Wanda951
10-02-2006, 11:24 PM
Here's a portion of an article I just read!
Dietary Supplements Make Old Rats Youthful, May Help Rejuvenate Aging
Humans, According To UC Berkeley Study
Berkeley - Two dietary supplements straight off the health food store
shelf put the spark back into aging rats, and might do the same for
aging baby boomers, according to a study at the University of
California, Berkeley, and Children's Hospital Oakland Research
Institute.
A team of researchers led by Bruce N. Ames, professor of molecular and
cell biology at UC Berkeley, fed older rats two chemicals normally
found in the body's cells and available as dietary supplements:
acetyl-L-carnitine and an antioxidant, alpha-lipoic acid.
In three articles in the February 19 issue of Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, Ames and his colleagues report the
surprising results. Not only did the older rats do better on memory
tests, they had more pep, and the energy-producing organelles in their
cells worked better.
"With the two supplements together, these old rats got up and did the
Macarena," said Ames, also a researcher at Children's Hospital Oakland
Research Institute (CHORI). "The brain looks better, they are full of
energy - everything we looked at looks more like a young animal."
"The animals seem to have much more vigor and are much more active than
animals not on this diet, signaling massive improvement to these
animals' health and well-being," said former UC Berkeley post-doctoral
fellow Tory M. Hagen, now an assistant professor at the Linus Pauling
Institute at Oregon State University, Corvallis. "And we also see a
reversal in loss of memory. That is a dual-track improvement that is
significant and unique. This is really starting to explode and move out
of the realm of basic research into people."
One of the three PNAS articles probes the reasons behind this
rejuvenation, concluding that the two chemicals "tune up" the
energy-producing organelles that power all cells, the mitochondria.
Both chemicals are normally used in mitochondria.
Ames calls mitochondria the "weak link in aging." Evidence has been
piling up, he said, that deterioration of mitochondria is an important
cause of aging. A significant cause of this deterioration, he believes,
is the accumulation of destructive free radicals - byproducts of normal
metabolism - that disable enzymes and other chemicals.
The combination therapy targets mitochondria to get rid of destructive
radicals and to boost the activity of a damaged enzyme, carnitine
acetyltransferase, that plays a key role in burning fuel in
mitochondria. The researchers hoped that the anti-oxidant alpha-lipoic
acid would do the former, and that flooding the cell with
acetyl-L-carnitine, one of two proteins that the enzyme acts on, would
achieve the latter.
Experiments showed that this regimen worked. Associate researcher
Jiankang Liu of CHORI, UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow David W.
Killilea and Ames demonstrated that the enzyme carnitine
acetyltransferase is less active in old rats than in young rats, and
that it binds less tightly to acetyl-L-carnitine in older rats.
Supplementation with acetyl-L-carnitine or a combination of
acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid restored the enzyme's activity
nearly to that found in young rats and substantially restored binding
to acetyl-L-carnitine.
"The acetyl-L-carnitine is protecting the protein and the higher levels
are enabling the protein to work, while alpha-lipoic acid knocks down
oxygen radicals," Ames said. "Each chemical solves a different problem
- the two together are better than either one alone."
Ames and Hagen have long had an interest in mitochondria as they relate
to aging, and they were intrigued by a 1999 Italian study that showed
acetyl-L-carnitine, when fed to old rats, improved mitochondrial
activity.
The two thought this might be a way to reverse the effects of aging on
mitochondria, and in various trials found it to work to some degree.
Free radicals were still damaging the cell, however, so they decided to
pair it with one of the few antioxidants that gets into mitochondria,
alpha-lipoic acid. Lipoic acid is produced by mitochondria and boosts
levels of other antioxidants.
In the second of the PNAS studies, Hagen, Ames and colleagues compared
2- to 4-month-old rats to 24- to 28-month-old rats, all fed
acetyl-L-carnitine in their water and alpha-lipoic acid in their chow.
After as much as a month on the supplements, the old and lethargic rats
became more peppy, Ames said.
"We significantly reversed the decline in overall activity typical of
aged rats to what you see in a middle-aged to young ***** rat 7 to 10
months of age," Hagen said. "This is equivalent to making a 75- to
80-year-old person act middle-aged. We've only shown short-term
effects, but the results give us the rationale for looking at these
things long term."
They found also that the combination of lipoic acid and
acetyl-carnitine improved mitochondrial activity and thus cellular
metabolism, and increased levels of various chemicals known to decline
with age, including ascorbic acid, an antioxidant.
