The headline in Future Pundit is provocative. Here’s their summary of telomerase trials:

Lengthening the caps on telomeres increases life expectancy in mice.

A number of studies have shown that it is possible to lengthen the average life of individuals of many species, including mammals, by acting on specific genes. To date, however, this has meant altering the animals’ genes permanently from the embryonic stage – an approach impracticable in humans. Researchers at the Spanish National Cancer Research Centre (CNIO), led by its director María Blasco, have proved that mouse lifespan can be extended by the application in adult life of a single treatment acting directly on the animal’s genes. And they have done so using gene therapy, a strategy never before employed to combat ageing. The therapy has been found to be safe and effective in mice.

The results are published today in the journal EMBO Molecular Medicine. The CNIO team, in collaboration with Eduard Ayuso and Fátima Bosch of the Centre of Animal Biotechnology and Gene Therapy at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (UAB), treated adult (one-year-old) and aged (two-year-old) mice, with the gene therapy delivering a “rejuvenating” effect in both cases, according to the authors.

Mice treated at the age of one lived longer by 24% on average, and those treated at the age of two, by 13%. The therapy, furthermore, produced an appreciable improvement in the animals’ health, delaying the onset of age-related diseases – like osteoporosis and insulin resistance – and achieving improved readings on ageing indicators like neuromuscular coordination.

This is an interesting result for a number of reasons. First off, why don’t mice just have longer telomeres at the start? If the increased life expectancy has no cost in fitness why aren’t mouse telomeres longer already?

Second, I am surprised that the longer telomeres didn’t enable more cancer growth and therefore cause shorter life expectancy. Telomere shortening every time a cell divides acts like a counter on the max number of times a cell can divide. This functions as a defense against cancer. Some cancers mutate their way past this defense (e.g. by turning on telomerase to make telomeres longer). But presumably others get stopped by cells with telomeres too short to allow further cell division.

The researchers address the cancer issue in a way that suggests to me this would not work for humans.

In 2007, Blasco’s group proved that it was feasible to prolong the lives of transgenic mice, whose genome had been permanently altered at the embryonic stage, by causing their cells to express telomerase and, also, extra copies of cancer-resistant genes. These animals live 40% longer than is normal and do not develop cancer.

The mice subjected to the gene therapy now under test are likewise free of cancer. Researchers believe this is because the therapy begins when the animals are adult so do not have time to accumulate sufficient number of aberrant divisions for tumours to appear.

Mice do not live that long to begin with. Humans at middle age given telomerase gene therapy would have decades in which to accumulate aberrant cells that can turn cancerous. So

Third, on the bright side the gene therapy was able to reach a large enough fraction of the cells in the bodies of mice to make a big difference. Very good news because we have need for lots of types of gene therapy to do rejuvenation of our bodies. I wonder what fraction of all the cells in the mice got the gene therapy.

And tell us exactly when to stop.

We’re not there yet but this is a clever idea:

A scientist at Cornell found a way to get people to stop eating Pringles: an edible red chip that marks it’s time to stop eating.
Brian Wansink’s experiment was conducted on 98 college students, who were served Pringles. Half had a normal can while the others had red chips but weren’t told why.
The students with the red chips ate about 50 percent less than the ones with the normal cans.

“Animals that exercised, whether or not they had any other enrichments in their cages, had healthier brains and performed significantly better on cognitive tests than the other mice.

Animals that didn’t run, no matter how enriched their world was otherwise, did not improve their brainpower in the complex, lasting ways that Rhodes’s team was studying.

“They loved the toys,” Rhodes says, and the mice rarely ventured into the empty, quieter portions of their cages.

But unless they also exercised, they did not become smarter.”

The latest report from the Centers for Disease Control shows a link between higher education and longevity. More-educated Americans also are less likely to smoke or be obese, according to Health, United States, 2011, the annual report of health statistics in the country.

For men age 25 without a high school diploma, life expectancy was 9.3 years less than for those with a bachelor’s degree or higher—and the gap increased by 1.9 years from 1996 to 2006. For women,there was a 8.6 year advantage in longevity with a college education, and that figure rose by 2.8 percent in that decade.

While obesity among men didn’t vary consistently by educational attainment, from 2007-2010, women 25 years of age and older with less than a bachelor’s degree were more likely to be obese (39 percent to 43 percent) than those with a college education (25 percent).

About one-third of American adults with a high school diploma or less are current smokers, compared with 24 percent of adults who have some college and 9 percent of adults with a bachelor’s degree or higher.

The connection between education and healthy lifestyles was evident among children, as well in the CDC study.

Looking through the timeline, you start to notice that so often in history there is little awareness of the prevailing movement of the time. At the time of the Space Age, people were not aware that it was actually the Woodstock Age, when Baby Boomers began ramming their narcissistic view of self-actualization down American throats, as their Greatest Generation parents slipped in one last good deed, the Civil Rights Movement. (Here’s a great article about how Baby Boomers are selling out Generation Y. Read it before you defend baby boomers in the comments.) Most recently in the timeline is the  Information Age. You know the story: the rise of computer, then the Internet, and now the rise of mobile everything. But I don’t think that’s the story, really. I think the story of our time is the personal responsibility. Here’s why…

Kefir is a cultured, enzyme-rich food comprised of a combination of bacteria and yeasts that help balance your “inner ecosystem.” More nutritious and therapeutic than yogurt, it supplies complete protein, essential minerals, and valuable B vitamins.

Researcher Steven Hertzler stated: “Both kefir and yogurt improve lactose digestion simply because some of the bacterial cells give up their lives in the intestinal tract, release their enzymes and digest the lactose. It’s a one-shot deal. However, kefir has additional microorganisms that may be able to colonize the intestines and benefit health further by protecting the intestine against disease-causing bacteria.”

Both Kefir and yogurt are cultured milk products, but they contain different types of beneficial bacteria. Yogurt contains transient beneficial bacteria that keep the digestive system clean and provide food for the friendly bacteria that reside there. But kefir can actually colonize the intestinal tract, a feat that yogurt cannot match. Kefir’s active yeast and bacteria provide more nutritive value than yogurt by helping digest the foods that you eat and by keeping the colon environment clean and healthy.
Kefir contains several major strains of friendly bacteria not commonly found in yogurt, Lactobacillus Caucasus, Leuconostoc, Acetobacter species, and Streptococcus species. It also contains beneficial yeasts, such as Saccharomyces kefir and Torula kefir.

Now if you are lactose intolerant, don’t do dairy or digest milk products well, you can still consume kefir products. The beneficial yeast and friendly bacteria in the kefir culture consume most of the lactose. Eat kefir on an empty stomach first thing in the morning before or for breakfast and you will find it can be easily digested.