A year after first publishing the online treatise Anti-Aging Firewalls – The Science And Technology Of Longevity and six months after initiating this blog, it’s a good time to ask the question “How am I doing with my anti-aging firewalls program?” First, there is the personal subjective response. Coming up on 80:
· I am experiencing high energy, good health and am feeling good about life.
· My creativity, productivity, ability to think things through and social participation are as high as ever.
· My level of activity including physical exercise remains high.
· In photos, I look about the same age as in ones taken 10-20 years ago.
· I pass my cholesterol, CRP and other annual blood tests and physical exam procedures with flying colors.
· Compared to a year ago I believe my sexual libido is a bit increased, and my eyesight a bit better and keener.
· On the other hand, my hearing has gone a bit downhill.
· There is definitely more grey hair growing on the top of my scalp now. I started balding before 50 and there were hardly any hairs left on top a year ago. At the current rate in another 18 months I will have a full head of hair again, for the first time since I was about 50.
So, on the whole I feel very good about my anti-aging program so far. Telomerase activation was one of the big changes in the last year and I think it might largely be responsible for some of the effects including improved eyesight and hair growth.
From an intellectual viewpoint, I am also satisfied about how my view of aging has been maturing. Devoting countless hours to reviewing the aging-related research literature, writing over 90 posts in this blog and generating numerous enhancements to my treatise, I have been learning a lot about the advanced sciences that are informing us about aging. And, drawing on different viewpoints I have been increasingly seeing aging from a systems perspective.
All of this is just a start though. I not only want a full head of hair; I want it to be black instead of grey. I want to look and move and hear like I did when I was 45. And there is tons more for me to learn about biochemistry, molecular biology, genetics, genomics and the other omics. And progress over the last year has sharpened my thirst for more basic breakthroughs, more understand of how the theories of aging interrelate and better anti-anti-aging interventions. Please stay tuned. There will be more.
congrats!
You are an inspiration!
Yeap . Certainly an inspiration for me too. I visit this blog quite often. I think you got a lot of silent readers here vince.
Hi Vincent, I found your site several days ago by reading Astragaloside thread on ImmInst forum. Since then I started reading your Anti-Aging firewall article, and exploring the site. Thank you for putting it all together!!!. 🙂 There is so much information and a lot to digest.
Not sure if my question about supplements is appropriate on the board 😕 I already take some of the supplements including RevGenetics resveratrol, and Astral Fruit, as well as some others. In your article you specify a multitude of supplements. Can you please share which brands of supplements you personally take, and where you get them. This would be quite helpful. Thanks!
Hi mpstat. Welcome to this blog. I try to steer clear of anything commercial but several friends have asked me the same question which clearly is of practical importance. I will pull the information together and post it on this blog in the next few days.
Thanks Vince, will be waiting for your Brands and Sources post.
Hi Vincent, You are definitely an inspiration to me (and many others) and I want to thankyou for the antiaging research you are doing. To slow down and eventually stop and reverse this disease is formost on my mind. I have taken mega doses of vitamins since the 1970’s and I added Resveratrol about four months ago and started seeing a difference in my skin. OK I’ll say it, I actually look younger. At 54, I am told I look 38-40. I love it. Do you know anything about Protandim?
Vincent: Thanks for the great words. It sounds like the same thing is foremost in both of our minds. I too started out with megavitamins back in 1970. And it is great you look younger and love it. As to Protandim, no, until now I have not heard about it.
I looked at the Protandim site and found kots of claims but no description of what is in the pills. The PDF submitted for publication, howeverm says “Protandim is an antioxidant supplement that consists of five ingredients namely, Ashwagandha, bacopa extract, green tea extract, Silymarin, and curcumin,” Three of those substances (Ashwagandha, green tea extract, and curcuminin) in high doses are parts of the Anti-Aging Firewalls regimen. I agree there is possibly a synergistic effect among phyto-derived supplements, and a number of additional ones are in the Anti-Aging Firewalls regimen, including boswellia, pine-bark extract (Pychogenol), resveratrol, curcumin, billberry extract and others. It would take a comparative controlled trial to test Protandim against other combinations.
Hi Vincent,
I was given a link to your Anti-Aging Firewalls page from imminst.org and found your blog from there.
I greatly appreciate the information in this blog and at the original website and plan to read carefully all you write about longevity. Still a beginner in this particular field (set of fields) and am currently a physics phd candidate (ABD).
