41 replies to this topic

[Mind]

Heart shrinks with age=sucks.

I suppose the heart, just like every muscle in our body, wastes away with advancing age. According to Chris Heward's presentation at the Imminst conference athletes age at the same rate as everyone else, so exercise is not going to save us from this eventual deterioration. Even if we are successful in most SENS strands and other aging interventions we still have to deal with shrinking muscle mass - including the heart. I don't see how we will counteract this without hormone supplementation. We might be able to clean up all the junk within and old person's cells and cure all the major diseases but that will not lead to muscle regrowth...will it?

[Live Forever]

Well, if you are a grinch and learn the true meaning of Christmas, then your heart can grow..

And what happened then...?
Well...in Who-ville they say
That the Grinch's small heart
Grew three sizes that day!
And the minute his heart didn't feel quite so tight,
He whizzed with his load through the bright morning light
And he brought back the toys! And the food for the feast!
And he...

...He Himself...!
The Grinch carved the roast beast!

[eternaltraveler]

In most cases where the heart enlarges its very pathogenic, so in comparison to that shrinking is good )

Like other muscle tissue, and nerves, when heart muscle cells are lost they are not replaced.

SENS deals with this via reseeding the organ with stem cells. There are various trials underway to replace heart tissue post infarct in this manner. I imagine it could be expanded to generally replace cells in an atrophying organ.

[DukeNukem]

I would think that exercise would slow this down.

[eternaltraveler]

Heart shrinks with age=sucks.

I suppose the heart, just like every muscle in our body, wastes away with advancing age. According to Chris Heward's presentation at the Imminst conference athletes age at the same rate as everyone else, so exercise is not going to save us from this eventual deterioration. Even if we are successful in most SENS strands and other aging interventions we still have to deal with shrinking muscle mass - including the heart. I don't see how we will counteract this without hormone supplementation. We might be able to clean up all the junk within and old person's cells and cure all the major diseases but that will not lead to muscle regrowth...will it?

actually this article deals with congestive heart failure, which is marked not by shrinkage of the heart, but hypertrophy. Muscle cells themselves hypertrophy, though some are lost, and replaced by connective tissue. The heart continues to hypertrophy in a loosing battle to supply the tissues with O2, and it's contractile function continues to diminish. Depending on the type of heart failure the walls can either thicken greatly reducing the size of the lumen, or the lumen can enlarge greatly reducing the percentage of the volume that is pumped out with each contraction.

The primary causes are hypertension, and chronic lung disease for right sided failure (often due to preexisting left sided failure).

And yes duke, aerobic exercise can help prevent chronic heart failure.

[DukeNukem]

The book, Sick Girl:
http://www.amazon.co...94561070&sr=8-1

She has outlasted her predicted lifespan after heart replacement by 100%. Very soon after getting a new heart, she took up aggressive exercising habits and still continues them. Back when she got her new heart, exercise was considered dangerous for new heart patients. Not anymore.

[Luna]

Stem Cell Therapy.

[Mind]

From the article:

The Hopkins team analyzed more than a half-dozen measurements of heart structure and pumping function to assess minute changes in the hearts of 5,004 men and women, age 45 to 84, of different ethnic backgrounds and with no existing symptoms of heart disease.

Elrond, seems like they are studying regular people here.

[dimasok]

Can't the heart by regrown in size (or replaced entirely if the former method fails) using some sort of a special stem cell?

[zoolander]

ccording to Chris Heward's presentation at the Imminst conference athletes age at the same rate as everyone else, so exercise is not going to save us from this eventual deterioration.

If we are talking about the general population then the above statement is wrong. The population in general is fairly inactive. This results in disuse. Disuse of various physiological systems results in atrophy. This atrophy is common because it occurs in largely inactive population hence, it is sometimes referred to as aging. WRONG! It is not instrinsic aging at all in fact it is a disease of the environment and hence, mainly extrinsic aging. Of course we are all aging but maintaining lifelong physical fitness will mean we do not suffer from accelerated aging.

NOTE: the above mentioned study would have taken a random selection of normal society. Normal, meaning fairly inactive of course.

[eternaltraveler]

If we are talking about the general population then the above statement is wrong. The population in general is fairly inactive. This results in disuse. Disuse of various physiological systems results in atrophy. This atrophy is common because it occurs in largely inactive population hence, it is sometimes referred to as aging. WRONG! It is not instrinsic aging at all in fact it is a disease of the environment and hence, mainly extrinsic aging. Of course we are all aging but maintaining lifelong physical fitness will mean we do not suffer from accelerated aging.

NOTE: the above mentioned study would have taken a random selection of normal society. Normal, meaning fairly inactive of course.

I believe the presentation in question showed some squaring of the survival curve but no increase in maximum lifespan. Meaning those who exercise have a bit higher mean survival, and when they declined they did so much more rapidly. The primary affect of exercise was in reducing morbidity, with only modest reductions in mortality.

