Abstract Telomere elongation is protective of genomic stability, whereas telomere shortening increases genomic instability and thereby increases cancer risk. Long telomeres lower the risk of clinical cancer, while short telomeres are part of a causal cascade of intracellular events that result in oncogenesis and, ultimately, clinical cancer. Telomerase therapy is not only unlikely to result […]

Doing the same thing over and over, but expecting different results has – with Einstein often incorrectly given as the attribution – been said to define insanity. Whoever said it and whether it defines insanity or not, persistence in the face of failure is remarkably human. When it is successful and insightful, we call it […]

Those working with Alzheimer’s and other dementias have been frustrated by the implacability of these diseases. Regardless of limited symptomatic treatment, there are no proven disease-modifying interventions. Despite huge and growing costs of care, a pipeline of candidate drugs, >400 registered trials, tens of thousands of patients, billions of dollars in both US federal and […]

These are heady times for gene therapy, yet we have a long way to go before it achieves its promise. It is, to use an historical analogy, much like where aviation was in the first decade or two of the 20th century. Aviation has a fascinating and ironic history. It was in 1895, only 8 […]

These are heady times for gene therapy, yet we have a long way to go before it achieves its promise. It is, to use an historical analogy, much like where aviation was in the first decade or two of the 20th century.Aviation has a fascinating and ironic history. It was in 1895, only 8 years […]

You might be intrigued by an invited paper this week in Alzheimer’s & Dementia, which the editors feel “will change the field”. The paper explains how Alzheimer’s works, why prior trials failed, and offers a novel point of intervention. The paper has already generated more than 100 reprint requests prior to publication. The link to […]

I confess that I’ve yet to find time to continue through each of several age-related diseases. In partial recompense, let me offer the following, which is adapted from the quarterly newsletter that I put out for Telocyte. While it focuses on Alzheimer’s disease, the import is generic, applying to all age-related diseases. How Alzheimer’s works […]

Over the past few months, and especially over the past week, I’ve been asked about various internet sites that claim to sell products that affect aging or age-related diseases. In general, the more extravagant the claims, the less likely the claimed outcome. Unfortunately, even the least-credible websites attract sales, which is why they continue. As […]

I offer my apologies to all of our readers. Work has kept me from keeping up with the next blogs on the biology of aging, specifically those on human disease. My priority is to work to cure disease than update my blog on curing disease, so the blog has moved to the back burner as […]

Aging causes disease. To many people, the relationship is even closer: aging is a disease. The latter view is controversial. Most biologists and physicians would view aging as a “natural process” and contend that “normal aging” is independent of disease. Aging, in this view is not a disease, although it certainly causes disease. They often […]

The human body represents a “system” in the engineering sense: all parts (cells, tissues, organs) are interdependent. To understand how the body functions (and how it ages), we may appropriately study individual cells, but we must also study the interactions between cells. We may start by looking at small communities of cells (local, homogenous tissues), […]

The human body contains perhaps a bit short of 40 trillion cells, which is an impressive number, yet a large part of our body – a quarter to a third, depending how you measure it – isn’t intracellular, but extracellular. This includes not only the fluids within the blood and lymphatic spaces, but the space […]

Many people assume that mitochondria (and free radicals) lie at the heart of aging or that they are “the cause” of aging. Despite having a central role in aging, the assumption that mitochondria cause aging is both simplistic and – not to put too fine a point on it – is totally at odds with […]

Why are we more likely to get cancer as we age? Not only does the incidence of cancer go up with age, but it goes up exponentially. Why? Moreover, the exponential rise is seen in most species, regardless of their lifespan. It’s not the years, it’s the aging process, regardless of time. Why? The key […]

As the human body is composed of cells, so are cells composed of molecules. It is true that the cell encompasses a plethora of organelles (membranes, mitochondria, nuclei, Golgi bodies, ribosomes, etc.), but each of these organelles is in turn composed of pools of various molecules. Just as cytoplasm is a “soup” of molecules, organelles […]