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September 18, 2006. Entrepreneur Peter A. Thiel. co-founder
and former chief executive officer of the online payments system
Pay-Pal, announced he is pledging $3.5 million"to support scientific
research into alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities
caused by aging".
The recipient will be the Methuselah
Foundation, a Springfield, Virginia, nonprofit started and run
by the most colorful scientist in aging research: Aubrey de Grey,
a 43-year-old English researcher who says he hopes to "radically
postpone aging, giving indefinite life spans". Please check
Methuselah
Foundation web site for more information on promoting research
to extend human life.
SENS (Strategies
for Engineered Negligible Senescence) SENS is a detailed plan
for curing human aging. SENS is an engineering project, recognising
that aging is a medical condition and that medicine is a branch
of engineering. Aging is a set of progressive changes in body composition,
at the molecular and cellular level, which are side-effects of essential
metabolic processes. Many of these changes are eventually bad for
us -- they are an accumulation of damage, which becomes pathogenic
above a certain threshold of abundance. Read
more...
No. 1 on de Grey's list of seven causes of aging is to focus on
the atrophy of degeneration of cells. Others include gene mutations,
mutations to the energy -generating mitochondria inside cells, and
the unhealthy accumulation of "junk" inside and outside
cells such as the amyloid proteins found in the brains of Alzheimer's
patients.
The "seven
deadly things" and why there are only seven. SENS is a
practical, foreseeable approach to curing aging because all the
types of metabolic side-effect whose accumulation is (or is even
hypothesised to be) eventually pathogenic are amenable to repair
(or in some cases obviation, i.e. disruption of the mechanism by
which they become pathogenic) by techniques that, according to the
experimentalists who have performed the key work on which those
techniques build, can (with adequate funding) probably be implemented
in mice within a decade or so. There are seven major categories
of such damage, listed below, along with the leading technique or
techniques that can address them. Read
more...
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One of the important questions of mankind is how to live healthy,
long, lives. No one wants to be sick. We all need basic vitamins
and minerals to stay healthy. A balanced diet, rich with fruits
and vegetables, provides plenty of nutrients. Many of us have heard
about the powers of antioxidant vitamins -- betacarotine, C
and E - to protect against cancer, heart disease and other
ailments.
Antioxidants work by preventing the formation and growth of "free
radicals". Free radicals can cause cancer and other ailments
by damaging the cell's DNA. Scientists don't yet understand how
vitamins interact with many of the thousands of chemical compound
in the foods. Some of these compounds may be more effective antioxidants
than the vitamins. They also may combine with vitamins to increase
absorption in the body.
Below is information for anemic people about what foods play a
major role in the formation of red blood cells:
Vitamin B2 (Riboflavin) ---- visceral organ meats, eggs,
milk.
Vitamin B6 --- meats and whole grains.
Vitamin B12 --- liver, kidneys, fish, red meats and dairy
products.
Folic Acid --- liver, green leafy vegetables, and brewers yeast.
Copper --- oysters, liver, kidneys, dried beans, whole grains, green
leafy vegetables.
Iron --- liver, kidney, red meats, oysters, egg yolks, green leafy
vegetables, dried fruits, potatoes, whole grain cereals. Take iron
between meals with orange juice.
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