[dimasok]

I believe the presentation in question showed some squaring of the survival curve but no increase in maximum lifespan. Meaning those who exercise have a bit higher mean survival, and when they declined they did so much more rapidly. The primary affect of exercise was in reducing morbidity, with only modest reductions in mortality.

Then exercising is bad it appears?

[Mind]

Exercise is great, and your quality of life will be better through mid life, but it doesn't change your RATE of aging late in life (according to Heward's study, ).see powerpoint here

[eternaltraveler]

no, exercising is certainly not bad )

[Mind]

Zoo, some people at the conference were were incredulous over Heward's data. Max More brought up the obvious question as to why athletes would decline at the same rate late in life. Heward said that it was due to some critical failure with some part of the body, whether it be an organ, muscles, or joints....some sort of pain or disability prevented them from remaining healthier than the rest of the population. I think it ties in with the topic of this thread. Whether it be joint pain or a shriking heart, getting old is tough to combat. When I asked the question at the top, I was thinking short term. It seems likely that within the next 5 to 15 years that we will have some new interventions to help counteract some of the ravages of aging (Lyso-SENS type junk removal maybe). However, even if we remove junk or replace a couple of organs of an older person, that person will still have a shrunken heart, small muscles, and compressed bones. The only countermeasure I can think of is hormone therapy....in the short term.

In the long term (more than 15 years) there should be less of a problem because of new technology.

[lucid]

Calorie Restriction prevents age related muscular deterioration.
Here is a great video lecture by Russ Hepple at the Edmonton Aging Symposium.
Mechanisms by which Caloric Restriction Better Preserves Skeletal Muscle Mass & Function with Aging
As we understand more about exactly what genes the sirtuins regulate and how those genes work, hopefully therapies will come out helping slow and possibly reverse sarcopenia as we age.

He also talks in detail about how exercise in later life can help maintain muscle mass and then how eventually it is very insufficient to maintain muscular health.

Really a great lecture.

[Mind]

Thanks Lucid. The picture of the guy in the beginning sure drives home the point about how late life changes are hard to prevent (even with CR, as was discussed later). This data seems to back up Heward's research about the late life RATE of aging.

[david ellis]

  when they declined they did so much more rapidly.

This is good news, the squaring of the curve. A disappointment for immortalists, but still good news.

According to Chris Heward's presentation at the Imminst conference athletes age at the same rate as everyone else, so exercise is not going to save us from this eventual deterioration.

If we are talking about the general population then the above statement is wrong. The population in general is fairly inactive. This results in disuse. Disuse of various physiological systems results in atrophy. This atrophy is common because it occurs in largely inactive population hence, it is sometimes referred to as aging. WRONG! It is not instrinsic aging at all in fact it is a disease of the environment and hence, mainly extrinsic aging. Of course we are all aging but maintaining lifelong physical fitness will mean we do not suffer from accelerated aging.

Zoolander's point is important. Why expect athlete's to live longer if they don't continue to exercise? Decay happens from disuse, that is what extrinsic aging is.

Mind, the exercise will also activate the hormone cascade you want. So, exercise is a double plus, you get a very positive hormone cascade plus the extra strength, agility, and speed earned by training. Some people will actually be functionally younger, maybe way more than a few.

[zoolander]

I believe the presentation in question showed some squaring of the survival curve but no increase in maximum lifespan

It's not maximum lifespan that we should be taking about but rather life expectancy and exercise most definitely delays the onset of a number of aging changes. My point is that a lot of what we see in normal (fairly inactive) society is not the result of aging per se but rather the result of disuse and other extrinsic factors.

Justin if you said to me that exercising would not increase my chance of living to an age greater than 122 years i.e maximum lifespan, then I would agree however, if you said that exercising would not increase my chance of living longer i.e life expectancy, then I would have to flat out disagree. It's quite simply survival of the fittest and it's well known that someone that exercises on a regular basis is in a state of greater physical and psychological fitness compared to someone who does not.

So let's get back to the original point about the heart shrinking with age......is this the result of intrinsic aging or extrinsic aging. If it's extrinsic aging then it's controllable. If it's intrinsic aging then the rate at which it occurs is controllable.

[eternaltraveler]

Justin if you said to me that exercising would not increase my chance of living to an age greater than 122 years i.e maximum lifespan, then I would agree however, if you said that exercising would not increase my chance of living longer i.e life expectancy, then I would have to flat out disagree. It's quite simply survival of the fittest and it's well known that someone that exercises on a regular basis is in a state of greater physical and psychological fitness compared to someone who does not.

isn't that what I said when I said it squares the survival curve [wis]

[zoolander]

Exercise is great, and your quality of life will be better through mid life, but it doesn't change your RATE of aging late in life (according to Heward's study, )

The slide that you are referring in Heward's powerpoint presentation referring to no difference between sedentary males and females compared to exercising and "aging" is only talking about VO2max and not RATE of aging. Exercise most certainly has the ability to change the rate at which which biologically age. Exercise can increase the rate of aging (intense wear and tear scenario) as well as decrease the rate of aging (preserve integrity of organ systems and organelles such as muscle and mitochondria).

[zoolander]

I read that incorrectly. