“Give us two relatively equal mice. Our technology can make can make one of them much younger and the other much older in a relatively short period of time.”---David Sinclair
“One pill makes you larger, and one pill makes you small.”---Grace Slick
David Sinclair Would Like A Word With You
Renowned Harvard University geneticist David Sinclair recently made a startling assertion: Scientific data shows he has knocked more than two decades off his biological age. He claims his daily regimen includes ingesting a molecule his own research found improved the health and lengthened the life span of mice. Sinclair now reports that he has the lung capacity, cholesterol and blood pressure of a young adult and the heart rate of an athlete. All this and it’s barely October. Is Santa Claus coming to town early this year?
“We’ve discovered a way to reverse vascular aging by boosting the presence of naturally occurring molecules in the body that augment the physiological response to exercise,” says Sinclair. “The approach stimulates blood vessel growth and boosts stamina and endurance in mice and sets the stage for therapies in humans to address the spectrum of diseases that arise from vascular aging. Loss of blood flow seems to be one of the early things that leads to diseases of aging. As organs like the brain and muscles lose their blood perfusion, they no longer function effectively.”
In one of his recent studies, he and his colleagues found a way to restore that blood flow in aging mice. They provided elderly mice with a molecule called nicotinamide mononucleotide (NMN), which is then made into another compound that promotes the formation of tiny blood vessels in cells that line the muscle as well as other organs. The mice given NMN increased their treadmill run time by 60% compared to animals that did not get the molecule and they doubled their exercise endurance to levels that matched or even exceeded that of younger mice.
What NMN does, says Sinclair, is provide the same benefits in improving blood flow that exercise does by promoting a family of molecules called sirtuins. “Here we have the potential of having a pill give the benefits of basically running for 10 miles a day without having to do that,” he says. This can be especially important for older people who are physically unable to exercise as much as they should. “It’s not just about trying to replace exercise when you are middle-aged, but giving the benefits of exercise when you are too old to be able to do it.”
Sinclair anticipates that improved blood flow could be important in helping not just aging tissues and organs, but in speeding the healing of wounds, particularly for people with diabetes who often lose fingers and toes as their circulation falters. On the negative side there is also a possibility that the finding could be used to enhance blood flow for elite athletes. Improving the pumping of blood to muscles could give experimenting athletes an advantage over their unendowed rivals.
Good News For Mighty Mice/ What About Humans?
What works for mice often fails in humans. There are endless tales of potential medical breakthroughs encouraged by promising mouse studies which flounder when applied to human beings. David Sinclair is unperturbed. In a small trial at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Sinclair is already testing how the molecule works in people. And he is confident enough in its benefits for aging that he has been taking it himself. So far, it appears to be relatively safe and does not lead to out-of-control growth of blood vessels, but further studies are being done to confirm its safety and efficacy. Sinclair plans to test NMN’s effects first in otherwise healthy elderly people to ascertain whether it generates the same improvements in blood flow which he and his colleagues have seen in animal studies.
It goes without saying that separating the wheat from the chaff in the longevity field can be challenging. Even reputable scientists like David Sinclair and preeminent institutions like Harvard align themselves with promising but unproven interventions and often promote and profit from them. Sinclair’s financial interests include being listed as an inventor on a patent licensed to Elysium Health, a supplement company which sells a NAD booster called Basis in pills for $60 a bottle. He’s also an investor in Inside Tracker, a company which claims it can evaluate a client’s biological age. Obviously, any inventor has a right to profit from his discoveries as long as their merits are described accurately. Below, a few words from David Sinclair.
Questions And Answers
What is Nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) and why do we need to study it?
NAD is a chemical found in every living organism and is essential for life. Recently, scientists have discovered that our bodies also use NAD to turn on our defenses against aging. When we exercise or diet, NAD levels go up and we become healthier. The problem is as that as we age, our body makes less NAD. We need to find ways to boost it up again.
How do you envision the type of medications or treatments that will be available to fight aging?
Doctors will prescribe medicines for a particular disease but, as a side effect, those medications will work to prevent dozens of others. As we get better at reversing aging, it will be possible to take one medicine and within weeks feel and even look younger. Imagine going to a doctor to get a pill for diabetes and this same medicine will prevent heart disease, Alzheimer’s, cancer, and will give you more vitality, too. This is easy in mice. Trying to do it in humans is now the challenge.
You’ve also looked into the anti-aging effects of resveratrol, the antioxidant found in red wine. What did you discover?
