Biomarkers of aging identified

Biomarkers of aging identified

Predicting Chronological And Physiological Age Is Complicated


A. “Biomarkers To Predict Chronological And Physiological Age”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/bifa-but111208.php

Research purpose: “This technology may provide means of testing anti-aging drugs”. “Examining biomarkers over time would provide a scientific baseline for clinical trials of anti-aging medicines, currently impossible to determine given the lengthy lifetime of human beings."


B. I reckon that this refers to physiological, not chronological, anti-aging medicines

Age =

1. chronological duration of the existence of an organism or object, or

2. the measure of an attribute of an organism or object relative to the chronological age of their “average normal individual”.

Commonsensically age is determined by rate of degradation, and aging in multicellular organisms is much more complex that in monocel organisms, as there are so many more components in the total system that undergo deterioration and degradation.

In most multicellular eukaryotes, telomerase, the enzyme that elongates chromosomes, is only active in germ cells.

telomere = either of the repetitive DNA sequences occurring at the termini of each chromosome in
linear chromosomes of most eukaryotic organisms and of few prokaryotes. Yes, it has shown up historically way back in some linear-chromosomed prokaryotes.


C. Yeast, worms and people may age by similar mechanisms since genes are organisms and age, too

“Intestinal Stem Cells Go Awry In Elderly”
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/40/122.page#900



Dov Henis

(A DH Comment From The 22nd Century)
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q — ?cq=1

Life’s Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/112.page#578

Oredicting Age Is Complicated

Predicting Chronological And Physiological Age Is Complicated


A. “Biomarkers To Predict Chronological And Physiological Age”
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2008-11/bifa-but111208.php

Research purpose: “This technology may provide means of testing anti-aging drugs”. “Examining biomarkers over time would provide a scientific baseline for clinical trials of anti-aging medicines, currently impossible to determine given the lengthy lifetime of human beings."


B. I reckon that this refers to physiological, not chronological, anti-aging medicines

Age =

1. chronological duration of the existence of an organism or object, or

2. the measure of an attribute of an organism or object relative to the chronological age of their “average normal individual”.

Commonsensically age is determined by rate of degradation, and aging in multicellular organisms is much more complex that in monocel organisms, as there are so many more components in the total system that undergo deterioration and degradation.

In most multicellular eukaryotes, telomerase, the enzyme that elongates chromosomes, is only active in germ cells.

telomere = either of the repetitive DNA sequences occurring at the termini of each chromosome in
linear chromosomes of most eukaryotic organisms and of few prokaryotes. Yes, it has shown up historically way back in some linear-chromosomed prokaryotes.


C. Yeast, worms and people may age by similar mechanisms since genes are organisms and age, too

“Intestinal Stem Cells Go Awry In Elderly”
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/40/122.page#900



Dov Henis

(A DH Comment From The 22nd Century)
http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-P81pQcU1dLBbHgtjQjxG_Q — ?cq=1

Life’s Manifest
http://www.the-scientist.com/community/posts/list/112.page#578

Granny says aging comes from gettin' old...
:eek:
Scientists Find a Possible Cause of Aging
November 26, 2008 - A new insight into the reason for aging has been gained by scientists trying to understand how resveratrol, a minor ingredient of red wine, improves the health and lifespan of laboratory mice.

]
They believe that the integrity of chromosomes is compromised as people age, and that resveratrol works by activating a protein known as sirtuin that restores the chromosomes to health. The finding, published online Wednesday in the journal Cell, is from a group led by David Sinclair of the Harvard Medical School. It is part of a growing effort by biologists to understand the sirtuins and other powerful agents that control the settings on the living cell’s metabolism, like its handling of fats and response to insulin.

