Some days, a guy just can’t catch a break. You wake up in the morning with the evil dissipation blues, with headache, neuritis or neuralgia, with a stomach full of dead possums. You have to start somewhere, so you start with the possums. These animals will scurry away, says your doctor, if you start taking omeprazole, so you do. The possums are unimpressed. You look up the side effects of omeprazole and they include “nausea and vomiting.” Am I missing something here? For an upset stomach you take a pill which upsets stomachs? Hello, is anyone listening?
My gym pal and aging mentor Robin Martinez, a frisky 88, once told me that every day after 80 you’d wake up with a different ailment to address. Guess what, Robin? I’m turning out to be an early-onset octogenarian. It’s like you’re in a long battle with Dr. Doom, you have to choose your weapons wisely. So far, I’ve been able to counter numbness in my extremities with acupuncture and lower back issues with therapeutic massage, though my therapist is now fretting over a disobedient psoas muscle. I had the good sense to have my troublesome prostate removed, cleverly avoiding an attack from the south, and I have made a pact with my heart to send in relief supplies, thus avoiding the ugliness of war. Just when you think you’re out of the woods, however, a new threat pops out of the woodwork and tweaks your nose. Yesterday, my sister Alice (the Republican) called to say her red blood cells were disappearing in droves and, like Little Bo-Peep, she didn’t know where to find them. She said she might need a transfusion. I told her I had plenty of the things and I was available in a pinch, though my red blood cells are guaranteed to vote Democratic. She’s holding out for a right-wing donor.
Just when you’re feeling sorry for yourself, however, a friend calls up and says he’s been diagnosed with Fibrodysplasia Ossificans (it turns your muscles, tendons and ligaments to bone) or Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome (you can’t breathe while you’re asleep) or Rabies (don’t hand-feed those pesky raccoons). If the right fist don’t get you, then the left one will. When we were kids we suffered, too, but we were always assured that Mighty Mouse was on his way to save the day. Since then, Mighty Mouse has retired to his eloquent villa in Lichtenstein, and nobody is on his way to save the staggering lot of us. Except maybe for Joan Mannick.
Where Did You Come From, Cotton-Eyed Joan?
If you climb up on Florida’s highest hill, adjust your binoculars and peer north, you might be able to make out Boston bioqueen Joan Mannick in the distance. She’s carrying around a small bottle of pink pills, labeled RTB101, a drug developed by her company that could change the future of aging forever. We know what you’re thinking, you’ve heard all this before. But while previous antiaging miracles have extended the lives of worms, fruit flies, mice and Willie Nelson, this one has been shown to work in humans. The latest issue of AARP magazine tells us that RTB101 and a few cousins have bolstered aging immune systems, cut the risk for respiratory diseases and possibly lowered the risk of urinary tract infections. A version of the drug is expected to win FDA approval as early as 2021 for a single age-related health threat---the winter colds, flu, pneumonia and other respiratory tract infections that send over 1 million older adults to the hospital every year and kill more than 75,000 of them. Studies of the drug as a preventative for Parkinson’s disease and heart failure are set for later this year.
According to the article, “In the suddenly hot world of aging science, RTB101 is an A-list celebrity. It’s the biggest star to emerge from the National Institutes of Health’s little-known, taxpayer-funded Interventions Testing Program (ITP), which has been quietly experimenting with compounds thought to extend longevity in mice and worms at three major laboratories across the nation. One of the best-kept secrets in aging research, the $4.7 million-a-year ITP has also debunked some big anti-aging crazes, including green tea, curcumin and resveratrol.” Not to say those don’t have benefits, just that they have often been exaggerated.
RTB101 and an unprecedented number of age-defying compounds from labs across the U.S. are now heading into human clinical trials for the first time. “We’ve reached the perfect storm in aging science,” says physician Nir Barzilai, founding director of the Institute for Aging Research at Yeshiva University’s Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, N.Y. “Everything is happening. We have the foundation from decades of animal studies. We’re ready to move up to people.” The ultimate goal is to put the brakes on aging, itself, preventing the pileup of chronic health problems, dementia and frailty that sideswipe most of us later in life. “I want 85 to be the new 65,” says Mannick, the chief medical officer and cofounder of resTORbio, the company developing RTB101.
All of this is none too soon. In a decade, 1 in 5 Americans will be 65 or older. Three out of four will have two or more serious health conditions. At least one in four can expect memory lapses and fuzzy thinking, while one in ten will develop dementia. ONE in TEN is a horrible number. “Right now, doctors play whack-a-mole with chronic diseases in older adults. You treat one, another pops up,” says Felipe Sierra, director of the National Institute on Aging’s Division of Aging Biology. “The goal instead is to tackle aging itself, the major risk factor for almost every major disease.”
If, alas, Mighty Mouse really is gone forever, that Joan Mannick looks pretty sharp in his old costume.
