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From ScienceDaily: "Premature aging of the immune system appears to play a role in the development of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) ... CD4+ T cells, which grow and mature in the thymus before entering the bloodstream, are reduced in number in patients who have ALS as the thymus shrinks and malfunctions. ... The thymus gland, where immune cells called T lymphocytes mature before entering the bloodstream, normally reaches its peak in size and production in childhood. It then slowly shrinks, becoming virtually nonexistent in the elderly, but the lifespan of newly produced T cells ranges from three to 30 years. This study found that the thymus glands of mice and patients with the disease undergo accelerated degeneration. ... The findings are consistent with evidence collected over a decade [suggesting] that a well-functioning immune system plays a pivotal role in maintaining, protecting and repairing cells of the central nervous system. Studies conducted in animals have shown that boosting immune T-cell levels may reduce symptoms and slow progression of certain neurodegenerative diseases. ... If T-cell malfunction is confirmed to be a contributing factor to ALS, as we propose, therapeutic strategies may be aimed at overcoming this deficiency through rebuilding, restoring or transplanting the thymus."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091008192737.htm
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

A cancer therapy trial based on the work of Zheng Cui is presently underway in Florida: "About 75% of US population living today will not die of cancer. It is not uncommon that some people remain cancer-free into their 80s and 90s, even if they are regularly exposed to environmental carcinogens such as air pollutants, cigarette smoking, etc. A frequently asked but unanswered question is why these individuals do not get cancer. There has been a recent report of a colony of cancer-resistant mice developed from a single male mouse that unexpectedly survived challenges of lethal cancer cell injections. In these so-called spontaneous regression/complete resistant (SR/CR) mice, cancer cells are killed by rapid infiltration of leukocytes, mainly of innate immunity. This highly effective natural cancer immunity is inherited and mediated entirely by white blood cells. Moreover, this cancer resistance can be transferred to wild type mice through the transfer of various immune cell types including granulocytes. This observation raises the possibility that infusion of white blood cells, particularly cells of innate immunity, is a viable anticancer therapy in humans as well. This proposed trial will test whether white blood cell infusions from healthy unrelated donors can be used to treat cancer. The trial is designed to determine whether responses can be seen in cancer patients after infusion of HLA-mismatched white cells from healthy donors."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT00900497
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

A look at present human studies of the health benefits of calorie restriction at the New York Times: "As Americans become fatter and fatter - a study published in July revealed that obesity rates increased in 23 states last year and declined in none - a select group of men and women under the watchful care of medical professionals have spent the past few years becoming thinner and thinner. There are 132 of them, located in and around Boston, St. Louis and Baton Rouge, La. All are enrolled in a large clinical trial that is financed by the National Institutes of Health and known as Calerie, which stands for Comprehensive Assessment of Long-Term Effects of Reducing Intake of Energy. ... the Calerie project [is] that it is not meant to study weight loss or if one type of diet is better than another. Instead, Calerie is investigating how (and if) a spartan diet affects the aging process and its associated diseases. To the Calerie researchers, these are quite distinct. The aging process, which researchers sometimes call 'primary' or 'intrinsic' aging, refers to the damage that ordinarily accumulates in our cells as we grow older, a natural condition that seems to have limited the maximal lifespan of humans to 120 years. Diseases that accompany the aging process - often called 'secondary aging' - are those afflictions increasingly prevalent in the elderly, like cancer, diabetes and cardiovascular disease."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/11/magazine/11Calories-t.html?pagewanted=print
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

A look at the state of the art in cancer therapies under development from h+ Magazine: "Nanomedicine, an offshoot of nanotechnology, refers to highly specific medical intervention at the molecular scale for curing disease or repairing damaged tissues, such as bone, muscle, nerve, or brain cells. Nanoparticles - anywhere from 100 to 2500 nanometers in size - are at the same scale as the biological molecules and structures inside living cells. ... Titanium dioxide is not the only nanoparticle that shows promise in cancer therapy. Gold nanospheres - nearly perfectly spherical nanoparticles that range in size from 30 to 50 nanometers - are being used to search out and 'cook' cancer cells. The cancer-destroying nanospheres show promise as a minimally invasive future treatment for malignant melanoma, the most serious form of skin cancer. ... The hollow gold nanospheres are equipped with a special peptide that draws the nanospheres directly to melanoma cells, while avoiding healthy skin cells. After collecting inside the cancer, the nanospheres heat up when exposed to near-infrared light, which penetrates deeply through the surface of the skin."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://hplusmagazine.com/articles/nano/targeting-cancer-cells-nanoparticles
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/

From Depressed Metabolism: "The biggest obstacle to the acceptance of cryonics is medical myopia; the idea that someone who has been pronounced dead by contemporary medical criteria will still be considered dead by future criteria. Advocates of human cryopreservation strongly argue against this. There are few things more discomforting than the idea that medical professionals of the future will look back in horror and wonder why we gave up on people who still possessed the neuroanatomical basis of their identities and memories. But there is another kind of myopia in the public discussion of cryonics that warrants consideration. It is taken for granted by some critics of contemporary cryonics that cryonics has always been framed as a form of medicine. Nothing could be further from the truth. The history of cryonics is replete with debates between advocates of the medical model and those who believe that timely transport of the patient to a cryonics facility for low temperature storage should be adequate for future resuscitation by advanced nanotechnology. It is only because cryonics advocates with medical and research backgrounds such as Mike Darwin and Jerry Leaf vigorously argued for adopting conventional medical techniques and protocols that today's cryonics organizations can even be criticized for falling short of these criteria."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2009/10/06/the-pursuit-of-cryonics-as-medicine/
Read More Longevity Meme Commentary: http://www.longevitymeme.org/news/