Aging diseases

Things are slowly beginning to move ahead on our project to cure Alzheimer’s disease. It’s clear that not only is the role of microglia slowly becoming accepted, but there are more and more investors who see an opportunity to help move biotech and medicine from the old paradigm (BAPP and Tau cause disease) to the […]

An odd thing is happening in the world of biotechnology: an avalanche is starting. The context is also interesting, for over the past twenty five years, a profound revolution has occurred in our understanding of aging. Where once we took aging for granted, we now reexamine the process, looking for a way to reverse it. […]

At the moment, there are four companies planning human trials to reset telomeres using telomerase genes. In every case, the intent is to put the telomerase genes (hTERT and hTERC) into human patients in an effort to cure age-related diseases. Let’s look at the diseases and then the companies involved. Essentially, all age-related diseases occur […]

What is aging? There are literally dozens of answers to that question, even if we restrict ourselves to purely academic views. In the days when I was the executive director of the American Aging Association, there were – or so it seemed – as many aging hypotheses as we had members of the association. Almost […]

Most of us assume that aging equals illness. To be honest about it, we don’t usually put it that bluntly and we often deny it, even to ourselves, and yet we tend to assume that unless we are struck down suddenly – an unexpected automobile accident, a sudden pneumonia, a fatal heart attack – we […]

As of 2013, we can neither cure nor prevent a single age-related disease. Even at our absolute best – and then only questionably and in one or two cases – can we even slow the unrelenting progress of any of our myriad age-related diseases. Trying for an optimistic view of current medical interventions, and even […]

Reversing Human Aging was the first book in history to describe how aging works, how to reverse it, and the consequences of doing so. Originally published in 1996, it has largely passed the test of time. On October 1st, I published an electronic edition of this book on Amazon.com and made it available for those […]

What is aging? The question has always been hard to answer, making it difficult to change the process, let alone to reverse its clinical progress. Unfortunately, much of the problem derives from the way we look at aging in the first place. Making the wrong assumptions, we arrive at the wrong conclusions. While human beings […]

Almost twenty years ago, I gave a talk at the National Institutes of Health and had the audacity to title it “Reversing Human Aging”. Looking up at a packed audience, I said the following: When I’m done, anyone who leaves this room thinking we can reverse human aging is a fool. Likewise, anyone who leaves […]

Looking back on aging Until quite recently, the notion of reversing human aging was mere fantasy, absent any scientific support. Throughout history, going as far back as the Epic of Gilgamesh 4,700 years ago, we have dreamed of being able to cure aging and the diseases that accompany it, but every claim of a “fountain […]

My newest book, “Immortality Edge”, coauthored by Greta Blackburn and David Woynarowski is a combined look at diet, exercise, lifestyle, meditation, and other approaches. It is not intended to give advice on how to lengthen telomeres, so much as to slow down their loss; not so much aimed at reversing aging, as slowing the process […]

Dr. Michael Fossel, M.D., Ph.D., gave a presentation on “Reversing Human Aging” at the National Institutes of Health’s Natcher Center on April 16, 1996. The presentation was sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution’s Smithsonian Associates. LES members and subscribers were notified of the talk, and a number of LES members attended. For years, Dr. Fossel has […]

Science may soon be able to slow, stop, or even reverse the aging process in humans. What will happen when people can live on and on for centuries? Within the next two decades we will extend the healthy human life-span indefinitely and, in doing so, alter human culture forever. Our maximum life-spans will not have […]