Spring Chicken Page 29

  Everyone knows red wine is good for you. It’s thought to be at the heart of the French Paradox, whereby French people eat the equivalent of pork rinds and baloney (“paté”) yet somehow don’t get fat and unhealthy like Americans. Clearly, something in red wine must be good for you.

  But resveratrol probably isn’t the reason. The amount of resveratrol in a glass of red wine is minuscule, and as a large study of wine-swilling Italians showed, you don’t get much—if any—resveratrol into your blood from even daily red-wine consumption. Yet still, red wine has been found to have beneficial effects on HDL (good) cholesterol, and blood pressure, and not just because it contains alcohol. In one extremely French experiment, which was actually done in Wisconsin, scientists infused Chateauneuf-du-Pape (1987) directly into the veins of dogs, so that they would not get drunk. They found that it reduced clotting and increased the elasticity of their circulatory systems.

  Most curiously, and counterintuitively, red wine seems to protect against Alzheimer’s. In a study done in Bordeaux (of course) red-wine drinkers were found to suffer from Alzheimer’s less than half as often as their peers. And the Copenhagen City Heart Study found that the best-off study subjects, half as likely to die as the controls, were those who reported drinking between three and five glasses of the stuff. Per day.

  Coffee

  Another paradox: Not so very long ago, coffee was thought to be bad for you. This was undoubtedly because of the fact that it makes you feel good. Also, something about cancer. Yet without it, nothing would get done by anyone, anywhere. I’m on my third cup today, and it’s nine o’clock at night. What to do?

  Luckily, newer research is showing that, as usual, everybody in the past was completely wrong. It turns out many people in those old studies drank coffee and smoked at the same time, or they used to; hence the cancer findings. When scientists separated out the effects of smoking, they saw a much different picture. In 2012, a huge study in the New England Journal of Medicine reported that coffee drinkers tended to have significantly lower mortality risk than abstainers—but the really curious thing was that the more coffee people drank, the less they died. The association was linear, up to a point, which suggests that there may be some causation hidden in the correlation. In particular, it seems to lower the risk of Type 2 diabetes. Among those who drank four or five cups a day, overall mortality declined by 12 percent. Which means I need to go make another cup.

  Curcumin

  It’s covered in the main text (see p. 85), but curcumin, an ingredient in the spice turmeric, remains one of the most scientifically interesting compounds out there—and also one of the most frustrating. In the lab, it annihilates several different kinds of cancer cells, and some small studies have hinted at beneficial effects, such as on colorectal cancer, for example. But it faces the same “bioavailability” issues as resveratrol, only more so; the current thinking is that curcumin given with black pepper extract (as in, say, a nice Indian curry) might work better. You need to take huge doses of it just to see any show up in the blood.

  At least one pharmaceutical company has tried to make it into a drug that the body can absorb, but as one pharma research chemist explained, if you alter the molecule to make it more absorbable, then curcumin becomes toxic.

  “Life Extension Mix”

  Sold by the Life Extension Foundation, which publishes Life Extension magazine and sells a vast range of supplements, Life Extension Mix sounds like the ultimate vitamin: The catalog says it is composed of “a broad array of fruit and vegetable extracts, as well as water- and fat-soluble vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and more.” It contains many of the “healthy” nutrients found in vegetables such as broccoli and sweet potatoes, without the inconvenience of cooking and eating those vegetables. The ingredients list includes more than twenty separate miracle nutrients, including lycopene from tomatoes, olive juice extract, and of course blueberry extract. And every other healthy chemical that you’ve ever read about in the newspaper. But when it was put to the test by UC-Riverside scientist Stephen Spindler, who specializes in mouse lifespan studies—basically, feeding different things to large numbers of mice, and seeing if they live longer—Life Extension Mix flunked. Spindler’s results showed that it and several other complex supplements “significantly decreased lifespan.” Oh well.