In a third study, Liu, Hagen, Ames and colleagues fed old rats a
similar diet of the two supplements and looked at memory function as
measured by the Morris water maze test and a peak procedure for
assessing temporal or time-based memory developed by Seth Roberts,
professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. They found that supplementation
improved both spatial and temporal memory, and reduced the amount of
oxidative damage to RNA in the brain's hippocampus, an area important
in memory. In electron microscope pictures of cells from the
hippocampus, mitochondria showed less structural decay in old rats that
had a supplemented diet.
"We did two different tests for cognitive activity in rats, and in both
it made a big difference to feed them this mixture," Ames said. "Memory
degenerates with age, and this makes them better."
The analysis of nucleic acid damage in the brain was performed with
post-doctoral researcher Elizabeth Head and Carl W. Cotman, professor
of neurobiology and behavior, at the Institute for Brain Aging and
Dementia at UC Irvine. UC Berkeley psychology graduate student Afshin
M. Gharib worked with Liu to conduct the peak performance tests.
"In aging, you're oxidizing the proteins in mitochondria and they lose
activity," Ames explained. "If some of that lost activity is due to
binding for substrate or coenzyme - like binding of acetyl-L-carnitine
by carnitine acetyltransferase - and you can raise the level of those,
then you can reverse some of the loss.
"We showed, in fact, that that is what's happening with
acetyl-L-carnitine. Aldehydes from lipid oxidation are glomming onto
that protein, and that is what appears to cause the reduction in
binding activity. But if you raise the level of acetyl-L-carnitine, now
it works."
Hagen added, "With aging, we see so many different things that are
occurring to mitochondria that then lead to consequences in the cell.
If you tune up mitochondria you may have a means of at least delaying
the onset of a number of age-related problems that we encounter, or we
can in some ways, hopefully, reverse what has already taken place."
The work was supported by grants from the Ellison Foundation, the
National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, the
Wheeler Fund of the Dean of Biology at UC Berkeley, the Bruce and
Giovanna Ames Foundation and the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences Center at UC Berkeley.
------------
Drinking half a packet of ACT mixed with 1 oz of VITALAGY in 4 oz of
water gives you the combination of these nutrients! Be a mixologist
today!
Way to Go!
Wanda
Dietary Supplements Make Old Rats Youthful, May Help Rejuvenate Aging
Humans, According To UC Berkeley Study
Berkeley - Two dietary supplements straight off the health food store
shelf put the spark back into aging rats, and might do the same for
aging baby boomers, according to a study at the University of
California, Berkeley, and Children's Hospital Oakland Research
Institute.
A team of researchers led by Bruce N. Ames, professor of molecular and
cell biology at UC Berkeley, fed older rats two chemicals normally
found in the body's cells and available as dietary supplements:
acetyl-L-carnitine and an antioxidant, alpha-lipoic acid.
In three articles in the February 19 issue of Proceedings of the
National Academy of Sciences, Ames and his colleagues report the
surprising results. Not only did the older rats do better on memory
tests, they had more pep, and the energy-producing organelles in their
cells worked better.
"With the two supplements together, these old rats got up and did the
Macarena," said Ames, also a researcher at Children's Hospital Oakland
Research Institute (CHORI). "The brain looks better, they are full of
energy - everything we looked at looks more like a young animal."
"The animals seem to have much more vigor and are much more active than
animals not on this diet, signaling massive improvement to these
animals' health and well-being," said former UC Berkeley post-doctoral
fellow Tory M. Hagen, now an assistant professor at the Linus Pauling
Institute at Oregon State University, Corvallis. "And we also see a
reversal in loss of memory. That is a dual-track improvement that is
significant and unique. This is really starting to explode and move out
of the realm of basic research into people."
One of the three PNAS articles probes the reasons behind this
rejuvenation, concluding that the two chemicals "tune up" the
energy-producing organelles that power all cells, the mitochondria.
Both chemicals are normally used in mitochondria.
Ames calls mitochondria the "weak link in aging." Evidence has been
piling up, he said, that deterioration of mitochondria is an important
cause of aging. A significant cause of this deterioration, he believes,
is the accumulation of destructive free radicals - byproducts of normal
metabolism - that disable enzymes and other chemicals.
The combination therapy targets mitochondria to get rid of destructive
radicals and to boost the activity of a damaged enzyme, carnitine
acetyltransferase, that plays a key role in burning fuel in
mitochondria. The researchers hoped that the anti-oxidant alpha-lipoic
acid would do the former, and that flooding the cell with
acetyl-L-carnitine, one of two proteins that the enzyme acts on, would
achieve the latter.
