Our Guiding Philosophy
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Life Extension vs Anti-Aging
Most scientists or companies speak about their discoveries or products that slow down aging by showing improvement in age-related markers like NAD+ level, telomeres length, DNA damage ratio, mitochondria dysfunction markers, etc. But what is the most anticipated effect of slowing down aging? For me it is the life extension (and of course - health extension).
Why the survival curve?
How do we measure life extension? It is a shift of the survival curve to the right. That is a much more important and valid criteria as opposed to improvements in the biomarkers.
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Why long-lived female mice?
We share 98% of our gene structures with mice. We are both mammals. Unlike flies, worms, yeast, etc. are less appropriate models. The NIA (National Institute of Aging, USA) also uses only long-lived mice in the InterventionTesting Program which searches for compounds with life extension potential. In the ITP experiments, female mice have longer life span versus male mice and the curve shift on the female of the species demonstrates maximum biological life limit for that species.
For life extension therapy, it's critically important to demonstrate the effect on genetically healthy mice without any marked defect or specific genetic disease. When a study shows a life extension effect on short-lived (defective) mice, the reason could be that the therapy improved their health not because it affected the aging mechanism.
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Many people ask: can we translate results on mice into humans?
I have a different question: if an intervention or therapy claims that it is life-extending for humans it should show that it can, at least, extend the life span of long-lived mice.
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