Author: Ken Goetz

What Scares You More? Global Warming or Nuclear Winter?

Posted on by Ken Goetz

Global warming and nuclear winter are two different, and in some ways contrasting, risks to the
lives of the nearly 8 billion humans living on this planet. My last few posts have focused on
what we can do individually to live healthier and longer lives (See 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6), and I’ll get back
to that theme next time, but today I’ll focus on differing risks to all life on this planet. I’ll keep it
short and simplistic. You can take it from there.

The dangers of global warming rush toward us as incessantly as Niagara Falls. We are informed
that a few degrees Celsius rise in global temperature will be our doom, that we must react quickly
to save the planet. (Note: from my brief look into the subject, scientific evidence is not as strong
as portrayed by the media, but here we consider the warming scenario to be completely valid.)

Effects of global warming

NASA has summarized some of the effects as follows (See here) The effects of human-caused global
warming are happening now, are irreversible on the timescale of people alive today, and will
worsen in the decades to come. This article then goes on to discuss certain effects of this
warming under the following headlines: 

Frost-free Season (and Growing Season) will Lengthen. More Droughts and Heat Waves.
Hurricanes Will Become Stronger and More Intense. Sea Level Will Rise 1-8 feet by 2100. Arctic
Likely to Become Ice-Free. Temperatures Will Continue to Rise. Change Will Continue Through
This Century and Beyond. Changes in Precipitation Patterns.


 What is nuclear winter?

Although less visible in today’s media, a 2015 article published by the American Federation
of Scientists (see here), quoted in blue below, offers a summary.

Since the early 1980s, the world has known that a large nuclear war could cause severe global
environmental effects, including dramatic cooling of surface temperatures, declines in
precipitation, and increased ultraviolet radiation. The term nuclear winter was coined
specifically to refer to cooling that result in winter-like temperatures occurring year-round.
Regardless of whether such temperatures are reached, there would be severe consequences for
humanity.

Did you catch that downdraft? . . . dramatic cooling of the surface temperatures. Would that wipe
out global warming and chill (too much) the planet?

Here is another segment from the above article: Carl Sagan . . . believed nuclear winter could
cause human extinction, in which case all members of future generations would be lost. He
argued that this made nuclear winter vastly more important than the direct effects of nuclear
war, which could, in his words, “kill ‘only’ hundreds of millions of people.”

That sounds a bit scary, but are Sagan’s arguments pertinent today? How many nuclear weapons
are around in 2022? I dug up the answer: (From here)

Countries that have Nuclear Weapons in 2022 (and How Many They Have)

Russia – 6,255 nuclear warheads
United States of America – 5,550 nuclear warheads
China – 350 nuclear warheads
France – 290 nuclear warheads
United Kingdom – 225 nuclear warheads
Pakistan – 165 nuclear warheads
India – 156 nuclear warheads
Israel – 90 nuclear warheads
North Korea – none, but material to build 40-50 nuclear warheads

Odds of warheads being used

What are the odds that this massive collection of nuclear weapons would be unleashed? At
this very moment the world is witnessing how one determined leader can systematically
launch an attack and bombard another country with conventional weaponry, the same leader
who more than once has touted his nuclear arsenal and hinted at its possible use.

Note, Iran is not in the above list, but little to no political will has been imposed on that country
during its path toward nuclear weapons. When that goal is achieved, could you guess what
targets might be favored by extremists in that country?

Evidence indicates that some of the countries listed are not led by rational individuals. Is it
possible that, before the century is out, some megalomaniac might, in a moment of pique,
demonstrate his brute force? Could an impulsive mind push a disastrous button and alter forever
human history?

Obviously this is a highly complex subject worthy of many thick treatises, but the basics
seem to be rather clear, and of vital importance. So, perhaps it would be useful for all of us to
puzzle over the question posed in the title above. Which is scarier, global warming or nuclear winter?
And what steps might be taken to ease our minds?

ADDENDUM: 9 May 2022

After reading this post, someone pointed out to me that John Kerry, President Biden’s climate
czar, warned that Russia’s war against Ukraine could distract the world from the climate change
crisis and produce “massive emissions” that will negatively impact the globe.

I think Kerry’s premonition was correct. The war certainly distracted me. But those emissions,
John, if they become nuclear, will almost certainly cool down the planet. That will please neither
of us.

I’ll quickly add that the climate czar and I are in full agreement on one important point. Mr.
Kerry said in a late February interview, “I thought we lived in a world that had said no to that
kind of activity. And I hope diplomacy will win.” Right on! John Kerry.

Would Restricting Calories Improve Your Health? Would Fasting? Let’s See.

Posted on by Ken Goetz

Do we benefit by restricting calories? As I’ve mentioned before (see here), scientists for years
have known that a calorie-restricted diet, or simply eating less, improves the health and extends
the lives of laboratory species ranging from yeast cells to primates. But what about you and me?
If we limited our intake of calories, would we live longer and healthier? Whatever the answer, I
offer a guaranteed method to achieve both at the end of this post.

For obvious reasons, human experiments on calorie restriction have been limited, and necessarily
less controlled than animal studies. Those that have been reported (studies extending for up to
two years), haven’t been of sufficient length to draw any inferences on possible effects on life
span. Nevertheless experiments are ongoing, some showing positive health effects. So we may
benefit by limiting calories. For up to date information, click here.