Researchers are just beginning to figure out how these agents work and how to manipulate them, hoping that they can develop drugs to enhance resistance to disease and to retard aging. Sirtris, a company Dr. Sinclair helped found, has developed a number of chemicals that mimic resveratrol and are potentially more suitable as drugs since they activate sirtuin at much lower doses than resveratrol. This month, one of these chemicals was reported in the journal Cell Metabolism to protect mice on fatty diets from getting obese and to enhance their endurance in treadmills, just as resveratrol does.

Though the sirtuin field holds considerable promise, the dust has far from settled. Resveratrol is a powerful agent with many different effects, only some of which are exerted through sirtuin. So drugs that activate sirtuin may not be as splendid a tonic for people as resveratrol certainly seems to be for mice. The new finding concerns maintenance of the chromosomes, the giant molecules of DNA that make up the genome.

More [url:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/27/health/27aging.html?ref=health[/url]

See also:

Brain scans show root of aging’s memory glitch
Wed., Nov. 26, 2008 - Elderly are more easily distracted while learning new things, study says

]
Brain scans of older people in a noisy lab machine give biological backing to the idea that distraction hampers memory with aging, researchers reported Wednesday. The finding bolsters a theory about one reason why memory weakens with age: older people have more trouble remembering some things because they’re more easily distracted when they try to learn them.

The memory exercise reported in the latest issue of the Journal of Neuroscience dealt with recognizing faces, but the findings apply to the more general task of trying to remember something a person sees or hears, said lead author Dale Stevens. Stevens, a postdoctoral researcher at Harvard University, did the work while at the Rotman Research Institute at Baycrest, which is affiliated with the University of Toronto. Older people who have to learn something should do all they can to focus on that task and eliminate potential distractions, he advised.

The study compared 10 healthy people in their 60s and 70s to a dozen younger volunteers, ages 22 to 36. Their brains were scanned while they looked at photographs of people they did not know. As each photograph was displayed for one second, the volunteers were asked if they’d seen it before in the study. In all they saw 180 different faces, of which 120 showed up a second time. The older participants failed to recognize a face they’d already seen 43 percent of the time, compared to 26 percent for the younger volunteers.

More [url:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27931210/[/url]

Anti-aging

Chronological And Physiological wat does they mean for... when aging comes we become old but i do no why people are worried about that,,, they take care not to show their original age through their body ...

n a first of its kind study, scientists at the Buck Institute for Age Research have uncovered biomarkers of aging, which can predict both chronological and physiological age.



Biomarkers are biochemical features that can be used to measure the progress of disease or the effects of treatment.



The scientists conducted the study by using nematode worms, microarrays which measure changes in gene expression, and complex computer algorithms.



And they believe that the step could help them identify similar biomarkers in humans, which would provide a means of scientifically validating anti-aging therapies.



Chronological and physiological age are rarely in sync. Determining chronological age in both worms and humans is easy – count forward from birth. Determining physiological age remains subjective – based on how someone looks or functions.



Some 70 year old humans function at the level of those in their 50''s, others become frail elderly sooner than would be expected. C. elegans, the nematode worm, is a similar creature.



Having an average lifespan of three weeks, some nematodes remain active much longer than then their similarly-aged brethren, while others show signs of premature aging (lack of symmetrical appearance, uncoordinated motion, and the need to be prodded into movement).



The researchers could predict the age of the worms by doing whole-genome expression profiles of 104 individual wild-type worms covering the entire nematode lifespan and correlating that profiling with age-related behaviour and survival.



The study revealed a suite of genes that are actively involved in the aging process.



“This is the first evidence that physiological age can be predicted non-subjectively. This is a first step; our results were not perfect, but we were able to predict the ages of the animals 70% of the time, which is far better than anything that has been done before," said Simon Melov, PhD, Buck faculty member and lead author of the study.



The study has implications for age research in humans.



Examining biomarkers over time would provide a scientific baseline for clinical trials of anti-aging medicines, which is currently impossible to determine given the lengthy lifetime of human beings.



The technology would also provide a means of determining whether an individual is aging faster or slower than would normally be expected.