Issue 3, 2007

There are a lot of articles in this issue because they included the papers from the first Edmonton aging symposium.

"Human Reproductive Costs and the Predicted Response to Dietary Restriction" by Robert Arking. Attempts to predict the effects of CR on human longevity with a model based on energy allocation (I think).

"Autophagy in the Heart and Liver During Normal Aging and Calorie Restriction" by Stephanie E. Wohlgemuth, David Julian, Debora E. Akin, Joanna Fried, Kristin Toscano, Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, and William A. Dunn, Jr. Autophagy rates in the heart and liver are not affected by age in rats that eat what they want. It is increased by CR in old rats only in the heart, not in the liver.

"Apolipoprotein E Genotypic Frequencies Among Down Syndrome Patients Imply Early Unsuccessful Aging for ApoE4 Carriers" by Giusi I. Forte, Maria Piccione, Letizia Scola, Antonino Crivello, Cristina Galfano, Massimiliano M. Corsi, Martina Chiappelli, Giuseppina Candore, Mario Giuffrè, Roberto Verna, Federico Licastro, Giovanni Corsello, Calogero Caruso, and Domenico Lio. ApoE4 carriers go down as a proportion of the population at older ages (16% of people under 40, 13% of those in their 70s, and 4% of people over 90 in a study of 360 people). Down syndrome patients at 9% (106 DS average age 9). They use frequency difference between 5-year old DS people to those older to claim that DS is a good model of early aging.

"Dietary Intake of Elderly Living in Toronto Long-Term Care Facilities: Comparison to the Dietary Reference Intake" by Elaheh Aghdassi, Margaret McArthur, Barbara Liu, Alison McGeer, Andrew Simor, and Johane P. Allard. Old people in long term care facilities don't get a perfect diet, but not too bad either.

"Cytochrome c Oxidase Rather than Cytochrome c is a Major Determinant of Mitochondrial Respiratory Capacity in Skeletal Muscle of Aged Rats: Role of Carnitine and Lipoic Acid" by Jayavelu Tamilselvan, Kumarasamy Sivarajan, Muthuswamy Anusuyadevi, and Chinnakkannu Panneerselvam. I don't really understand much more than the title. They did experiments on naked mitochondria that had lost their cytochrome c and where bathing them in cytochrome c didn't recover their natural activity.

"A Model of Metabolic Changes in Respiration-Deficient Human Cells" by F. Mathias Bollmann. A model of how cells with damaged mitochondria survive long term through the combination of glycolysis and a 'partly reversed TCA cycle'. Needs to export succinate.

Following papers from the Edmonton aging symposium

"Mitochondria in Aging and Alzheimer's Disease" by P.J. Crouch, K. Cimdins, J.A. Duce, A.I. Bush, and I.A. Trounce. They postulate that mtDNA mutations are an important factor in amyloid beta production. They say amyloid beta accumulates in mitochondria in Alzheimered brains.

"Engineering Away Lysosomal Junk: Medical Bioremediation" by Bruce E. Rittmann and John Schloendorn. Strains of Nocardia (a bacteria) can degrade 7-ketocholesterol, although it's tricky to tell from the grammar of the sentence to what, or if it can be degraded without modifications. They have some analysis of the intermediate molecules in the degradation pathway.

"Therapeutic Ultrasound Applications in Craniofacial Growth, Healing and Tissue Engineering" by Tarek El-Bialy. Ultrasound being trialled/used to trigger/speed up bone formation/healing and dental formation. This paper claims to explain the molecular basis for this.

"Time, Damage, and Aging: What Really Matters?" by Huber R. Warner. Not sure.

"Nutrition as a Determinant of Successful Aging: Description of the Quebec Longitudinal Study NuAge and Results from Cross-Sectional Pilot Studies" by Pierrette Gaudreau, José A Morais, Bryna Shatenstein, Katherine Gray-Donald, Abdel Khalil, Isabelle Dionne, Guylaine Ferland, Tamàs Fülöp, Danielle Jacques, Marie-Jeanne Kergoat, Daniel Tessier, Richard Wagner, and Hélène Payette. Longitudinal study of 1800 >68 year olds tracking lots of variables. Hasn't finished yet, this is just the description.

"The Cancer–Aging Interface and the Significance of Telomere Dynamics in Cancer Therapy" by Gesche Tallen, Mohamed A. Soliman, and Karl Riabowol. Chemotherapy triggers faster cell regeneration in healthy tissue to compensate for lost cells. This leads to shorter telomeres, which could have some impact down the line.

"Loss of Muscle Strength During Aging Studied at the Gene Level" by Geoffrey Goldspink. Mechano-growth factor, an alternative splicing of IGF-1, increases muscle contractile strength by activating muscle satellite stem cells that do local muscle repair.