Why do we age? Which brings us to the question: What do all human beings have in common? It is a survival circuit. It is something that comes from primitive times, when life was still developing in the mud of the world.
That circuit, while it was our salvation and gave rise to the species, is today our downfall to avoid old age and decrepitude. All the severe damage that occurs in the body, broken DNA chains that are inevitable (solar radiation, stress, poor diet, etc.) end up overexploiting the survival circuit, which is called “epigenetic noise” that produces, according to modern theory of David Sinclair, get older.
And that is nothing other than “Losing Information”.
That's how it is. Everything seems to indicate that aging is associated with a loss of information in our body, subject, of course, to the principle of Entropy. Human beings and species were formed from Chaos: and to Chaos, if we don't do something, we will return.
Now, these epigenetic signalers become saturated with responding to so many cellular attacks and damages, and then their managers, the sirtuinas, They run around all over the place to repair it, thereby neglecting their usual responsibilities and sometimes even going to parts of the genome to silence genes that shouldn't.
The result is that by taking care of so much, complete cellular failure occurs and we become old, we begin to develop ailments and diseases. Sometimes sirtuins simply travel to sectors of cells never to return.
In countries with a high number of long-lived people, such as Okinawa, it was found that diet and calorie reduction (CR) were directly responsible for the higher life expectancy. And the advice is, largely, to consume more vegetables, more legumes and more whole grains, and less meat, dairy and sugar.
What happens when we eat less or do intermittent fasting?
What happens is that the survival circuit is activated, which tells the longevity genes to do what they have been doing since ancient times: stimulate the cells' defenses, keep organisms alive in times of adversity, protect from disease and deterioration, minimize epigenetic change and slow aging. That is, it gives us back our youth and lost energy.
For this reason, in his Discourse on the Sober Life, Luigi Cornaro, a Venetian nobleman who lived in the 15th and 16th centuries, advises eating moderately.
Until he was 40 or so years old, he indulged in all the pleasures of life, among which food could not be missing: it was the main thing. In Italy in those years the banquets were lavish, and they ate too much. Too good and in excess.
Cornaro rethought his life and started eating only once a day: about 300 to 400 grams and two glasses of red wine. This allowed him to reach the age of more than 100 years and enjoy a vital old age, with a lot of energy, to the point that he writes his books at 80-something.
Today genetic studies demonstrate the effectiveness of CR, Calorie Restriction, both in the laboratory and with volunteers. Our lifestyle shapes the epigenome, and based on that, we can activate longevity genes that benefit us.
But if we cannot cope with a lifestyle, we are working through substances or molecules that interact with our enzymes, which are the basis of our existence. For example, when we inhibit the enzyme known as mTORCells are forced to spend less energy on the division process and more on the autophagy process, which recycles damaged and misfolded proteins. And Sinclair tells us:
“This process is good for prolonging vitality in all the organisms we have studied. What we are learning is that mTOR is not only affected by CR. If you want mTOR not to activate too much or too often, limiting the amount of amino acids you consume is a good start, so inhibiting this particular longevity gene is as simple as limiting your meat and dairy consumption.”
To what we eat and how much we eat, we must add what they call “physical adversity”, that is, playing sports. It is the body's way of stressing and this increases NAD levels which in turn activates the survival circuit:
“which increases energy production and forces the muscle to create more capillaries for the transport of oxygen. The longevity regulators AMPK, mTOR, and sirtuins are all affected for the better by exercise, regardless of caloric intake, creating new blood vessels, improving lung and heart health, making people stronger, and, yes, extending telomeres.” (Sinclair)
Today it is known that those who exercise more have longer telomeres. But again: you don't need to kill yourself doing exercises. A recent study showed that those who run six to eight kilometers a week, which for most people is an exercise that can be done in less than a quarter of an hour a day, reduce the probability of dying by 45 percent and of dying specifically from a heart attack by 30 percent.
But of course, activating longevity genes requires intense exercise. That makes us young again on a cellular level. Doing push-ups is the best. And also, if we want to continue stressing the body, there is nothing better than cold showers. This cellular stress is good for our epigenome because it stimulates longevity genes. Because, as Sinclair explains:
“It activates AMPK, inhibits mTOR, stimulates NAD levels and activates sirtuins, the disaster emergency team, to overcome the normal wear and tear of living on planet Earth.”
