The Raelian Movement
for those who are not afraid of the future : http://www.rael.org
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Anti-aging by blocking a gene — without restricting food intake?
http://www.kurzweilai.net/anti-aging-by-blocking-a-gene-without-restricting-food-intake?
August 19, 2010 by Editor
Suppressing a newly discovered gene, drr-2, lengthens the lifespan of
roundworms without reducing caloric intake, University of Michigan
scientists have found.
Scientists who study aging have long known that significantly
restricting food intake makes animals live longer, due to less
oxidative damage in animal cells and a slower decline in DNA repair, a
decline that normally occurs with age. It's thought that limiting
oxidative damage and slowing the decline in DNA repair could help
postpone or avoid many age-related diseases.
But to achieve anti-aging benefits, it's thought that people would
have to restrict food intake by 30 to 40 percent, a grim prospect. In
addition, drugs might be designed to avoid other disadvantages of this
level of dietary restriction, which include reduced fertility.
So the goal is to find less drastic ways to achieve the same effect in
humans someday. The U-M results offer promising early evidence that
scientists may succeed at finding targets for drugs that someday could
allow people to live longer, healthier lives.
In a study in the August issue of Aging Cell,U-M scientists found that
drr-2 is an important component in a key cellular pathway, the TOR
nutrient-sensing pathway, where many scientists are looking for
potential drug targets. The U-M scientists then found that when they
caused the drr-2 gene to be under- or over-expressed, they could
lengthen or shorten lifespan in C. elegans, a worm widely used in
research. Manipulating the drr-2 gene's action produced the same
effects as reducing or increasing caloric intake.
The study also found that drr-2 appears analogous to a human gene,
eIF4H, that controls similar cell functions.
Funding: Ellison Medical Foundation and the National Institutes of
Health Citation: DOI: 10.1111/j.1474-9726.2010.00.
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"Ethics" is simply a last-gasp attempt by deist conservatives and
orthodox dogmatics to keep humanity in ignorance and obscurantism,
through the well tried fermentation of fear, the fear of science and
new technologies.
There is nothing glorious about what our ancestors call history,
it is simply a succession of mistakes, intolerances and violations.
On the contrary, let us embrace Science and the new technologies
unfettered, for it is these which will liberate mankind from the
myth of god, and free us from our age old fears, from disease,
death and the sweat of labour.
Rael
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