You are an inspiration and I look forward to your future writings!
Hi singularityFan
Thanks for the wonderful words. It is feedback like that that keeps me going. My own PhD was in applied physics, though back then this was because computer science was not yet a recognized academic discipline. I did do a concentration in quantum physics however, which somehow seemed to rewire my brain. I plan to keep going with my longevity research, blog and treatise updating until and unless the approaching knowledge-accumulation singularity makes that impossible. As you may surmize I am myself a student. My intentions for the blog and treatise force me to keep expanding my knowledge, re-examining what I have written and ever-searching for more comprehensive ways of looking at things. So, one way to think about it is that I am a student in longevity science compiling my thesis and sharing my research notes along the way.
Hi Vincent,
My own field of study is quantum information science – a new interdisciplinary field that combines the ideas in qu. mechanics (superposition, entanglement, nonlocality, etc.) with information science for qu. communication (secure communications through qu. cryptography), qu. computation (still in its infancy, but not forbidden by nature, though severe technical problems in decoherence, disentanglement, and loss of nonlocality need to be resolved), the re-examination of the foundations of qu. mechanics, among other things.
I’m currently writing my thesis. Although I don’t plan to go the purely academic route, I’m sufficiently interested in qu. information science that I intend to balance my intended business plans with independent research – keeping informal ties to some professors and universities.
I find longevity research equally fascinating, and hopefully in a few years, after I’ve done more longevity research, I’ll be able to contribute more technical insights, both to this blog and the larger research community. As for now, my task is to absorb as much as I can and I find what you have written an excellent repository of information and you, the researcher/author, an inspirational guide.
Singularityfan:
I suspected you might be studying that. If I were to study anything besides longevity now it would probably be that. If you are interested in philosophy related to quantum physics I suggest you read another online treatise of mine called On Being and Creation at http://www.vincegiuliano.name/Being&creat4-08.htm
That document explains my personal philosophy and a non-local process of macroscopic realty creation that I believe I engage in. It looks at reality creation from the viewpoints of various interpretations of quantum theory: the Copenhagen classical view, the alternative universes and the transactional interactions interpretations. The document also desribes the “reality creation” event that led me to get into longevity research in the first place.
We could probably have a long, interesting and incredible conversation. My mind neer ceases to be non-entangled by entanglement and non-locality. And I have worked in the field of statistical communication theory at one time. Finally, as a physicist with your particular interests you might also find my science fiction story Supercollider to be fun. It is at http://vincegiuliano.com/SUPERCOLLIDERa.htm
And thanks again for your support and encouragement.
Vince
Vincent,
I will definitely check those essays out, as well as your other writings. So excited to learn from you in so many ways!
My advisor (I’m sure you can find out who he is by using my non-public e-mail address…that’s my real first.last name…with google) and his advisor are very interested in the philosophical aspects as well (how can you not be in this field?), as am I.
I hope to meet you sometime in the future, but for now, I will just absorb and learn from you. : )
Best wishes!
Singhularityfan
Thanks yet again. I will check your normal e-mail and probably correspond with you about the non-longevity stuff. How can I not be fully involved in your field? It is tough. The anti-aging work is keeping me fully involved. I still keep my hand in the philosophical stuff though, and will return to it from time to time. More, offline from this forum.
Vince
Vince, Have your markers of kidney function, treadmill etc. improved since you added the Astra fruit? Does anyone know when TA Sciences is going to publish their customers results since the already posted 2007 results? Regards
Hi Ddutton
My lipids have definitely improved some since starting Astral Fruit and the other scores have long been in normal range. I do not know how much credit goes to the Astral Fruit itself, my exercise program (47 minutes swimming, brisk walking or treadmilling every day, other substances in my firewall or whatever. All I can say is “so far, so good.”
I have no knowledge of when if ever TA Sciences will publish anything. Over a year ago they told me they would be making interim results available very shortly but nothing has happened. There was a rumor back then that telomeres of granulocytes had lengethened in a few people but no confirmation. My guess is that their customer sample size is small and the results, whatever they are, undefinitive. If they had any good results to make public,given their marketing orientation I feel quite sure they would make it public.
Vincent,
Just came across your site, and my initial impression is that it should be a great source of information for me in coping with the body changes that come withe challenges that come with aging. Incidentally, you may be interested to learn that Iat 83 I have used curcumin (about 7 mg per day) to change my hair color from light grey to the original brown.