Studies on human volunteers

Beyond that, any lengthy studies on human volunteers have basic weaknesses. Can
you guess what some might be? Just two months ago, a paper published electronically revealed
two weaknesses (called “challenges”) in its own study on human volunteers. I quote the paper’s
conclusion below (CR refers to calorie restriction).

Conclusion: The results highlight the challenges of: 1) setting a single CR goal vs. a range of
acceptable values, and 2) obtaining real-time and valid measures of CR adherence to facilitate
adherence.

What does #2 above mean simple English? It means a laboratory mouse gets its chow
metered out precisely by time and amount, so the experimental data collected from such animal
experiments are solid. On the other hand, a human volunteer in a long-term dietary experiment,
and safely at home away from prying eyes, could easily down an extra glass of wine, or substitute an
8 oz steak for the 4 oz specified, or even end his dinner with an unauthorized apple pie à la mode.
Who would be the wiser? Not the scientific investigator collecting the information.

Have calorie restriction experiments been properly interpreted?

Is it possible that the experiments on calorie restriction have been misinterpreted? Could another
factor in these experiments explain why “calorie restriction” improves health and extends lives?

Maybe so. Thanks to a magazine from my alma mater, I learned of recent experiments led by
Professor Dudley Lamming at the University of Wisconsin. He and his coworkers noted that
most experiments that imposed calorie restriction on mice have also included a period of fasting.
(In most earlier studies the animals had routinely consumed their daily ration within two hours of
their daily feeding and consequently endured a fast of about 22 hours each day.)

So what did Lamming and his colleagues do? They devised a method to separate the effects of
calorie deprivation from the effects of fasting. They accomplished this by studying
three experimental groups of mice, all of whom were calorie deprived for 16 weeks, and
comparing the end results with a control group of mice that ate a normal diet for the same time
period.

To simplify the results, two of the three groups of those calorie deprived mice ate their food
over multiple times throughout the day, but the third group was fed only once a day and devoured
the entire diet withing 2 hours. In short, this third group fasted for 22 hours each day.

Important result: of these three calorie-deprived groups, only the mice that actually fasted
developed typical changes of a calorie deficient diet. This indicated that the fasting, not the
calorie deficiency itself, had elicited the beneficial effects observed in earlier experiments.
Remember fasting and autophagy? (see here)

A Crucial Experiment

These investigators then followed up with an obvious experiment. They gave another group
of mice the full amount of food eaten by their control cohorts (thus no calorie restriction), but the
food was given to the mice all at once, and it was consumed over a 2-hour period. So these mice
fasted for 22 hours each day for 16 weeks, but never were calorie deprived. Results from these
mice were essentially the same as the group that had fasted while eating a calorie-deficient diet.
So 22-hour fasting by itself did the trick.

My simple summary of this important study doesn’t reflect the complex nature of much of its
content. Please understand that these experiments also employed several highly technical methods to
demonstrate an important truth.

You already know the basics. Our parents provided us with our unique set of 20,000-plus genes
(our genome, the DNA that make us who we are). But we must also remember that we have the
power to alter what our genes do, thanks to our epigenome, an extensive set of chemicals that
determines which of our genes are expressed, i.e., which are turned on, or off, that is whether
they are doing their job or staying silent. And we can influence our epigenome.

Adaptability of the epigenome

To demonstrate the adaptability of the epigenome, let’s return to the study of Lamming and his
colleagues mentioned above. These investigators measured gene expression in their fasting
fasting mice and compared those results with others from mice on a regular diet. The findings
astonished me. The researchers identified 2,700 genes in the liver and more than 1,800 genes in
fat tissue that were differently expressed in mice that had fasted when compared to the normal
controls. Fasting clearly produced huge effects on gene activity via the epigenome.

Although the study was performed on rodents, it has implications for you and me.
Clearly our genes are not all that matter. Our genes are regulated by our epigenome. And we,
by influencing our epigenomes, can impact our genes — and our lives.

A miracle worth pondering

So how do we influence our epigenome? Through our lifestyles, by what we eat and when we
eat, by how far and how fast we move, by where we go, and likely by nearly all we do. In short,
our activities influence our epigenome, some positively and some negatively (exercise plus,
smoking minus). Those changes in our epigenome affect our genes, which in turn influence our
health and our longevity. That chain of events, I think, is a miracle worth pondering, a miracle
that can be set in motion by every one of us.

Healthful Effects From Resveratrol and Pterostilbene

Posted on by Ken Goetz

In my last post, I described some of the healthful effects produced by resveratrol, a chemical found in grapes, blueberries, peanuts, and cocoa powder, among other food sources. Not surprisingly, it also is available in differing forms from numerous commercial sources. Resveratrol has a chemical cousin named pterostilbene, which I’ll mention below.

Resveratrol seemingly is magical in many ways (see here). Not only does it extend the lives of species ranging from yeast cells to mice (I know of no published results from larger animals or humans), it also seems to have beneficial effects on cancers of the colon, breast, and prostate. Other reports indicate that it impedes the development of Alzheimer’s disease, that it has positive effects on kidney disease, hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and other data suggest that it is therapeutic in certain inflammatory diseases, and several other disorders as well.

This is not a technical blog, so we will glide over an ocean of scientific studies here. Suffice it to say that the so-called bioavailability of resveratrol (whether enough of it gets to the places where it does its job) has been questioned. According to careful studies, 75% of orally ingested trans-resveratrol is absorbed into the blood stream, but the amount in blood is quickly metabolized in the intestines and liver. This metabolism rapidly destroys much of the absorbed resveratrol, thus leading to low concentrations in the blood after it is ingested.

This may or may not be a problem. In what appear to be well-controlled human experiments, the amount circulating in the bloodstream after volunteers ingested 500 mg of trans-resveratrol reportedly remained high enough to produce many of the reported therapeutic effects. And the downstream products produced by the metabolism of resveratrol also have biological effects. Does resveratrol produce serious side effects? There are some suggestions that it may cause some, but overall it appears to be quite safe to take.

Pterostilbene

Now let’s focus our attention to that close cousin of resveratrol, a chemical knows as pterostilbene, and one that seems to have many of the beneficial effects of resveratrol. This cousin also appears to have an important advantage over reserpine. Data indicate that it is more biologically active than resveratrol (I’ll interrupt myself here to mention that this is my first day of typing with Word, and I’m a bit miffed because Microsoft’s Word underlined the word indicate earlier in this sentence, suggesting I should have used indicates. May I pass along to the creators of Word that data is the plural form of the singular form, datum, thus “data indicate” is grammatically correct.)

 Sorry for the above diversion, but I have been a fan of WordPerfect for decades, and I haven’t yet warmed up to this new kid on my block. I would still be using WordPerfect if I could manage it, but my old favorite lies dying in tatters in Windows 11, the operating system on my newly acquired computer.

To come back to pterostilbene, it hasn’t gotten nearly the press attention that reserpine has, but from my limited probing into these two compounds, I have the impression that pterostilbene does have an edge over resveratrol. Nevertheless, I am an equal opportunity consumer of supplements, as I’ve mentioned earlier (see here), so I continue to take 1200 mg of resveratrol every morning. About a year ago I began taking 150 mg of pterostilbene as well. Do I recommend these two to you? Not really. I just write essays here. If you are interested, I suggest you learn more about each compound and consult your physician before taking either of these two intriguing compounds.

Eat Nuts, Live Longer

It has been reported for years that people who consume nuts daily (or at least often), tend to live longer than those who rarely eat nuts. And nutritionists and other scientists have long extolled the health virtues of blueberries and similar fruits. It turns out that many nuts and berries contain both resveratrol and pterostilbene. Is it possible that the health benefits of nuts and blueberries are at least partly attributable to the resveratrol and pterostilbene within them? I think it is a logical question.

I have just scratched the surface here, drawing out only a small bucket of water from this gigantic ocean. If you would like to swim out for a more detailed look at this intriguing subject, I will suggest a source that contains abundant information on both compounds. Spoiler alert: it is a thorough scientific review of resveratrol, pterostilbene, and a third cousin I haven’t mentioned. Like nearly all scientific reviews, it written with plenty of typical jargon, but any reader should derive important general information from it (to see it, click here).

I’ll stay with the theme of health and aging for a while. Hope to see you back here soon.

 

Resveratrol, a Brief History, Pro and Con

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            Resveratrol is a highly touted compound that has multiple health benefits, but it also has characteristics that seem to limit its effectiveness. Here I offer a condensed account of this intriguing chemical.

          The story begins almost a century ago, with the discovery in1935, that calorie restriction can increase the lifetime of laboratory rats by up to 33% above their normal life span, a seemingly counterintuitive finding.  (see here). Later studies reported even more astonishing results from calorie restriction. Reducing calories in several different species was shown to slow down aging and lengthen their lifetimes by 50 to 300%.

            In 1940, a compound was discovered in a Japanese plant and given the name resveratrol. Some two decades after that, resveratrol was found to be present in the roots of a plant that had for many years been used to treat inflammation, cardiovascular diseases, and other common disorders by practitioners in China and Japan.

THE FRENCH PARADOX

            In the 1970s, French epidemiologists noted that French men had a much lower incidence of ischemic heart disease than men from other countries, even though those men ate much more butter, cheese, and pork than did, say, American men. This became known as the French paradox. In other studies, researchers identified resveratrol (3,5,4’‑trihydroxystilbene for you chemists) in blueberries, cranberries, grapes, pomegranates, peanuts, and last but not least, red wine.

            Interest in resveratrol exploded after David Sinclair and his colleagues at Harvard University reported that resveratrol prolongs the lives of yeast cells, flies, worms, and mice. In later work, they reported that resveratrol mimics the life-lengthening benefits of calorie restriction. They linked both effects to a group of seven regulatory proteins (sirtuins) found in almost all forms of life. How about that? One didn’t have to starve one’s self to live longer. Just take resveratrol. These startling findings stimulated scientists worldwide to rush into studies of this compound.

THE FRENCH PARADOX REVISITED

            Coming back to the so-called French paradox for a moment, the discovery of resveratrol in red wine led some to suggest that the delectable red beverages consumed by the French provided resveratrol which neatly kept them healthy even as they indulged in their rich diets. Skeptics were quick to point out, quite logically, that to consume the amount of resveratrol given in the experiments mentioned above, a person would have to drink hundreds of bottles of wine each day, something beyond even the ablest of Frenchmen.

            The intense investigation of resveratrol quickly produced data that were printed in scientific journals. The number of articles soon grew to thousands, most of them reporting positive benefits of resveratrol. To condense this mass of details, certain scientists studied these reports and summarized their contents in scientific reviews. One typical example appeared less than a year ago and provided a broad survey of contemporary ongoing research. The topics covered in that review are extensive. See the list below.

Effect of Resveratrol on Life Extension

Effect of Resveratrol on Age‑Related Diseases

Effect of Resveratrol on Neurodegenerative Diseases

Effect of Resveratrol on Cardiovascular Diseases

Effect of Resveratrol on Sarcopenia (loss of muscle mass and function)

Effect of Resveratrol on Cancers

Effects of Resveratrol on Other Diseases

Mechanisms of Resveratrol on Aging

The Suppression of Oxidative Stress

The Inhibition of Inflammation

The Improvement of Mitochondrial Function

The Regulation of Apoptosis (process of cell death)

The Modulation of Gut Microbiota (Yep, it even seems to have positive effects here too!)

Clinical Trials

            If you are interested in learning more about resveratrol, this review would be a good place to start (click here). A DISCLAIMER. This review is written in standard scientific prose. That means it’s full of jargon and is difficult for a layman to follow. NEVERTHELESS, within each of the topics listed above, the authors helpfully include clear declarative sentences that define what resveratrol may do in those specific areas.

            When I began this post, I planned to wrap it up about here and mention in my coda that I read of David Sinclair’s work shortly after it was published, adding that I’ve taken resveratrol myself every morning for almost two decades. I’ve even told my family that resveratrol may have helped me reach my Magic 90 milestone (see here). But I have no proof that it actually did.

            Science never is straightforward, never cut and dried. Disagreements are a natural part of science. Differing opinions, and differing conclusions from experimental data are common, and they are vital to the process of eventually determining standardized “truths.”

TURBULENCE IN THE RESVERATROL STORY

            I mention those scientific truisms because, when I was about to finalize this report, I ran across ripples of turbulence in the resveratrol story. Because I strive for accuracy in everything I put on this blog, I felt compelled to expand this story. Please bear with me as I tiptoe around this turbulence without taking sides.

            To be clear, I’ve seen few contentions that resveratrol has no positive effects, or that it may be dangerous to take (except for a lone report that it may have an adverse effect on the kidneys). Rather, one point of dispute deals mainly with what resveratrol actually does within our cells, how it alter ours cellular metabolism. In brief, a number of competent scientists have not been able to confirm the Harvard group’s claim that resveratrol activates sirtuins. (This is a big story in the resveratrol field, but it’s beyond the scope of what we’re covering here.)

            Others critics have taken exception to the technical quality of certain experiments, arguing that the protocols used were insufficient to justify the conclusions drawn from the experimental data presented. Beyond that, resveratrol is not well absorbed into the body (trans-resveratrol is absorbed better than cis-resveratrol), and its availability to cells may be poor. Again, I’m condensing quite a bit here.

            So, has resveratrol been over hyped? Does it promote health and longevity? Is it worth taking? As I hope I’ve made clear, scientists disagree on this. As for me, I plan to keep taking my morning capsule (trans-resveratrol, with yogurt because it’s better absorbed with fat ), not because I’m fully convinced of its benefits, but because I’m chugging along well at 90, I’ve taken it for two decades, and, admittedly, habits are hard to break at my age.

            If you are thinking of giving resveratrol a try, it would be wise to check with your doctor to see what she thinks about that.

HOUSEKEEPING ADDENDUM

            I have two major projects looming over me, each obligatory and each requiring long hours of boring personal effort. So it’s necessary that I take a little break. I plan to return here in early April to report on a couple of other compounds that have excited investigators of the aging process (many of theose investigators take one or both of the putative aging-extending drugs I’ll describe).

            In the meantime, please consider familiarizing yourself with some of my earlier posts, which are longing for fresh eyes. One of my most popular essays describes my incredibly accurate internal clock (see here), a rare gift I discovered when in high school. I’ve also described classic medical experiments, such as the first cardiac catheterization (that was in 1929, and by the way, the heart the doctor catheterized was his own [see here]). I followed that up with three more essays on cardiac catheterization (see here, here, and here). Elsewhere I’ve told of the doctor who voluntarily took 2 ½ times the lethal dose of curare, the South American arrow poison, and lived to tell about his experience (see here).  I’ve also described my travels to Berlin and Russia, each with political overtones (see here, here, here, and here), a trip to Rome and beyond (see here), and youthful travels to Portugal and Spain (see here, here, here, and here). And there are many more. And all are free! Have I given myself away? Can you tell that I love readers?

 

Lost Weekend: Computer Catastrophe

Posted on by Ken Goetz

I had planned to post another essay on longevity this weekend,  adding to my most recent ones (see here, and here) but my computer was dithering over every word as its hard drive spun recklessly and out of control. So Saturday morning I took my old PC in to a national chain and had its data transferred to a new machine I bought. Then the real trouble started.

My peripherals took issue with my new machine, to gloss over hours of teeth gnashing, so I took sleek newbie back and reclaimed my old dawdling PC. But old reliable had changed and refused to recognize me; my opening PIN had apparently been changed, so I was shut out. My old PC clammed up and refused to do business with me, probably thanks to the guy who did the data transferring from my slow ancient to the disastrous new.

End result? I am typing this, slowly and uncomfortably, on my iPad while working with an unfamiliar “back door” view of my site, writerken.com.  Someday, maybe soon, I may have a computer that works. If so, I’ll get back to focusing on aging, at least for a while. Stay tuned.

Simple Reasons Why You Should Exercise

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            Centuries of human experience have shown beyond doubt that exercise is a powerful stimulus for better health (1). Exercise also builds more efficient  muscles. Here we’ll discuss some simple reasons why you should exercise. I’ll keep it simple because that’s the level I understand.

            Most of you know this, but I’ll mention it so we’ll all be on the same page. Scientific investigators divide exercise training into two broad types, resistance training (think lifting weights or pulling stretchable bands), and endurance training, also known as aerobic exercise (think bicycling, walking, or swimming).

            Both resistance training and endurance training clearly benefit healthy individuals, and even most of those with illnesses as well. For example, aerobic training has been shown to improve functional capacity of patients with coronary artery disease, and resistance training improves their muscle strength and performance and even modifies their risk factors for heart disease. (Standard warning: unless you are in the full bloom of health, it is best to confer with your physician before beginning an exercise program.)

Resistance Training vs. Endurance Training

           So how does exercise perform its magic? Thanks to improving techniques available to study the activity going on continually inside our cells, scientists have shown that even a single bout of resistance training causes our muscle cells to synthesize more protein molecules. And it continues making more proteins for several hours after the exercise ends! The end result? Building more of these proteins causes the cross-section of muscle cells to thicken and that leads to bigger and stronger muscles.

            Endurance training also causes cells to build more proteins, but these particular proteins (mostly enzymes) are those largely involved in the oxidative metabolism of our muscle cells, This metabolism is vital. Without it we die. The interaction between oxygen and nutrients produces nearly all of the chemical energy we need to sustain our lives.

            The generation of energy by the metabolism of oxygen and nutrients takes place within our mitochondria, those tiny organelles inside of our cells. In fact, mitochondria are the power generators of our bodies. You probably know the interesting fact about the unique DNA in our mitochondria. That DNA is unique because it came entirely from our mothers. It is pure maternal DNA. The rest of our DNA (the major portion that is located in the nuclei of all our cells) comes equally from both mother and father.)

            Considering that both types of exercise increase the building of proteins, can you imagine a potential problem down the road? Maybe protein overload? No problem. Our cells live amazing lives. They know exactly what to do. As I mentioned in an earlier post, our cells are continuously in housekeeping mode, clearing out unwanted or damaged things and keeping everything in order. Much of this housekeeping is referred to as autophagy (2), which describes to the process of cleaning up cellular debris and breaking down damaged proteins into amino acids that become available for the construction of new proteins.

Autophagy and Mitophagy

           Fortunately for us, just as exercise boosts protein synthesis, it also boosts autophagy, a nice touch that keeps things in balance. So this means older, damaged proteins are broken down as newer ones are formed. This amazing process of autophagy is going on with varying intensity all the time in our cells, but it increases as we exercise.

            To be a tad technical, there is an important subdivision of autophagy, a subdivision that deals specifically with mitochondria, those unique energy-generating organelles mentioned above. Mitochondria are separate organelles in the cytosol, the stew-like liquid inside the cell but outside of the cell’s nucleus. This subdivision of autophagy has been given a name of its own. It’s called mitophagy, (short for mitochondria eating). This part of the housecleaning removes damaged mitochondria, a critical process for maintaining proper cellular functions. That’s as deep as I’m going to go here. If you are interested in more details, the somewhat simplified schematic diagram of mitophagy below should give you a head start into probing deeper into the subject.

            Okay, now to review and get practical, exercise enhances our health and wards off numerous ailments (1), probably in large part by stimulating autophagy and mitophagy. But how long does this effect last? And how much exercise is needed? Let’s take a look. As we’ve learned, endurance training increases the enzyme activity needed to facilitate the combination of oxygen and nutrients to produce the energy needed to keep our cells going. But these enzymes need fairly constant prodding. When one stops endurance training, say you’ve been walking regularly but suddenly give it up, it has been shown that the increased enzyme activity generated by your earlier walking begins to disappear when you stop, and it drops to “inactive” levels within 1 to 2 weeks of inactivity.

Take Home Message           

            So the take home message is simple. If you want to continue to enjoy the health provided by endurance training, or by resistance training, stay with it! According to the Mayo Clinic, one should get at least 150 minutes of moderate aerobic activity each week, or 75 minutes of vigorous aerobic activity over the same time period (3). The Clinic does add, however, that even smaller amounts of physical activity are helpful. And resistance training? Mayo recommends exercising all major muscle groups at least twice a week.

            I plan to stay with health and longevity for a while. Stay tuned!

 

Does Exercise Improve Your Health? A Brief Review

Posted on by Ken Goetz

     First a personal question. Do you exercise regularly? I have a hunch some of you do, and
some of you don’t. That’s fine. All are welcome here. Does exercise improve health? Lets see.