MEDICINES AND LONGEVITY
The activation of longevity genes through the survival circuit can be altered with CR (Calorie Restriction) or by stressing the body. But through medicines this can also be achieved: simply by chemically modulating the enzymes.
An example of this is the Resveratrol found in wine. What Sinclair says about it:
“Not only had we found a mimetic of calorie restriction, something that would extend longevity without starvation, but we had found it in a bottle of red wine.”
Indeed, the myth of Dionysus was not far from the truth. But the interesting thing is why resveratrol is produced: due to stress to the plant. Resveratrol is produced in greater quantities by grapes and other plants under stress. Many other health-enhancing molecules, as well as their chemical derivatives, are also known to be produced in abundance by stressed plants. This opens the door to good Ens preparations.
And Sinclair says:
“we get resveratrol from grapes; aspirin, from willow bark; metformin, from French lilacs; epigallocatechin gallate, from green tea; quercetin, from some fruits; and allicin, from garlic. This, we believe, is evidence of xenohormesis: the idea that stressed plants themselves produce chemicals that tell their cells to stop and survive. Plants also have survival circuits, and we think we might have evolved to sense the chemicals they produce in times of stress as a kind of early warning system, to warn our body that it also needs to stop.”
However, in the end, it turned out that resveratrol was not very potent nor very soluble in the stomach. More useful to laboratory rats than to humans. But it led to research into other molecules to activate sirtuins, which are more powerful than resveratrol in stimulating the survival circuit and prolonging life. For example NAD stimulators.
It is known that without sufficient NAD, sirtuins do not work well: they cannot remove acetyl groups from histones, silence genes, or extend lifespan. Unfortunately NAD levels decrease with age throughout the body. And so they found a promising chemical "nicotinamide mononucleotide" (NMN), a compound created by our cells and found in foods such as avocado, broccoli and cabbage.
In the body, NR is converted to NMN, which in turn is converted to NAD. Give an animal a drink with NR or NMN and the NAD levels in its body increase by up to 25 percent in the next two hours, about the same as if it had been fasting or doing a lot of physical exercise.
Other laboratories have shown that NMN can protect against kidney damage, neuronal degeneration, mitochondrial diseases and an inherited disease called "Friedreich's ataxia" that leaves active twenty-somethings in wheelchairs.
Other molecules to regenerate or mitigate the epigenetic noise that causes aging are metformina and rapamycin. Sinclair brings the experience of his own father who, at the age of 80, by consuming these substances, regained the energy lost in his youth. His life took a complete turn when he was healed and perceived the vitality in his body.
The geneticist himself says that he takes this same thing every day and remains healthy and with the vitality of youth:
“I take one gram (one thousand milligrams) of NMN every morning along with one gram of resveratrol (mixed with homemade yogurt) and one gram of metformin. • I take a daily dose of vitamin D and vitamin K2 and 83 milligrams of aspirin.”
Of course, don't take it as an axiom, because Sinclair does blood tests all the time, and besides, the NMN is not economical at all and it seems that he has vested interests there. I myself consumed NMN for months and it did not report the properties that Sinclair claims.
TO CLOSE
As Sinclair says:
“THE THREE MAIN PATHWAYS OF LONGEVITY, mTOR, AMPK AND SIRTUINS, EVOLVED TO PROTECT THE BODY IN TIMES OF ADVERSITY BY ACTIVATING SURVIVAL MECHANISMS. When activated, either through low-calorie or low-amino acid diets or physical exercise, organisms become healthier and more resistant to disease, so they live longer. “Molecules that alter these pathways, such as rapamycin, metformin, resveratrol and NAD stimulators, can mimic the benefits of low-calorie diets and physical exercise, as well as extend the lifespan of different organisms.”
Now, we must not forget the constant accumulation of senescent cells, which are called zombie cells. As we have more, old age begins to take hold of us. But there are some medicines called senolÃticas that destroy those useless cells that accumulate (and that generate inflammation and epigenetic noise.)
It is key to understand that DNA stores information digitally, indestructible, to the point that if they clone us when we are old, they will not clone an elderly person. However, the epigenome stores it in an analogical way and here is the problem, hence the noise, the entropy.
But we are steps away from finding the solution to the problem and what I investigated may help you while you reach the coveted elixir of life.
Now we know a little more about how real medicine should work.
Article in Spanish: click here
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