We discovered that resveratrol activates a very special enzyme in the body called SIRT1 that protects us from diseases of aging and controls how fast we age. Resveratrol does not act primarily as an antioxidant. It is far more interesting and powerful than that. Resveratrol turns on our body’s genetic defenses against diseases and aging itself. We are working on molecules that are 1000 times more effective than resveratrol at turning on SIRT1.
How much more do we know about aging than we did when you first entered the field?
We’ve gone through a paradigm shift in our understanding. When I first started, we thought we aged just like a car---things just wore out and then we died. Now we know we have inbuilt mechanics to take care of our bodies that we will one day be able to keep active through a simple pill. When I started in the field, I did not believe that I would see medicines that slow aging become a reality in my lifetime. Now I’m sure that I will.
David Sinclair’s 5 Things (you should start doing today to live longer):
1. Determine Your Rate Of Aging: Everyone ages at a different rate, which is why Betty White looks a lot better than your grandmother. Sinclair believes the best diagnostic tool available today is Horvath’s Clock, an epigenetic analysis developed by UCLA professor Steve Horvath in 2013. If you’re interested, a company currently offering this assessment is Zymo Research. Tell them Groucho sent you.
2. Heat & Cold Therapies: These may not be comfortable but Sinclair believes in the value of heat/cold therapies, and for good reason. From the anti-aging effects of sauna to the anti-inflammatory effects of cold plunge pools, careful temperature modulation of the body has real, diverse benefits that can potentially slow down certain aspects of aging and aid longevity. And we always thought the L Street Brownies were crazy people.
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| Boston's L Street Brownies ready for their annual Winter Polar Plunge. |
3. Intermittent Fasting: Sinclair, along with a growing number of other longevity mavens, endorses intermittent fasting. If you have the self-discipline to practice it, the benefits can be life-changing and life-extending. And no, bulimia is not better.
4. Senolytics: Our bodies produce over 220 billion new cells each day, and the average cell will divide over 50 to 70 times. Seems like you’d notice all that racket in the neighborhood, but nope. Anyway, the old cells eventually lose their capacity to divide, which is known as cellular senescence, and our bodies slowly build up accumulations of senescent or “zombie” cells, which can increase our risk for everything from cancer to arthritis. Don’t worry, though, Senolytics are here to save the day. These small molecules might be able to target zombie cells and flush them from our bodies, drastically decreasing aspects of the aging process. Sinclair cites Unity Biotechnology as a company developing products on the leading edge of this approach. Sinclair, himself, is developing an organization which will be debuting senolytic technologies in the near future, so stay tuned.
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| Senolytics, chomping on evil cells. |
5. Premium Anti-Aging Nutrition: Sinclair alleges that if you aren’t supplementing your diet with research-backed anti-aging supplements, you could be shaving years off your life. The trouble is, how to select from the maze of choices sitting on the shelves of Vitamin Shop or your favorite health food store. While Sinclair did not endorse any specific products, one popular option is Eternus. While some anti-aging products offer an ingredient or two intended to help you live longer, Eternus contains one of the most complete formulas for full-spectrum anti-aging benefits, 36 little mother’s-helpers designed to work together to support cellular energy. Reviews range from boffo to sublime. If you don’t live to 120, knock on their door and ask for your money back.
Esmeralda Reads The Future
A generation ago, scientists ignored or pooh-poohed mumblings of a “fountain of youth” pill. “Until the early 1990s, it was kind of laughable that you could develop a pill that would slow aging,” said Richard Miller, a biogerontologist at the University of Michigan who heads one of three labs funded by the National Institutes of Health to test such promising substances on mice. “It was sort of a science-fiction trope, but recent research has shown that pessimism is wrong.”
Mice given molecules such as rapamycin live as much as 20 percent longer. Other substances such as 17 alpha estradiol and the diabetes drug Acarbose have been shown to be just as effective in mouse studies. Not only do mice live longer but—depending on the substance—they avoid cancers, heart ailments and cognitive problems.
Sure, human metabolism is different from that of rodents. And our existence is unlike a mouse’s life in a cage. What is theoretically possible in the future remains unproven in humans, and, in the eyes of doubters, no product is yet ready for prime time. But David Sinclair would beg to differ. “I’m just giving people the facts,” he avows, sharing the test results from InsideTracker’s blood test, which calculate biological age based on biomarkers in the blood. “I’m roughly 50 years old, one of the tests said I was 31.4. I’ll take it.”
I think I know what I want for Christmas.
That’s all, folks….
bill.killeen094@gmail.com