     Over twenty five centuries ago, a well-regarded physician observed “All parts of the body,
 if used in moderation and exercised in labors to which each is accustomed, become thereby
 healthy and well developed and age slowly; but if they are unused and left idle,
 they become liable to disease, defective in growth and age quickly.” (Hippocrates,
5th century BC)

     A lot of sweat has oozed out of pores since that good physician offered his opinion. And
he was on to something! Today legions of researchers are studying bodies in motion all over the
planet. Here is one tidbit that surprised me. In a 2017 review highlighting the far-reaching health
benefits of physical activity, the authors noted that they had cited only a fraction of the
>100,000 studies showing positive associations between the terms “exercise” and “health.”
(1). Do you find more than 100,000 positives to be a convincing number? I do.

      Because this is only a glimpse into the field, we will ignore that pile of reports, the tons of studies
ranging from data collection on people going about their daily lives all the way down to
others examining the chemistry percolating within our individual cells. To give a single example,
one clever group investigated the development of coronary heart disease in bus drivers, who
naturally sat on their duffs while working, compared with their actively walking colleagues
(conductors on the same buses). Short result? The drivers developed more coronary disease than
the conductors.    

     Since that time, a flood of research has revealed that physical inactivity is associated with
the development of some 40 physical disorders, including type 2 diabetes, various cancers,
premature aging, strokes, and hypertension, to mention only a few.

     Despite all the evidence demonstrating the value of exercise, other information reveals
that most adults and many children lead relatively sedentary lifestyles (2). According to various
articles, such individuals are not active enough to achieve the health benefits of exercise, benefits
that reach essentially every organ in our bodies.

     Because I am determined to be brief, I’ll touch on just one of the benefits that sedentary
individuals miss out on, the happy effect of aerobic exercise on the brain. When I was in medical
school, back in the age of dinosaurs, we were taught that the brain’s cells and structure were
pretty much unchangeable, that once connections were made in neural tissue, they were set in
concrete, so to speak.

     Now we know better. The brain now is lauded for its neuroplasticity, its ability to adapt to
changes it perceives. Our entire nervous system alters its activity in response to what is going on in
our bodies, and around us. In response to all of these stimuli, structures are reorganized,
connections are rearranged, and our brain and nerves adapt (3).


     As you’ve probably guessed, one of the stimuli affecting the brain is exercise. This is not a science
course, so we aren’t going to worry about details, but I will quote one key sentence from a recent
scientific article, one that summarizes thousands of experiments. Here it is. “Chronic aerobic
exercise has long been shown to improve quality of life.”

     Below is a figure taken from the same publication (4), a figure that diagrams the effects of
long-term aerobic exercise on the functioning of our brains. The figure even traces the links of everything
involved, starting with molecules and ending with our resultant behaviors.

 

     There you have it, a brief review of the benefits of exercise in under 700 words. This
level of understanding is deep enough for me, but if you would like to dig further, the references
I’ve provided above should provide your shovel. And you may recall that I’ve mentioned
exercise in early posts (5,6).

      If things work out, next time I’ll take a brief look at the effects of exercise on autophagy.
Stay tuned.

What is Autophagy? Should you care?

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            In my previous post (1), I highlighted a word I recently came across, autophagy, a word with plenty of air beneath its wings, a word I predict soon will become common in languages around the world. Why? Because autophagy is a vital biological process that, when defective, underlies the development of a myriad of human diseases such as Alzheimer’s, not to mention cardiovascular and infectious diseases, and even certain cancers.

            Autophagy is one very hot scientific topic. Laboratories around the world have published thousands, make that tens of thousands, of papers on the subject. And, as in most areas of science, there are disagreements and inconsistencies.  No wonder. Autophagy is an amazingly complex system within living cells, a process that appears to be adaptable to things we can accomplish to live healthier and longer. Who isn’t interested in that?

            And what exactly is autophagy? To be candid, only those working in the field could begin to answer that. Autophagy includes a full orchestra of biochemical reactions, a system so intricate that even a comprehensive semester course in cell biology would leave questions unanswered. I’ve picked up a few basic facts, and I’m feeling foolish enough to attempt to pass some of them on to you in a few simple paragraphs.

            For those of you better informed on this subject than I, and there likely are a good number, you have two choices. You can keep on reading and snigger as I flounder, or you can abandon ship here.

THE CELL

            The cell is of course a basic unit of life. There are zillions of tiny cells living all around us, independent rascals living on their own, things such as bacteria and yeast cells. These guys get along fine because their outer covering (membrane) is permeable to oxygen and nutrients, so these essentials can enter into the cell’s stew-like interior and be metabolized to produce the energy needed for living. The membrane also allows the waste products of metabolism to pass out of the cell.

            The “stew” in each cell is a moist conglomerate, an astounding labyrinth of complicated chemicals, microscopic pieces and packages that move about in that infinitesimal space as efficiently as robots in an automobile factory. Some pieces and packages found in nearly all cells have names such as a nucleus, Golgi apparatus, lysosome, and mitochondrion, not to mention genes, enzymes, and loads of other stuff I can’t tell you anything about. (See diagram below. Taken from Biomedicines (2), an open source journal.)

            Here’s why all of this is important. Just as any busy factory does, individual cells must deal with their internal parts that become damaged as time goes on. That’s where autophagy shines. It is an intricate recycling system that repairs broken proteins and damaged mitochondria (the particles that generate energy for the cell). And during starvation autophagy digests some of the cells own proteins to survive longer. The process occurring in mitochondria has a special name. It is called mitophagy.

            Not surprisingly autophagy tends to become less efficient as one ages, but evidence suggests there are ways to improve this, exercise being near the top of the list. Please put a check by exercise. That’s an important one to remember. As I said, autophagy seems to ward off inflammation, keep the heart healthy, and reduce degeneration of the brain. More on this later.

            One final basic point here. In order for cells to work efficiently, they must be in a place where oxygen in available, a place where the trash emitted can be carried away. This works fine when a cell is located in, say a pond, but how could this possibly work when some 30 trillion cells are squeezed tightly together, as in a human body?

            I know a bit more about that process. I’ll talk about that in the next post.

Methods to Preserve Your Health, and Extend Your Life

Posted on by Ken Goetz

            As I mentioned in an earlier post (1), most of us have the power (ignoring accidents and bad luck) to help preserve our health and extend our lives. How exactly can that be accomplished? Well, I’ve done some digging. (You never know what will happen when you send a 90-year-old brain to investigate a new subject, but I found information worth reporting.)

           Admittedly, the job wasn’t a walk in the park.  I quickly learned that scientists who study aging have set off a nuclear blast of information, the volume being so great that I could no more swallow it all than I could drink Lake Superior dry. So I’m going to tiptoe into this story and offer basic facts, and some speculation.

            You already know this, but I’m going to mention it anyway. Each of us, individually, is made up of humongous clusters of different cell types: brain cells , heart cells, lung cells, kidney cells, and many others. How many cells are tucked into one human body? The total number is of course impossible to count, but an average estimate suggests you are made up of about 30 trillion individual cells.

            I have trouble comprehending the enormity of such huge numbers. Do you? Here’s a little trick that seems to help. Consider each of your cells to be equal to one second. Then realize that one million seconds cover about 11.5 days. One billion seconds come and go about 32 years. And one trillion seconds? They stretch to more than 30,000 years. And don’t forget. We’re talking about 30 trillion cells, so multiply those numbers by 30.

            Cautionary note: whatever you do, please refrain from using this method when you think of our national debt, which now just happens to be over $30 trillion dollars. Ignoring this particular number may preserve your sanity. However, if that prodigious sum wedges uncomfortably into your mind, you might consider passing it on to certain senators and representatives who spend their time fumbling through chambers of our nation’s Capitol.

            To return to your trillions of cells, and this is important, each of those cells has a remarkable life of its own. Every cell, in a manner of speaking, does its own housekeeping. It buzzes with metabolic activity and even does its own recycling. Your cells work at a furious rate. For example, Yoshinori Ohsumi, a Nobel Prize winning scientist (I’ll come back to him), estimates that the millions of specialized cells in our bone marrow produce about 3 million red blood cells per second. (Circulating red cells decompose at the same rate.) To achieve this amazing production, those busy cells must also produce hemoglobin molecules (the ones carrying oxygen inside red blood cells) at a rate of 1 quadrillion molecules (10 to the 15 th power) per second. If that doesn’t boggle your mind, you’re not boggleable.

            One word that kept coming up when I dug into aging processes was autophagy (au‑’taf a‑jee), or it’s sometimes pronounced simply as each of its two basic components, auto + pha – gy (from Greek for self-devouring). The word coinage is usually attributed to Christian de Duve, who won a Nobel Prize in 1974 for his discovery of the lysosome, an amazing cell organelle now known to have more than 60 digestive enzymes within each one. Lysosomes accomplish fabulous deeds, as we shall see.

            Interest in autophagy skyrocketed after Nobel Laureate Yoshinori Ohsumi (first photo), managed to tease out its secrets and demonstrate that lysosomes were indeed the site of the cell’s recycling and renewal program. In this process the cells chop up damaged proteins, build new structures, revive mitochondria (our cell’s energy source), ward off infections, and maintain healthy metabolism. In short, autophagy recycles and renews the contents of our cells, which would not survive without that vital revival. Nor, of course, would we.

            Ohsumi’s work was thorough. He learned how autophagy works from start to finish, how it is controlled, and he even identified the key genes and molecules involved. Guess what. His experiments were done on, of all things, Baker’s yeast. (Never doubt the value of very basic research.) Autophagy later was shown to be present in human cells. Its activity is stimulated (up-regulated in genetic terms) by a number of stresses such as fasting and exercise, along with other stresses to be mentioned in later posts.

            Let’s focus for a moment on fasting. It’s long been known that severe dietary restriction extends the lives of rodents (2), and it is believed that autophagy contributes to the extended the life spans of underfed animals.

            As I began looking into all of this, I kept running into accolades for so-called intermittent fasting as a method of promoting autophagy. As you may know, intermittent fasting, a method often used for weight loss, comes in a number of variations. For example, the so-called 16/8 routine requires you fast for 16 hours and consume all of your meals within an 8 hour window (or slightly modified to 18/6). There’s also the 5/2 regimen, in which you eat normally for five days of the week and “fast” (either completely or maybe consuming only 500 calories on those days), and there are other modifications.  I started the 16/8 routine a week ago, ending my dinner by 8 p.m. and consuming nothing but water and black coffee in the morning, finally breaking my fast at noon.