  Metformin

  If you know someone with diabetes, or have it yourself, odds are pretty good that they (or you) are taking a drug called metformin, which is sold under brand names like Glucophage (also Fortamet, Gluformin, and a half-dozen others). It’s the most commonly prescribed diabetes medication, and costs just pennies per pill. What you don’t know, and probably neither does your doctor, is that metformin is one of the most promising anti-aging drugs out there—and also one of the most mysterious.

  Though it was discovered in the 1920s, as a derivative of French lilac, and its blood-sugar-lowering properties had been studied in the 1940s, how it exactly works remained unknown into the 1980s, when a young Israeli PhD student at Yale named Nir Barzilai wrote his thesis on metformin’s likely mechanism of action. “Every few years since then,” he jokes, “someone comes up with a new mechanism of action for metformin. So we don’t know, okay? But what’s happened with metformin that’s amazing is there are lots of studies that show that people on metformin have less cardiovascular disease and cancer, and some are saying better cognitive function and things like that.”

  In general, metformin appears to reduce glucose production in the liver, which is more or less Grand Central Station for metabolism, and thus important for the aging process. And over the last few years, metformin has quietly racked up an impressive résumé of study results, many unrelated to diabetes. For example, it’s been shown to kill cancer stem cells (in a dish, but still), and reduce the inflammatory response of cancer cells. More significantly, a major British diabetes study found that people on metformin seemed to have far lower risk of cardiovascular disease than those on other antidiabetic medicines. Another paper found that diabetics on metformin appeared to have about a 30 percent lower risk of cancer, too. And it is one of the few compounds that actually has been shown to extend lifespan in mice, who are notoriously hard to longevitize. (Is that a word?)

  One thing that is known is that metformin activates the powerful energy-sensing enzyme AMPK, just like caloric restriction (and resveratrol, for that matter). But unlike resveratrol, metformin also appears to increase lifespan in healthy mice. In a study published in 2013, Rafael de Cabo found that mice fed metformin lived 6 percent longer. A broader lifespan study run by the NIA, under the same program that “discovered” rapamycin, will be published in 2015. Barzilai is working on a clinical trial of metformin in people, not looking at overall lifespan but at biomarkers, tipping points: Does it improve cardiovascular function, things like that? But he’s seen enough data that he’s already convinced.

  “If somebody comes to me and says, I want to use a drug now, what would you say?” he says. “I would say metformin. I know how to use it, I know its safety, I know the studies.”

  Vitamin D

  Another puzzle. Low vitamin D levels have been shown to be strongly associated with poor health and disease. Back in the old days, kids were force-fed cod-liver oil to beat rickets, a bone disease that stems from lack of vitamin D (which helps us metabolize calcium). Now we get vitamin D in milk—but not enough, apparently. Health problems related to lack of D persist, especially in Northern Europe and the United States and Canada; and especially among the elderly. One study found that 70 percent of whites in the United States had insufficient levels of vitamin D; so did 97 percent of blacks. The problem is that D is not found in many foods; hence the cod-liver oil.

  Vitamin D is important for bone health, and also, overall physical performance. Data from the Women’s Health Initiative study—the same folks who popped the estrogen-replacement balloon—found that supplementation with D and calcium (since the two are symbiotic) helped reduce the risk of fractures substantiall
y. It also improves muscle strength, and newer data is suggesting that it might help put the brakes on the kind of cellular proliferation that leads to cancer. Lack of vitamin D is also associated with Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. Gordon Lithgow of the Buck Institute, who has been screening hundreds of compounds for anti-aging effects, thinks its effects might be much more far-reaching—in his lab, he says, vitamin D actually seems to slow down aging (in worms, but it’s a start).

  But other studies have found that supplementing alone does not help; one large meta-analysis said it did reduce overall mortality, while another was inconclusive. (Same old he-said, she-said health news story, in other words.) That’s because it has to be activated in the body, argues Boston University scientist Michael Holick, who spent his thirty-five-year career researching vitamin D. And that job can only be done by the ultraviolet rays of the sun. In addition to supplementing with vitamin D3, (at least 800 IUs per day, plus calcium), Holick advocates a little bit of sun exposure, a few times a week—sans sunscreen.

