If I Could Save Time In A Bottle: MIT Researcher Claims To Have Hit Upon Formula For Fountain Of Youth–In Pill Form
Aging and youth have long been the bugaboo of humankind. It seems like almost since the first moment we could feel secure in our ability to generally feed ourselves and protect ourselves from predators, we have sought the secret to a longer–if not eternal–life.
This obsession is reflected in the bulk of religious belief, after all; the stark raving terror that that lifeless body lying on the slab at the end of life Might Be All There Is and the hope that it is not the end is a common thread.
From macabre stories of wealthy society matrons in the 18th century bathing in the blood of the innocent in an attempt to restore their youthful looks, to modern day celebrities injecting their faces with blood, to of course Ponce de Leon’s famous search for the Fountain of Youth, humans have long sought a magic bullet to give us eternal youth and life.
But now a researcher at MIT thinks he has hit on the real deal.
Leonard Guarente, head of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Aging and one of the early pioneers in the study of aging science is the brains behind the anti-aging product Basis, which, although it doesn’t involve any blood baths or “vampire facials,” is based on something red and familiar to most of us: wine.
One of the main ingredients in Basis is pterostilbene, which is considered a more powerful version of resveratrol, with a more convincing track record than its better known cousin in the lab for its antioxidant properties.
The mechanism for Basis is reversing mitochondrial decay in our cells. As the engine of our cells, mitochondria are vital to our health and well-being, and it is believed their decay is linked to aging. While we don’t understand fully what it is about mitochondrial decay that leads to aging, it is believed that it leads to everything from heart failure to neurodegeneration–two of the biggies when it comes to battling aging.
But what Basis purports to do is to reverse that decay by increasing cellular levels of a molecule called NAD, or nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide. In a 2013 paper, one study found that elderly mice injected with NAD for just one week showed muscle loss reversal.
While sales of Basis no doubt continue to be robust–we are an obsessive lot, we humans, and let’s face it: we love ourselves more than anything in the world–further studies detailing the effects of supplementing the diet with NAD have yet to be done.
Perhaps Dr. Guarente is onto something. As long as it doesn’t require us to bathe in the blood of a virgin, sounds like it might be wroth looking into.
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http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/08/is-elysium-healths-basis-the-fountain-of-youth.html