Experiments showed that this regimen worked. Associate researcher
Jiankang Liu of CHORI, UC Berkeley postdoctoral fellow David W.
Killilea and Ames demonstrated that the enzyme carnitine
acetyltransferase is less active in old rats than in young rats, and
that it binds less tightly to acetyl-L-carnitine in older rats.
Supplementation with acetyl-L-carnitine or a combination of
acetyl-L-carnitine and alpha-lipoic acid restored the enzyme's activity
nearly to that found in young rats and substantially restored binding
to acetyl-L-carnitine.
"The acetyl-L-carnitine is protecting the protein and the higher levels
are enabling the protein to work, while alpha-lipoic acid knocks down
oxygen radicals," Ames said. "Each chemical solves a different problem
- the two together are better than either one alone."
Ames and Hagen have long had an interest in mitochondria as they relate
to aging, and they were intrigued by a 1999 Italian study that showed
acetyl-L-carnitine, when fed to old rats, improved mitochondrial
activity.
The two thought this might be a way to reverse the effects of aging on
mitochondria, and in various trials found it to work to some degree.
Free radicals were still damaging the cell, however, so they decided to
pair it with one of the few antioxidants that gets into mitochondria,
alpha-lipoic acid. Lipoic acid is produced by mitochondria and boosts
levels of other antioxidants.
In the second of the PNAS studies, Hagen, Ames and colleagues compared
2- to 4-month-old rats to 24- to 28-month-old rats, all fed
acetyl-L-carnitine in their water and alpha-lipoic acid in their chow.
After as much as a month on the supplements, the old and lethargic rats
became more peppy, Ames said.
"We significantly reversed the decline in overall activity typical of
aged rats to what you see in a middle-aged to young ***** rat 7 to 10
months of age," Hagen said. "This is equivalent to making a 75- to
80-year-old person act middle-aged. We've only shown short-term
effects, but the results give us the rationale for looking at these
things long term."
They found also that the combination of lipoic acid and
acetyl-carnitine improved mitochondrial activity and thus cellular
metabolism, and increased levels of various chemicals known to decline
with age, including ascorbic acid, an antioxidant.
In a third study, Liu, Hagen, Ames and colleagues fed old rats a
similar diet of the two supplements and looked at memory function as
measured by the Morris water maze test and a peak procedure for
assessing temporal or time-based memory developed by Seth Roberts,
professor of psychology at UC Berkeley. They found that supplementation
improved both spatial and temporal memory, and reduced the amount of
oxidative damage to RNA in the brain's hippocampus, an area important
in memory. In electron microscope pictures of cells from the
hippocampus, mitochondria showed less structural decay in old rats that
had a supplemented diet.
"We did two different tests for cognitive activity in rats, and in both
it made a big difference to feed them this mixture," Ames said. "Memory
degenerates with age, and this makes them better."
The analysis of nucleic acid damage in the brain was performed with
post-doctoral researcher Elizabeth Head and Carl W. Cotman, professor
of neurobiology and behavior, at the Institute for Brain Aging and
Dementia at UC Irvine. UC Berkeley psychology graduate student Afshin
M. Gharib worked with Liu to conduct the peak performance tests.
"In aging, you're oxidizing the proteins in mitochondria and they lose
activity," Ames explained. "If some of that lost activity is due to
binding for substrate or coenzyme - like binding of acetyl-L-carnitine
by carnitine acetyltransferase - and you can raise the level of those,
then you can reverse some of the loss.
"We showed, in fact, that that is what's happening with
acetyl-L-carnitine. Aldehydes from lipid oxidation are glomming onto
that protein, and that is what appears to cause the reduction in
binding activity. But if you raise the level of acetyl-L-carnitine, now
it works."
Hagen added, "With aging, we see so many different things that are
occurring to mitochondria that then lead to consequences in the cell.
If you tune up mitochondria you may have a means of at least delaying
the onset of a number of age-related problems that we encounter, or we
can in some ways, hopefully, reverse what has already taken place."
The work was supported by grants from the Ellison Foundation, the
National Institute on Aging of the National Institutes of Health, the
Wheeler Fund of the Dean of Biology at UC Berkeley, the Bruce and
Giovanna Ames Foundation and the National Institute of Environmental
Health Sciences Center at UC Berkeley.
------------
Drinking half a packet of ACT mixed with 1 oz of VITALAGY in 4 oz of
water gives you the combination of these nutrients! Be a mixologist
today!
Way to Go!
Wanda