Friday, March 21, 2008

Immortality, Vampires and T-Y-P

Want to live forever?
(End of video NSFW)

(San Francisco, Godfather-like, feuding vampire
clans, compelling characters; only o-n-e season??
Courtesy of Youtube.com)

During the '90s I enjoyed many shows and movies w/a similar theme... Remember these?

I'm an immortality-groupie... (that's why I'm here)

What are the characteristics of immortality?

--Hotness (although not required)-- (have you ever heard of a vampire with wheat-belly? of course, absolutely sunlight-resistance...)
--Zen-quality calm and fearless focus
--Absence of plaque or vascular disease or erectile dysfunction (future blog topic)
--Live forever (this is a sorta requirement)

You don't have to be bitten by a vampire to live supernaturally long... like Mr. Nicholas de Brabant of the moralistic series Forever Knight (see below). He was the reluctant vampire who preferred to drink from lab samples in his girlfriend's pathology fridge.
There are many things that elongate telomeres, and therefore lengthen lifespan and induce unsurpassable mortality.

Telomeres are the caps at the end of nuclear DNA (chromosomes), like a strand of pearls on a necklace. The longer the strand, the longer the life of the organism and cells.

Want to experience maximal lifespan extension?
Vitamin D may be your link to immortality (like a vampire -- without all the biting and body bags) through the TrackYourPlaque program.

A few years ago, this discovery was made by Dr. Davis (even prior to the telomere connections) in Wisconsin. How in the world did Dr. 'D' aspire to such a cure? Why is he so divine? Divine... like Da Vinci... Someone even compared his prescient abilities in eludicating tools to eradicate plaque to the 'Nostradamus of heart disease'.. or 'even doggone spooky'... like... X-files Fox Mulder...!

Dr. D is truly an extraordinary cardiothoracic-surgeon... doing extraordinary things.

FOREVER KNIGHT
(Once in a Lifetime by Sisters of Oz)
(Courtesy of Youtube.com)

OVERVIEW:

Cardiovascular risk modulators and telomere length reducers:
  • Vitamin D deficiency (25(OH)D less than 50 ng/ml)
  • Oxidative stress
  • Psychological stress (ie, sleep deprivation)
  • Hypertension
  • Estrogen deficiency
  • Sedentary during leisure time
  • Insulin resistance (ie, NAFLD, cardiac steatosis, metabolic syndrome, PCOS)
  • Type 2 Diabetes
  • Type 1 Diabetes
  • Obesity
  • Homocysteine
  • Smoking
    (All of the above are modifieable factors in the TrackYourPlaque program)

Fuster JJ, Andrés V. Circ Res. 2006 Nov 24;99(11):1167-80. Telomere biology and cardiovascular disease.
Richards JB, Valdes AM, Gardner JP, Paximadas D, Kimura M, Nessa A, Lu X, Surdulescu GL, Swaminathan R, Spector TD, Aviv A. Higher serum vitamin D concentrations are associated with longer leukocyte telomere length in women. Am J Clin Nutr. 2007 Nov;86(5):1420-5.
Aviv A.
Hypothesis: pulse pressure and human longevity. Hypertension. 2001 Apr;37(4):1060-6.
W. Browner, et al.
The genetics of human longevity. The American Journal of Medicine, Volume 117, Issue 11, Pages 851-860.
Kenyon C. The plasticity of aging: insights from long-lived mutants. Cell. 2005 Feb 25;120(4):449-60.
Njajou OT, Cawthon RM, Damcott CM, Wu SH, Ott S, Garant MJ, Blackburn EH, Mitchell BD, Shuldiner AR, Hsueh WC.
Telomere length is paternally inherited and is associated with parental lifespan. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007 Jul 17;104(29):12135-9.
Haussmann MF, Mauck RA. Telomeres and longevity: testing an evolutionary hypothesis. Mol Biol Evol. 2008 Jan;25(1):220-8.
Richards JB, et al. Homocysteine levels and leukocyte telomere length. Atherosclerosis. 2008 Feb 14; [Epub ahead of print]
Cherkas LF, et al. The association between physical activity in leisure time and leukocyte telomere length. Arch Intern Med. 2008 Jan 28;168(2):154-8.

(i've got infinite un-perpetual links, sorry in advance!)

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Dr. BG:
Thanks for this. It sounds great, but. . .
I hate to be a wet blanket, but take a look at the scatterplot in Figure 1 in the D study and you'll see that this study is, to put it nicely, reaching desperately, and their conclusion is not justified. The only reason they have significance (in age adjusted) is because of the huge n.
-Rich

Dr. B G said...

Hi Rich,
I agree it looks like a mess (don't they all?) -- when my kids were 3, they could've done a better job! However I guess they had the benefit of the stats as you mentioned (btw my forte is not statistics so I'm glad you're looking at it too). Other studies appear to support similiar findings like the Archives article on the NHANES data and reduction in all-cause mortality with higher vitamin D concentrations.
Pubmed ID:17563024

Recent cancer and cardiovascular outcomes seem to mirror similiar benefits.

I appreciate your comment! G

Anonymous said...

Hi G:

Yes, thanks, I agree, and to be clear I'm completely convinced about the efficacy of D on many fronts. I just think this particular study doesn't do it.

I'm taking D and minimal A and thanks to your latest post I'm gonna look at astaxanthin.

Thanks for this great blog.

Rich

Dr. B G said...

Thanks for your comment -- let me know how the astaxanthin works out if you try it.

g

Anonymous said...

What constitutes estrogen deficiency? Menopause? John Lee seemed to think that the real deficiency was progesterone. Estrogen doesn't disappear at menopause, just drops about 1/2 to 1/3 of premenopausal levels. Progesterone drops to 1/120 of baseline levels. And he said we are awash in a sea of estrogenic substances. I can't say where all this fits in but Dr. Lee had some insights of the caliber of Dr. Davis. I think the hormonal thing needs to be rethought ( or rethunk, as the case may be).

Dr. B G said...

Hi,

I need to read John Lee but haven't had the time... Estrogen deficiency may occur with deficiencies of macro- and micronutrients incl vitamin D3 and dietary cholesterol. Oral, intradermal and IUD contraceptives may also do it (iatrogenic). Mainly peri- and menopause are the most common form for deficiency. From the research, estrogen has vasoactive properties. Also its a nuclear receptor steroid -- and therefore it regulates other nuclear receptors including Thyroid, PPAR (insulin resistance), and glucocorticoids (asthma, breathing, RAS, BPs) etc. For men, giving estrogen actually drops Lp(a) -- I'll be reviewing this information soon.

Progesterone of course is important, I'd agree.

Here's our TYP report:
http://www.trackyourplaque.com/library/fl_06-017estrogen.asp

Did I answer your question?

Thank you,
BG