I have switched from astragaloside IV to occasional use of cycloastragenol. Astragaloside is refined from astragalus root which comes from China and cycloastragenol is a component of it derived through further refining. I purchased my supplies of both substances from RevGenetics at http://www.revgenetics.com/store/p-9-astral-fruit-telomere-dna-support-supplement.aspx They were sold under the name Astral Fruit and I still have a supply of cycloastragenol. Now the company has discontinued selling those products and is selling a third proprietary product under the Astral Fruit NF name, a product containing cycloastragenol as a component. I have not studied this product and cannot speak to the heavy metals issue or the other ingredients. There are 5mg of cycloastragenol per capsule which may or may not be enough to do anything. For several reasons, including because so many other substances in my anti-aging supplement firewall regimenlike resvertrol may inhibit telomerase expression, I am no longer so excited about taking a telomerase activator.

Vince

I doubt we would ever want to do such a radical rebooting on a whole human, however, if that were possible. I have posted a number of items on this blog related to epigenomics, and you might find them interesting if you have not seen them already.
Vince

The life history of Turritopsis dohrnii takes such twists and turns that only a new genetic analysis has revealed that the creature is invading waters worldwide, says Maria Pia Miglietta of Pennsylvania State University in University Park.

The first peculiarity of the seven species of Turritopsis had inspired biologists to describe these hydrozoans as “potentially immortal.” The adults form filmy bells reminiscent of their jellyfish relatives. When times get tough, faced with scarce food or other catastrophe, Turritopsis often don’t die. They just get young again.

Normally the organisms reproduce like grown-ups with sperm and eggs. In case of emergency, though, a bedeviled bell sinks down and the blob of tissue sticks to a surface below. There Turritopsis’ cells seem to reverse their life stage. When the blob grows again, it becomes the stalklike polyp of its youth and matures into a free-floating bell all over again. “This is equivalent to a butterfly that goes back to a caterpillar,” Miglietta says.

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LOOK ALIKE, NOTOnly its geneticist knows for sure that this hydrozoan from Florida has very similar genetic makeup to the creature with a different look, above, from Panama.Courtesy of M.P. Miglietta That’s a fine trick for surviving the strains of being swallowed in a huge gulp of water for a ship’s ballast and being hauled around the world, Miglietta says. The creatures can restart their life cycles right in the bottom of the ballast tank. Ballast water has become the major route for moving alien species from one ocean to another, and that’s probably what’s happening to T. dohrnii, Miglietta said June 21 in Minneapolis during the Evolution 2008 meeting.

DNA analysis of these reversible hydrozoans shows signs of recent travel, she said. She and colleague Harilaos Lessios of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute compared mitochondrial DNA from T. dohrnii collected off Florida and Panama with DNA sequences from around the world, analyzed and collected in previous studies. In this comparison, she found a group of very similar DNA sequences distributed from Panama to Japan, she reported. Within that lineage, 15 individuals had identical DNA in the stretch she sequenced, even though they came from Spain, Italy, Japan and the Atlantic side of Panama. To get that pattern, there’s been some fast travel going on.

Miglietta said that the DNA revealed a new peculiarity of the hydrozoan lifestyle, a sort of shape shifting that depends on where the individuals grow. Around Panama, the 259 adults she examined had eight tentacles. But in temperate waters, decades of observations have found higher, more variable numbers, such as 14 to 24 off Japan and 12 to 24 in the Mediterranean. Yet the work confirms the different forms belong to the same species.

As far as she knows now, Miglietta said, the hydrozoans aren’t disrupting the ecosystems they’re invading. But they do demonstrate how marine invasions can be difficult to understand.

That statement drew heartfelt agreement from John Darling of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s National Exposure Research Laboratory in Cincinnati. Genetics has also revealed hidden twists in a marine invasion he described at the Evolution meeting.

The Cordylophora caspia hydrozoans he studies, originally from the Ponto-Caspian region, don’t have a reversible lifestyle, but genetic differences may expand the species’ range of salt tolerance. Some colonize fresh water while others live in brackish water. Taxonomists now mostly call the invader one species regardless of water tolerance, Darling said, but his genetic analysis would support at least two species.

Thanks for the link. Interesting discussion on ALA and ALCAR on that blog. As to ALCAR dose, I have remained on the conservative side taking two 500mg doses a day I am seriously considering upping that to three doses, for a total of 1.5gm a day, each dose with 300mg of ALA.

While I see discussion on that blog relative to “Once ALA is taken, then it would block any future good thing from CR or res supplementation” and of course this would be of great concern. There was a mention of a rat experiment. However I did not see any actual research citations to back up this concern.

The study mentioned is: Clin Sci (Lond). 2008 Sep 16. [Epub ahead of print] Oral antioxidants and cardiovascular health in the exercise trained and untrained elderly: a radically different outcome. Wray DW, Uberoi A, Lawrenson L, Bailey DM, Richardson RS. That study says nothing relative to the CR/resveratrol activated pathway involving the SIR1 and FOXO genes. Can you point me to any research citation that supports your comncern? My normal habit, incidentally, is to exercise 6 hours after and 4 hours before taking antioxidants.

Here is the link in imminst

http://www.imminst.org/forum/index.php?showtopic=26055&hl=alcar+ala

This is what made me stop the alcar/ala supplement (temporarily)

Probably you might have analyzed this.

Regards

I have been following your posts in imminst and your blogs. Thanks a lot for spreading the good information.

I have a nagging question regarding ALA and ALCAR supplementation. I read somewhere in imminst that Once ALA is taken, then it would block any future good thing from CR or res supplementation. Right now I am taking ALCAR/ALA supplementation.

Can you throw some light on this?

Thanks a lot