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| I'm 48 and I still feel great! |
Do-It-Yourself Tips
1. Last April, Scientists from Harvard University published a 34-year study of 79,000 American adults in the journal Circulation that found the following: never smoking, a body mass index of 18.5 to 24.9, over 30 minutes per day of moderate to vigorous exercise, modest alcohol intake and a high-quality diet could extend lifespans by 12 years for men and 14 years for women. That’s not soggy gingerbread, friends and neighbors. If it’s too late to accomplish all of the above, there’s time to manage some of it. Let’s go!
2. Scientists have now shown repeatedly that reducing caloric intake can slow aging and reduce risks for age-related disease. And it may be easier than you think. Last year, researchers found that timing meals to mimic fasting without reducing caloric intake can have similar anti-aging effects, improving the incidence and severity of age-related issues such as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, cancer and dementia.
3. Substance abuse not only takes a toll on our health but also accelerates aging. A population-based study by Amen Clinics, Google, John’s Hopkins, UCLA and the University of California at San Francisco published in August examined over 62,000 brain scans of individuals from the ages of 9 months to 105 years of age. The team of researchers found that schizophrenia was associated with an average of 4 years of premature aging, cannabis abuse 2.8 years, bipolar disorder 1.6 years, ADHD 1.4 years and alcohol abuse 0.6 years. Our pal Chuck LeMasters would argue there’s no such thing as cannabis abuse but watch out for the rest of them.
4. Just as clearing the junk from the basement makes the place look better, eliminating senescent cells from your tissues improves your body. According to a study published in Nature Medicine in July, researchers found that treating aged mice with a combination of two existing drugs (leukemia drug dasatinib and flavanol quercetin) cleared the senescent cells from tissues and extended both life span and health span. Another compound called fisetin, present in many fruits and vegetables, did likewise. Also, targeting mitochondria in blood vesses cells with hydrogen sulfide reduced the number of senescent cells by up to 50 percent. That’s a LOT of senescent cells.
Secrets Of the Ancients
If you are frustrated with modern medicine and pine for a simpler time with age-old solutions to your health problems, consider this sage advice from eras long past:
Hippocrates, the Father of Medicine, must know what he’s talking about, right? And when it comes to hemorrhoids, there’s no better expert. In his 400 BCE paper On Hemorrhoids, the old boy suggests burning the danged things with pieces of hot iron. “I recommend seven or eight small pieces of iron to be prepared, a fathom in size, in thickness like a thick specillum and bent at the extremity and a broad piece should be on the extremity. Force out the anus as much as possible with the fingers and make the irons red hot and burn the pile until it be dried up, so as to leave none of the hemorrhoids unburnt.” When would you like your appointment? We have an opening on Tuesday.
Soranus (who sounds like a man who partook of the previous treatment) was a Greek physican who worked in Rome in the early 2nd century CE and was an expert on menstruation, contraception and abortion. If you were looking to avoid pregnancy, Soranus was your man. “During the sexual act, at the moment of coitus when the man is about to discharge the seed, the woman must hold her breath and draw herself away a little, so the seed may not be hurled too deep into the cavity of the uterus. And getting up immediately and squatting down, she should induce sneezing and carefully wipe the vagina all round. Then she should drink something cold.” So remember---on a hot date, it’s critical to bring along a snifter of sneezing powder, a nice handkerchief and the beverage of your choice. And don’t forget the wiggle.
The Ancient Egyptians were big on mouse cures. Would you like to ease that awful toothache pain? Just pop a live mouse in your mouth. If his friskiness bothers you, simply retrieve the rodent, stick him in the blender with a few other helpful ingredients and apply the resultant poultice to the painful area (the Egyptians, of course, were forced to use more primitive means of mouse-mashing). If you suspect the Egyptians were in error, consider that in the more proper Elizabethan England one remedy for warts was to cut a mouse in half and apply either section to the offending spot (the other half could be used for delicious mouse pies, which sent the locals into paroxysms of ecstasy). Mice were also used to treat whooping cough, measles, smallpox, bedwetting and the heartbreak of psoriasis.
If you think the Ancients might have been a little extreme, consider the treatment for stuttering in the 18th and 19th centuries. Doctors from that era cut off half the stutterer’s tongue. We’re not sure whether it worked or not because one of the unfortunate side effects of the treatment was the patient bled to death. His last words were usually, “Th…th…th…that’s all, folks!”
A popular cure for what ails you from as far back as the 17th century prevails today. The old guys called it Clyster. We call it Colonic Irrigation, or, if we’re crass, The Enema. A typical early-times clyster might contain warm water mixed with salt, baking soda or soap. Some doctors added coffee, bran, herbs, honey or chamomile to the stew. In high society, enemas became enormously popular, with aristocratic hypochondriacs taking several scented clysters a day. Yes, that really was several a day. Matter of fact, no less than Louis XIV of France is said to have had more than 2000 enemas. It’s a wonder he could sit on that throne. On the other hand, people were a lot less reluctant to kiss your ass in those days.
Th…th…th…That’s all, folks!
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