  Aspirin and Ibuprofen

  We’ve known for decades that a little bit of aspirin goes a long way toward preventing heart attacks. What we haven’t really understood, yet, is why. As scientists increasingly recognize the importance of inflammation in aging and disease, the anti-inflammatories are looking better and better (aspirin and ibuprofen—but not acetaminophen, aka Tylenol, which has much greater health risks). They seem to help with cardiovascular health, which makes sense because inflammation is a necessary condition for forming atherosclerotic plaques. In an NIH study, aspirin also increased the lifespan of mice. And another study found that ibuprofen also seems to be associated with a 44 percent lower risk of Alzheimer’s.

  Kale

  Why not? Try it with bacon.

  Notes & Sources

  Prologue: The Elixir

  1. “the most picturesque member of our faculty”: William H. Taylor, “Old Days at the Old College,” The Old Dominion Journal of Medicine & Surgery Vol. 17, no. 2 (August 1913). Taylor may or may not have been the student who discovered Brown-Séquard in his painted state.

  2. “may have been bipolar”: Many details of Brown-Séquard’s life come from the outstanding work of biographer Michael Aminoff, author of Brown-Séquard, An Improbable Genius Who Transformed Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 2010).

  3. “On June 1, 1889,” Charles Edouard Brown-Séquard, “The Effects Produced on Man by Subcutaneous Injections of a Liquid Obtained From The Testicles of Animals,” Lancet, July 20, 1889.

  4. “a young Elvis Presley”: Brinkley’s tale is recounted with amazing verve in Pope Brock’s excellent Charlatan: America’s Most Dangerous Huckster, the Man Who Pursued Him, and the Age of Flim-Flam (New York: Crown, 2008).

  Chapter 1: Brothers

  1. “its actual ingredients cost about $50”: Buchanan had been hired to do the analysis by the UK newspaper Daily Mail. The resulting story appeared February 4, 2010.

  2. “ten thousand Baby Boomers will celebrate their sixty-fifth birthdays”: This figure was used by the U.S. Social Security Administration in its Annual Performance Plan for Fiscal Year 2012.

  3. “than the death of old age”: Michel de Montaigne, Essays, “To Study Philosophy Is to Learn to Die,” in trans. by Charles Cotton, 1877.

  Chapter 2: The Age of Aging

  1. “The leading killer of Americans”: Centers for Disease Control, “Leading Causes of Death, 1900-1998.”

  2. “a life expectancy of about seventy-seven years”: Other agencies such as the CIA and the United Nations come up with slightly different numbers, but they tend to cluster around 76–78 years for men, 80–82 for women. Overall, the undisputed leader is Japan, where women can expect to live into their late 80s, statistically.

  3. “their 105th birthdays”: James Vaupel, personal communication.

  4. “Doubts began to arise”: Old Parr’s story has been told in many places, but I first read about him in evolutionary biologist Steven Austad’s excellent book, Why We Age: What Science Is Discovering About the Body’s Journey through Life (New York: J. Wiley & Sons, 1997).

  5. “an otherwise unremarkable Frenchwoman”: Craig R. Whitney, “Jeanne Calment, World’s Elder, Dies at 122,” New York Times, August 5, 1997.

  6. “back to eighteenth-century Sweden”: This was, in fact, the origin of “statistics,” which means “numbers in service of the state.” The Swedish king demanded accurate population records, so he knew how many potential soldiers he had at his disposal, should he desire to teach those Norwegians a lesson once and for all.

  7. “a steady rate of about 2.4 years per decade”: Jim Oeppen and James W. Vaupel, “Broken Limits to Life Expectancy,” Science 296(5570): 1029-1031.

  8. “ninety-five might also be the new eighty”: Kaare Christensen et al., “Physical and cognitive functioning of people older than 90 years: a comparison of two Danish cohorts born 10 years apart,” Lancet, published online July 11, 2013.