I will be checking out your postings very carefully
C. Colenaty
Thank you, thank you. My intention for the site is that it does exactly what you say. I have been looking very hard at melanocytes and what can be done to get them active again in hair follicles – so what your curcumin us doing is very interesting to me. I have been taking about 3 gms a day, but woulld consider bumping the dose up to 7 to see if I can get the same effect you are observing. (Incidentally, you mention taking 7 mg a day which is very little. do you reallly mean 7gm?) Hope to keep in touch with you.
Vince
Vincent,
You are quite right abnut the 7 mg — a slip of the mind on my part. The correct figure is 700 mg, which is still far below the 3,500 mg needed to obtain trace amounts of curcumin in the blood. I think that part of the reason for my being able to obtain results with smaller amounts of curcumin is that I use Natural Factors, which is a mixture of curcumin, bromelain, and turmeric. My guess is that the bromelain has an anti-enzyme effect that helps in preventing the breakdown of curcumin once it is the blood, and the turmeric helps in the absorption of curcumin when it is in the small intestine. A few months ago my wife, who was completely gray haired, begain taking the Natural Factors curcumin to treat an attack of eczema, and her hair is now beginning to darken. So now I feel safe in assunming that my own results were not the consdequence of some sort of genetic condition. I feel more confortable in taking smaller amounts of curcumin since I am a bit concrned as to its effects upon colon bacteria and therefore take a probiotic most days as a countermeasure to the curcumin.
I took a look at your website today and it blew my mind! I was especially happy to see article titles having to do with adult stem cells, since I need all the information I can get on that subject in relation to my current (and so far successful) project of trying to reverse AMD by using curcumin to reactivate the adult stem cells in the maculas in my eyes.
C. Colenaty
Interesting. Those substances are now in my combined firewall but I am taking a lot more curcumin (95% curcuminoids) than you. Around 3gms a day now. I just added the bromelain a few days ago – basically for inflammation control. I don’t quite get it when you say “turmeric helps in the absorption of curcumin” since the active ingredient of the spice turmeric is in fact the curcumin. Is there something else in the raw spice that helps? I remain very interested in your observation that for your wife and possibly you that the curcumin in combination with the bromelain can possibly help darken your hair. Please keep me apprised as to your experience with this.
Vince
Hello Vincent, I was wondering if you heard about stem cells used to regenerate muscle in older people. http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/scientists-reverse-ageing-process-1795887.html
Vincent:
I report at length on the research described in the news item you mention in my latest blog post Niche, Notch and Nudge.
Vince
Thankyou, I’ll check it out.
I cannot find your protocol, especially in relation to hair growth..I am new to the imminst forum which is where I came across the anti-agingfirewalls.com blog…Could you point me to this please?
Hi James
I have discussed the topic of hair growth in a number of blog entries including
http://anti-agingfirewalls.com/2009/07/25/hair-stem-cells/
I have no specific protocol for hair regeneration although the topic interests me. I have mentioned in the blog that one consequence of taking a telomerase activator has been my completely bald pate now having a light fuzz of grey hair which is slowly growing denser.
My lifestyle and supplement “firewalls” against the known mechanisms of aging are in my treatise. See the link at the top of this blog entry.
Welcome to the blog. There are many interesting topics treated here.
Vince
Vincent, have you seen this srticle?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/7701065/Seventeen-year-old-locked-in-toddlers-body-could-unlock-key-to-ageing.html
Dear Vince,
It is thought-provoking to read your blog and I must
get down to a more thorough review of it soon. I am
pleased to read that your hair is returning. I have
been applying astragalus extract in glycerin directly to
my scalp, and am hoping to reverse both grey hair and
any thinning spots via follicle rejuvenation. In addition,
I’ve been taking telomerase activators such as astragalus extract with chitosan and radix astragali, Now Foods
IGF-1 lipospray, and have experimented somewhat with
colostrum.
I was pleased to read your remarks on resveratrol and ginko
effects on normal cells vs. cancer cells. I need to look
into this further. There are reports that high polyphenol
foods produce telomerase inhibitors when degraded by the
digestive system, so that I now eat high polyphenol foods
only during the 2nd 15 days of the month, when I take
telomerase inhibitors. I finally got around to locating a
list of high- and low- polyphenol foods and preparing a
web page of links to each food.
Thanks for a great job on concentrating on this problem
and writing it down with a blog orientation for feedback.
It is a pleasure to work with.
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