            The routine wasn’t difficult for me, maybe because years ago in my laboratory, my colleagues and I fasted at times for 24 hours (this was required while performing certain experiments on ourselves). I quickly discovered those 24-hour fasts weren’t difficult to accomplish if I just refused to consider other options. I had that same mind-set this week and did just fine.

            So did I push my autophagy button and begin stretching my earthly days? I wish I knew the answer. I started my program optimistically, but during this week as I searched for definitive information, I found no concrete data demonstrating that a 16 hour fast provides adequate time to induce autophagy. (There are plenty sources claiming it does, but I found no convincing data to document that assertion.)

            I did find one review of the scientific literature (it was published just a few months ago (3) that echoed my skepticism. Here’s part of the abstract from that extensive review.  There is significant interest in the body of literature describing longitudinal adaptations to IF (intermittent fasting). Less attention has been given to the acute physiological responses that occur during the fasting durations that are commonly employed by IF practitioners. Thus, the purpose of this review was to examine the physiological responses – including alterations in substrate metabolism, systemic hormones, and autophagy – that occur throughout an acute fast. Literature searches were performed to locate relevant research describing physiological responses to acute fasting and short‑term starvation. A single fast demonstrated the ability to alter glucose and lipid metabolism within the initial 24 hours (indicating a shift to ketosis, my words), but variations in protein metabolism appeared to be minimal within this time frame. The ability of an acute fast to elicit significant increases in autophagy is still unknown. (I increased the font size of the previous sentence for emphasis.)

            To be clear, the conclusion of the authors bothers me not at all. First of all, extended periods of fasting (longer that the “acute fast” of 24 hours mentioned above) clearly unleash autophagy, as do other stresses that I will come to in later posts.  And intermittent fasting may well be effective in weight reduction, but that’s not the focus of my search. I’m centered here on factors that extend healthy lives, and on the variety of stimuli that trigger autophagy, along with other encouraging developments that promise to preserve our health and extend our lives. I’ll noodle around this area for a while, and I intend to come up with more reports. Stay tuned.

Would you like to live for, say, 110 years?

Posted on by Ken Goetz

     Would you like to live for, say, 110 years?  Does a long life appeal to you? Is it even possible to achieve? Seemingly so. Present-day science is oozing with promises to extend our lives.  How would I answer my opening question? That depends. If I were able to survive for well over 100 years feeling as healthy and happy as I am now, I’d shout “You betcha!”

     A quick disclaimer: I have not a shred of expertise on aging (other than reaching 90, which merely triggered my curiosity), so an authority I am not. But I’ve nosed around to see what’s going on with those who are devoted to studying our aging processes. A lot is going on! Facts jumped out at me from all directions. Those dedicated scientists, bless their hearts, have learned enough to fill a good scattering of scientific journals. And what they’ve discovered is good news for practically everyone.

     For one thing, the thousands of experts who study how we age seem to come together on one important point, namely this. Aging is a decidedly plastic process. It is influenced by a myriad of factors, a good number of which we can influence.

     Here’s one collaborating statement that comes from David Sinclair (1), professor of genetics and co-director of a center for aging research at Harvard medical school. What he said shocked me. I didn’t scribble it down as I heard it, so what follows is a paraphrase, but the gist of it was this: 80% of our rate of aging and our health when older is determined by “environmental” (lifestyle?) factors; only 20% is determined by our genome. Wow! Did that snap your eyes open? The evidence backing this statement appears to be solid, and it comes from many sources. What we do through the years is more important than what our genes control. In short, we can live better, and live longer, by adjusting our daily routines.

     Controlling our destiny isn’t all new stuff, of course. We’ve known for years that certain habits are bad for us. Smoking is a prime example. The smoke messes up lungs and hearts, among other organs. An article in the New England Journal of Medicine a few years ago ticked off more than a dozen disease processes set into play or aggravated by smoking.

     But here we’re talking about good habits. The more recent information concerning our aging, exciting as it is, has been derived largely by untangling rather complex intracellular biochemical pathways, and by digging into intricate genetic mechanisms, but luckily we don’t have to understand all of the complex details to realize what it all means, and to use it to our advantage.

     The basic message could not be clearer if it were announced in huge, glowing neon letters. And it is very simple. We have the power (ignoring accidents and bad luck) to slow our “aging,” and to remain healthier longer as we move through the years. This can be accomplished by adjusting our lifestyles (such as walking more, and weight lifting), by dietary alterations (so-called intermittent fasting), by taking certain oral supplements, and even by more experimental and less-available (and less generally accepted) genetic manipulations.

     I’ll focus on this theme for a couple of posts. Next time I’ll examine the varying methods of intermittent fasting, an accepted method for prolonging life and preserving health. I’ll even touch lightly on how that approach does the trick to slow down our aging process.

IMPORTANT HOUSEKEEPING NOTE REGARDING THE COLORS OF MEDICINE.

     For those of you reading my installments of The Colors of Medicine, I have news. Starting tomorrow (February 1),  you will be able to download the complete Kindle version of my novel from Amazon.com at no cost.  I’m giving it away free for the first five days in February. I must say it has been fun for me to provide little teasers at the beginning of each installment published here (number 13 was posted yesterday) and I plan to put out one final installment here tomorrow, along with a brief teaser indicating that the story is about to make a rather abrupt transition.  I’ll provide more details when I post installment 14.