossible to stop or prevent.) descent toward death. “The sting producing death is sin,” states 1 Corinthians 15:56.

There are likely a number of biological factors that contribute to the aging process. But the answers at present remain locked up beyond the reach of scientists. Leonard Guarente of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says: “Right now aging is still very much a black box.”—Scientific American, Fall 1999.

 

APPROXIMATE LIFE SPANS

Bee

90 days

    ↓

Mouse

3 years

    ↓

Dog

15 years

    ↓

Monkey

30 years

    ↓

Alligator

50 years

    ↓

Elephant

70 years

    ↓

Human

80 years

    ↓

Parrot

100 years

    ↓

Giant tortoise

150 years

    ↓

Giant sequoia

3,000 years

    ↓

Bristlecone pine

4,700 years

 

[Bluetape]

I read before that most species have roughly 1 billion heartbeats. Some animals that live for so long have low beats per minute.