  9. “[lifespan may] begin to decline in some countries”: S. Jay Olshansky et al., “A Potential Decline in Life Expectancy in the United States in the 21st Century,” New England Journal of Medicine 352;11 (March 17, 2005) 1138-45. Olshansky later revisited his prediction in 2010, noting that in many areas of the U.S., life expectancies had already begun to decrease.

  10. “Olshansky had confidently declared”: S. J. Olshansky et al. (1990). “In search of Methuselah: estimating the upper limits to human longevity.” Science 250(4981): 634-640.

  11. “lower than in Guatemala”: David A. Kindig and Erika R. Cheng, “Even As Mortality Fell In Most US Counties, Female Mortality Nonetheless Rose In 42.8 Percent Of Counties From 1992 To 2006,” Health Affairs 32, no.3 (2013): 451-458.

  12. “forty is the new sixty”: Uri Ladabaum et al., “Obesity, abdominal obesity, physical activity, and caloric intake in US adults: 1988 to 2010,” American Journal of Medicine 127(8):717-727 (August 2014). Similar data has been reported in numerous studies, particularly of the Baby Boom generation.

  13. “large numbers of centenarians”: The “Blue Zones” identified by demographers include not only Okinawa but Sardinia, part of Costa Rica, and Loma Linda, California, home to large numbers of Seventh-Day Adventists. Dan Buettner, The Blue Zones: 9 Lessons for Living Longer from the People Who’ve Lived the Longest. (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic, 2012).

  14. “lifespans of five thousand years or more”: De Grey has made a wide range of lifespan predictions in print; the five-thousand-year figure is floated in “Extrapolaholics Anonymous: Why Demographers’ Rejections of a Huge Rise in Life Expectancy in This Century are Overconfident,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1067 (2006): 83–93.

  15. “His plan, which he calls SENS”: De Grey first outlined his idea before a group of aging scientists in 2000; the talk was eventually published as De Grey et al., “Time to talk SENS: Critiquing the Immutability of Human Aging,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 959 (2006):452–62. He explores and fleshes out his theories in Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007), which is both highly detailed and fairly accessible.

  16. “the idea of a Cambridge scientist who knows how to help us live forever”: Huber Warner et al., “Science fact and the SENS agenda,” in EMBO Reports 6, (2005): 1006–1008. Subsequent attempts to debunk de Grey’s theories appeared in the February 2005 issue of MIT Technology Review, including an editorial labeling him a “troll” that opined, “even if it were possible to “perturb” human biology in the way de Grey wishes, we shouldn’t do it.” To get a flavor of the man’s style, do a YouTube search for “Aubrey de Grey debates” and you will soon appreciate why he drives his critics nuts.

  17. “thirty World Trade Centers every day”: Aubrey de Grey, Ending Aging. De Grey’s ideas and his rather unique worldview are explored quite thoroughly in Jonathan Weiner’s excellent Long For This World: The Strange Science of Immort
ality (New York: Ecco Press, 2010), which is well worth a read for those who are interested in the deep cellular biology of aging.

  18. “since roughly 1952”: This was pointed out by the great Leonard Hayflick in an amusing essay. L. Hayflick et al., “Has anyone ever died of old age?” (New York: International Longevity Center–USA, 2003).

  19. “doubles roughly every eight years”: Benjamin Gompertz, “On the Nature of the Function Expressive of the Law of Human Mortality, and on a New Mode of Determining the Value of Life Contingencies,” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, London, published 1 January 1825.

  20. “median ideal lifespan”: Pew Research Center, “Living to 120 and Beyond: Americans’ Views on Aging, Medical Advances, and Radical Life Extension,” Washington, D.C., 2013. http://www.pewforum.org/2013/08/06/living-to-120-and-beyond-americans-views-on-aging-medical-advances-and-radical-life-extension/.

  Chapter 3: The Fountain of Youthiness

  1. “I am my own experiment”: You can watch the beginning of Somers’s fascinating A4M talk here: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hqst6op9wuI.