Reservatrol Drug: Live to 150 years (articlel)

note: seems my 150 Club idea is getting more popular, maybe even crowded. I may have to found a 200 club. Anyway, I’m all for a combo of qigong and inner alchemy and whatever external alchemy (medicines) can do together. Whatever drugs can do, qigong will improve on. – Michael

NEW DRUG BEING DEVELOPED USING COMPOUND FOUND IN RED WINE ‘COULD HELP
HUMANS LIVE UNTIL THEY ARE 150’
By Lucy Crossley
Daily Mail
March 10, 2013

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-2291254/New-drug-developed-using-compound-red-wine-help-humans-live-150.html

Drugs that could combat ageing and help people to live to 150-years-old
may be available within five years, following landmark research.

The new drugs are synthetic versions of resveratrol which is found in
red wine and is believed to have an anti-ageing effect as it boosts
activity of a protein called SIRT1.

Pharmaceutical giant GlaxoSmithKline has been testing the medications on
patients suffering with medical conditions including cancer, diabetes
and heart disease.

The work proves that a single anti-ageing enzyme in the body can be
targeted, with the potential to prevent age-related diseases and extend
lifespans.

As each of the 117 drugs tested work on the single enzyme through a
common mechanism is means that a whole new class of anti-ageing drugs is
now viable, which could ultimately prevent cancer, Alzheimer’s disease
and type 2 diabetes.

Genetics professor David Sinclair, based at Harvard University, said:
‘Ultimately, these drugs would treat one disease, but unlike drugs of
today, they would prevent 20 others.

‘In effect, they would slow ageing.’

The target enzyme, SIRT1, is switched on naturally by calorie
restriction and exercise, but it can also be enhanced through activators.

The most common naturally-occurring activator is resveratrol, which is
found in small quantities in red wine, but synthetic activators with
much stronger activity are already being developed.

Although research surrounding resveratrol has been going on for a
decade, until now the basic science had been contested.

Despite this, there have already been promising results in some trials
with implications for cancer, cardiovascular disease and cardiac
failure, type 2 diabetes, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s diseases, fatty
liver disease, cataracts, osteoporosis, muscle wasting, sleep disorders
and inflammatory diseases such as psoriasis, arthritis and colitis.

Professor Sinclair said: ‘In the history of pharmaceuticals, there has
never been a drug that tweaks an enzyme to make it run faster.’

The technology was sold to GlaxoSmithKline in 2008.

Four thousand synthetic activators, which are 100 times as potent as a
single glass of red wine, have been developed — with the best three
being used in human trials.

Writing in the journal Science, Professor Sinclair, who suggests the
first therapeutic to be marketed will be for diabetes, said: ‘Our drugs
can mimic the benefits of diet and exercise, but there is no impact on
weight.’

Limited trials have been carried out in people with type 2 diabetes and
the skin inflammatory disease, psoriasis.

Scientists found that there were benefits to the metabolism in the first
group and a reduction in skin redness in the second.

The drugs can be administered orally, or topically.

So far, there have been no drugs developed to target ageing skin, but
one major skin care range has developed a creme with resveratrol in it.

While any drug would be strictly prescribed for certain conditions,
Professor Sinclair suggests that one day, they could be taken orally as
a preventative.

They could therefore be used in the same way as statin drugs are
commonly prescribed to prevent, instead of simply treating,
cardiovascular disease.

In animal models, overweight mice given synthetic resveratrol were able
to run twice as far as slim mice and they lived 15 per cent longer.

Professor Sinclair added: ‘Now we are looking at whether there are
benefits for those who are already healthy.

‘Things there are also looking promising. We’re finding that ageing
isn’t the irreversible affliction that we thought it was.

‘Some of us could live to 150, but we won’t get there without more
research.’