Issue 4, 2007

By the abstracts:

"Effect of Short-Term Ketogenic Diet on Redox Status of Human Blood" by Rafal R. Nazarewicz, Wieslaw Ziolkowski, Patrick S. Vaccaro, and Pedram Ghafourifar. Giving twenty thin women a low calorie, high fat diet for two weeks raised their blood antioxidative capacity.

"Lipoproteins, Vascular-Related Genetic Factors, and Human Longevity" by Francesco Panza, Alessia D'introno, Cristiano Capurso, Anna Maria Colacicco, Davide Seripa, Alberto Pilotto, Andrea Santamato, Antonio Capurso, and Vincenzo Solfrizzi. Reports about different proportions of lots of diferent alleles in centenarians compared with the rest of the population.

"Intrinsic and Microenvironmental Defects Are Involved in the Age-Related Changes of Lin−c-kit+ Hematopoietic Progenitor Cells" by Alessia Donnini, Francesca Re, Fiorenza Orlando, and Mauro Provinciali. There are less of these specific type of lymphocyte stem cells in old than in young mice. When you transplant these cells from young and old mice into young mice, the ones from young mice differentiate more efficiently, even if you transplant a young thymus along for the ride. When these type of cells from young mice are transplanted into young or old mice, they do better when transplanted into young mice.

"Methionine Restriction Decreases Endogenous Oxidative Molecular Damage and Increases Mitochondrial Biogenesis and Uncoupling Protein 4 in Rat Brain" by Alba Naudí, Pilar Caro, Mariona Jové, José Gómez, Jordi Boada, Victoria Ayala, Manuel Portero-Otín, Gustavo Barja, and Reinald Pamplona. Rats undergoing methionine restriction had: higher mitochondrial complex 1 content and activity, higher complex 3 content, higher mitochondrial biogenesis factor PGC-1alpha, higher uncoupling protein 4, lower mtDNA oxdiation, lower membrane unsaturation in the brain.

"Muscular Transcriptome in Postmenopausal Women With or Without Hormone Replacement" by Eija Pöllänen, Paula HA Ronkainen, Harri Suominen, Timo Takala, Satu Koskinen, Jukka Puolakka, Sarianna Sipilä, and Vuokko Kovanen. What the title says. Randomised control study. HRT slows down the changes.

"Insulin-Like Growth Factor I Deficiency Prolongs Survival and Antagonizes Paraquat–Induced Cardiomyocyte Dysfunction: Role of Oxidative Stress" by Qun Li, Xiaoping Yang, Nair Sreejayan, and Jun Ren.  Mice without IGF-1 in their liver lived longer than C57 negative (standard branch?) mice when given paraquat (herbicide, poisonous). Their cardiomyocytes also behaved better in a whole bunch of measurements that I don't understand.

"Sufficiency, Justice, and the Pursuit of Health Extension" by Colin Farrelly. Philosophy.

"N-Glycomic Changes in Serum Proteins During Human Aging" by Valerie Vanhooren, Liesbeth Desmyter, Xue-En Liu, Maurizio Cardelli, Claudio Franceschi, Antonio Federico, Claude Libert, Wouter Laroy, Sylviane Dewaele, Roland Contreras, and Cuiying Chen. Changes in glycosylation of serum proteins with age in humans. Could be used as age or health marker.

"Hunger Does Not Diminish Over Time in Mice Under Protracted Caloric Restriction" by Catherine Hambly, Julian G. Mercer, and John R. Speakman. They measured how much mice eat when they are allowed after different periods of CR. They always eat more, they don't get accustomed to the CR. They keep eating until they get to normal weight.

"Theoretical Paper: Exploring Overlooked Natural Mitochondria-Rejuvenative Intervention: The Puzzle of Bowhead Whales and Naked Mole Rats" by Arkadi F. Prokopov. Something about intermittent hypoxic training/therapy being beneficial, and its benefits being based on a preserved mechanism that is related to intermittent oxygen restriction and intermittent caloric restriction. Not sure. Need to read the details.

"Xenogenic Transfer of Isolated Murine Mitochondria into Human ρ0 Cells Can Improve Respiratory Function" by Eyad Katrangi, Gerard D'Souza, Sarathi V. Boddapati, Mariola Kulawiec, Keshav K. Singh, Brian Bigger, and Volkmar Weissig. They show that mammal cells take up isolated mitochondria just by coincubation, that mice mitochondria transplanted into human cells without mtDNA restore respiration, and something about mitochondria taking up linear DNA easily, so combining that with the cells taking up the mitochondria makes them a good tool for studing mitochondrial genetics.

"Fusion and Regenerative Therapies: Is Immortality Really Recessive?" by Alexandra Stolzing, Jürgen Hescheler, and Sebastian Sethe. Overview of cell fusion experiments in aging and suggestions of future experiments for the purpose of rejuvenating cells. They claim that loss of regenerative capacity is because stem cells lose their ability to fuse effectively (I think that's what they are saying).

"Rhodiola: A Promising Anti-Aging Chinese Herb" by Mahtab Jafari, Jeffrey S. Felgner, Irvin I. Bussel, Tony Hutchili, Behnood Khodayari, Michael R. Rose, C. Vince-Cruz, and Laurence D. Mueller. They tested four chinese herbs on fruit fly, one of them, rhodiola, extended lifespan. Controlled for dietary restriction.

"Differential Effects of In Vitro Zinc Treatment on Gene Expression in Peripheral Blood Mononuclear Cells Derived from Young and Elderly Individuals" by D.J. Mazzatti, M. Malavolta, A.J. White, L. Costarelli, R. Giacconi, E. Muti, C. Cipriano, J.R. Powell, and E. Mocchegiani. Differential gene expression analysis of zinc intervention on mononuclear cells of young and old people.

"A Preliminary Analysis of Within-Subject Variation in Human Serum Oxidative Stress Parameters as a Function of Time" by Sandro Argüelles, Ana Gómez, Alberto Machado, and Antonio Ayala. Huge within-subject variability in oxidative stress markers and antioxidant capacity when taking three measurements per day on four days over a period of 51 days.