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Longevity Drugs

Page history last edited by adam.neville@asu.edu 14 years, 1 month ago

 

  • Name

 

     Longevity Drugs 

 

  • What is the item

 

    Also known as anti-aging drugs, or age-reversal drugs, they are intended to be FDA-approved prescription pharmaceuticals that prevent or reverse the effects of aging.

 

  • What Horizon is it on

 

     Fourth Horizon 

 

 

  • Explanation of the item 

 

     Harvard scientists expect to have drugs on the market by mid-decade that will prevent or reverse the effects of aging.

     According to The New York TimesSirtris Pharmaceuticals "is developing drugs that mimic resveratrol, a chemical found in some red wines. Resveratrol has been found to activate proteins called sirtuins, from which the company derives its name. Activation of sirtuins is thought to help the body ride out famines.

Mice and rats put on a diet with 30 percent fewer calories can live up to 40 percent longer. They seem to do so by avoiding the usual degenerative diseases of aging and so gain not just longer life but more time in good health.

     "Sirtris’s researchers think that drugs that activate sirtuins mimic this process, strengthening the body’s resistance to the diseases of aging. The company has developed thousands of small chemical compounds that are far more potent than resveratrol and so can be given in smaller doses.

     "In mice, sirtuin activators are effective against lung and colon cancer, melanoma, lymphoma, Type 2 diabetes, cardiovascular disease and Alzheimer’s disease, said David Sinclair, a Harvard Medical School researcher and co-founder of Sirtris. The drugs reduce inflammation, and if they have the same effects in people, could help combat many diseases that have an inflammatory component, like irritable bowel syndrome and glaucoma.

     "Any sirtuin activator that averted all these diseases in people would be a rather remarkable drug. So there is considerable interest in how well Sirtris’s drug trials are going.

     "Sirtris’s senior director of corporate development, Brian Gallagher, said at the conference [at Harvard] that four active clinical trials were under way.

SRT-501, the company’s special formulation of resveratrol, is being tested against two cancers, multiple myeloma and colon cancer that has spread to the liver. A chemical mimic of resveratrol, known as SRT-2104, is in a Phase 2 trial for Type 2 diabetes, and in a Phase 1 trial in elderly patients. (Phase 1 trials test for safety, Phase 2 for efficacy.)

     "Dr. Gallagher said that unpublished tests in mice showed that another chemical mimic, SRT-1720, increased both health and lifespan; after two years, twice as many mice taking the drug were alive compared with the undosed animals. Resveratrol itself has not been shown to increase lifespan in normal mice, although it does so in obese mice, laboratory roundworms and flies.

     "Sirtris has so far been doubly fortunate. No severe side effects have yet emerged from the clinical trials. The company has also been lucky in having apparently picked the right horse, or at least a good one, in a fast-developing field.

     "Besides the sirtuins, several other proteins are now known to influence longevity, energy use and the response to caloric restriction. These include the receptors for insulin and for another hormone called IGF-1, and a protein of increasing interest called TOR (“target of rapamycin”). Rapamycin is an antimicrobial that was recently found to extend lifespan significantly, even when given to mice at an advanced age. Since TOR is involved in the response to caloric restriction, rapamycin may extend life through this pathway.

     "Sirtuins may not be the most important genes for longevity, Dr. Sinclair conceded at the conference, because the pathways controlled by the sirtuins, TOR and the others “all talk to each other, often by feedback loops.

     "Many theories of aging attribute senescence to the inexorable buildup of mutations in a person’s DNA. Dr. Sinclair said that in his view “aging can be reversed” because the DNA mutations did not directly cause aging. Rather, they induce the sirtuin molecules that help control the genome to divert to the site of damage. With the sirtuins absent from their usual post, genes are not regulated efficiently, and the cells’ performance degrades. Diversion of the sirtuins should be a reversible process, in Dr. Sinclair’s view, unlike DNA damage, which is not.

     " 'In five or six or seven years,' said Christoph Westphal, Sirtris’s other co-founder, 'there will be drugs that prolong longevity.' ”     (1)  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/science/29aging.html

 

 

  • Photos (if available)

 

The following celebrities seem to have defied aging:

 

      

Tina Turner: born 1939

http://www.jopiter.net/2009/11/tina-turner-turned-70-today.html

 

Cybill Shepard: born 1950

http://www.jopiter.net/2009/11/tina-turner-turned-70-today.html 

Robert Redford: born 1936

http://blog.taragana.com/e/2009/07/31/johansson-frustrated-redford-during-horse-whisperer-21171/

 

 

 

 

Harrison Ford: born 1942

http://justjared.buzznet.com/2010/01/17/harrison-ford-calista-flockhart-golden-globes-2010-red-carpet/

 

  • Issues

 

          Projections of the robust extension of life in the coming generation to 120 years, and well beyond that are now being seriously discussed.  What will be the effect on Social Security, Medicare, retirement, sex, marriage, work, opportunities for young people, overpopulation of the planet, and a host of other concerns hitherto usually resolved by aging and death?

 

As technology evolves ever faster, the distance between science and science fiction shrinks. This makes estimating the impact on culture and values a challenge. What happens in a world that can be increasingly young and vital and robust and busy at the same time that it is increasingly very, very old? What happens to Social Security? How many careers do you have? How many marriages do you have? How many children do you have?

While formidable, these calculations are relatively straightforward. To really imagine richly the complexity of such a world, one perhaps needs the sensibilities of a novelist.

Will the new young people who are only in their twenties ever be able to compete with the old young? Especially if the old young have seen their compound-interest money grow startlingly?

In ancient lore, Gilgamesh built the walls around the city of Uruk as a monument that would make him immortal. If we did not fear death, would we lose our will to achieve? Would you put all of life forever before you? "What's the rush? I'll get to that when I'm 100." If you did not have to seek your immortality in children, would you have them?

If life stretches out for a very long time, do you avoid risks? Or do you court them? Is there a growth market in recreational life-risking? Will more people emulate George Bush, the elder, by parachuting out of airplanes at the age of 72?

If immortality is at hand, do we need religion?

If death is never imminent, is love as intense? Do Romeo and Juliet inhabit the world only of the very biologically young?

What happens if you seek youth and your partner does not?

Do you risk growing young alone?

 

(2)  http://www.garreau.com/main.cfm?action=chapters&id=12

(3)  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/AR2007103002222.html

 

 

 

  • Sources

 

     (1)  http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/29/science/29aging.html

 

(2)  "Forever Young:  Suppose You Soon Can Live to Well Over 100, As Vibrant and Energetic as You Are Now. What Will You Do With Your Life?"  Washington Post, Sunday, Oct. 13, 2002, page F01.  http://www.garreau.com/main.cfm?action=chapters&id=12

 

(3)  http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/30/AR2007103002222.html

 

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