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holy ghost
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"Given that some athletes will take almost anything to gain a one percent edge in performance, what might they do for a 100 percent improvement? That temptation is made somewhat more real by a report today in a leading journal about a drug that doubles the physical endurance of mice running on treadmills. And it could only be more tempting, because the drug in question has also been reported to extend the lifespan of mice.
?Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training,? Dr. Auwerx (pronounced OH-wer-ix?) said in an interview.
He and his colleagues said the same mechanism seems likely to operate in humans, based on their analysis, in a group of Finnish subjects, of the gene that is influenced by the drug.
A drug that prolongs life, averts degenerative disease and, on top of all that, makes you into a champion athlete ? at least if you are a mouse ? sounds almost too good to be true.
Dr. Christoph Westphal, Sirtris?s chief executive, replied to this objection with a question: ?Is it too good to be true that when you are young you get no disease??
He believes that activation of the sirtuins is what keeps the body healthy in youth, but that these enzymes become less powerful with age, exposing the body to degenerative disease. That is the process that he says is reversed by resveratrol and, he hopes, by the more powerful sirtuin-activator drugs that his company is developing, though many years of clinical trials will still be needed to demonstrate whether they work and are safe to use.
The developing buzz over sirtuin activators has captivated some scientists who do research on the aging process, several of whom are already taking resveratrol themselves. Dr. Sinclair has said that he has been swallowing resveratrol capsules for three years, and that his parents and half his lab staff do the same.
So does Dr. Tomas Prolla at the University of Wisconsin. ?The fact that investigators in the field are taking it is a good sign there is something there,? he said.
But many others believe taking the drug now is premature, including Dr. Leonard Guarente of M.I.T. whose 15-year study of the sirtuins laid the basis for the field of study. It was after working in Dr. Guarente?s lab as a postdoctoral student that Dr. Sinclair found in 2003 that resveratrol was a sirtuin activator.
Though resveratrol has long been known to be a component red wine and other foods, it is present there in only minuscule amounts, compared with the very large doses used in experiments. Dr. Sinclair dosed his mice daily with 22 milligrams of resveratrol for each kilogram of weight, and Dr. Auwerx used up to 400 milligrams. No one could drink enough red wine to obtain such doses.
Resveratrol is now available in capsules that contain extracts of red wine and giant knotweed, a plant found in China. One manufacturer of such capsules is Longevinex, whose president, Bill Sardi, said today that demand for the product had increased by a factor of 2400 since Nov. 1. But even Longevinex?s capsules, which at present contain 40 milligrams of resveratrol each, would have to be gulped in almost impossible quantities for a human to obtain doses equivalent to those used in mice. ?It?s like eating a whole bottle of Tums every day,? Dr. Evans said.
Whether much lower doses would benefit athletic performance is not clear, Dr. Evans said. And higher doses may not be as safe as the lower doses found now in foods and ?nutraceuticals? like the extract capsules.
Besides these uncertainties over what a safe and effective dose of resveratrol might be, the science underlying the field is still in full flux. Many central details are still unclear. The principal theory developed by Dr. Guarente and others is that the sirtuins somehow sense the level of energy expenditure in living cells and switch the body?s resources from reproduction to tissue maintenance when food is low.
Dr. Bruce Spiegelman, a Harvard Medical School expert on fat metabolism, said Dr. Auwerx?s paper was ?pretty good.? Dr. Auwerx believes resveratrol activates sirtuin, which in turn activates a factor known as PGC1-alpha in a manner first described by Dr. Spiegelman and his colleagues last year. Subsequent actions by PGC1-alpha then stimulate cells to produce more mitochondria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/sc...ge&oref=slogin
"Given that some athletes will take almost anything to gain a one percent edge in performance, what might they do for a 100 percent improvement? That temptation is made somewhat more real by a report today in a leading journal about a drug that doubles the physical endurance of mice running on treadmills. And it could only be more tempting, because the drug in question has also been reported to extend the lifespan of mice.
?Resveratrol makes you look like a trained athlete without the training,? Dr. Auwerx (pronounced OH-wer-ix?) said in an interview.
He and his colleagues said the same mechanism seems likely to operate in humans, based on their analysis, in a group of Finnish subjects, of the gene that is influenced by the drug.
A drug that prolongs life, averts degenerative disease and, on top of all that, makes you into a champion athlete ? at least if you are a mouse ? sounds almost too good to be true.
Dr. Christoph Westphal, Sirtris?s chief executive, replied to this objection with a question: ?Is it too good to be true that when you are young you get no disease??
He believes that activation of the sirtuins is what keeps the body healthy in youth, but that these enzymes become less powerful with age, exposing the body to degenerative disease. That is the process that he says is reversed by resveratrol and, he hopes, by the more powerful sirtuin-activator drugs that his company is developing, though many years of clinical trials will still be needed to demonstrate whether they work and are safe to use.
The developing buzz over sirtuin activators has captivated some scientists who do research on the aging process, several of whom are already taking resveratrol themselves. Dr. Sinclair has said that he has been swallowing resveratrol capsules for three years, and that his parents and half his lab staff do the same.
So does Dr. Tomas Prolla at the University of Wisconsin. ?The fact that investigators in the field are taking it is a good sign there is something there,? he said.
But many others believe taking the drug now is premature, including Dr. Leonard Guarente of M.I.T. whose 15-year study of the sirtuins laid the basis for the field of study. It was after working in Dr. Guarente?s lab as a postdoctoral student that Dr. Sinclair found in 2003 that resveratrol was a sirtuin activator.
Though resveratrol has long been known to be a component red wine and other foods, it is present there in only minuscule amounts, compared with the very large doses used in experiments. Dr. Sinclair dosed his mice daily with 22 milligrams of resveratrol for each kilogram of weight, and Dr. Auwerx used up to 400 milligrams. No one could drink enough red wine to obtain such doses.
Resveratrol is now available in capsules that contain extracts of red wine and giant knotweed, a plant found in China. One manufacturer of such capsules is Longevinex, whose president, Bill Sardi, said today that demand for the product had increased by a factor of 2400 since Nov. 1. But even Longevinex?s capsules, which at present contain 40 milligrams of resveratrol each, would have to be gulped in almost impossible quantities for a human to obtain doses equivalent to those used in mice. ?It?s like eating a whole bottle of Tums every day,? Dr. Evans said.
Whether much lower doses would benefit athletic performance is not clear, Dr. Evans said. And higher doses may not be as safe as the lower doses found now in foods and ?nutraceuticals? like the extract capsules.
Besides these uncertainties over what a safe and effective dose of resveratrol might be, the science underlying the field is still in full flux. Many central details are still unclear. The principal theory developed by Dr. Guarente and others is that the sirtuins somehow sense the level of energy expenditure in living cells and switch the body?s resources from reproduction to tissue maintenance when food is low.
Dr. Bruce Spiegelman, a Harvard Medical School expert on fat metabolism, said Dr. Auwerx?s paper was ?pretty good.? Dr. Auwerx believes resveratrol activates sirtuin, which in turn activates a factor known as PGC1-alpha in a manner first described by Dr. Spiegelman and his colleagues last year. Subsequent actions by PGC1-alpha then stimulate cells to produce more mitochondria.
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/16/sc...ge&oref=slogin
