First of all, today I updated the discussion related to the Telomere Shortening and Damage theory of aging. The treatise now has a more comprehensive and up-to-date discussion of the topic with more literature citations. Not a lot new is included for regular readers of this blog, however.
Second, a personal item. Since switching to the 100mg dose of astragaloside IV a couple of months ago I have reported continuing to experience wellbeing and more and more hairs appearing on my previously-bald scalp. Yesterday I found out another thing. A biopsy report indicated that a rapidly-growing growth removed from my armpit was a basal-cell carcinoma. I had had a couple of such small carcinomas removed some 5 years ago but they stopped developing then when I increased my resveratrol, curcumin and aswagandha supplements to their current levels. The growth was easily removed and in no-way was life-threatening. However, I found out that my current “firewall against cancers” is not now bulletproof.
One possibility is that the skin cancer development was correlated with the increased dosage of astragaloside IV. As you may have noted in my recent post On Cancer Stem Cells, more and more researchers are looking to cancer stem cells as being the key targets for anti-cancer therapy rather than mature cancer cells. Enhanced expression of telomerase, as I have pointed out, increases differentiation and proliferation of normal stem cells through a pathway independent of telomere extension. There are hints in the research literature that telomerase activation may be doing the same for cancer stem cells. I will be seeing what I can turn up in the research literature relevant to this. And I may suggest shifts in my anti-cancer firewall regimen for people taking telomerase activators.
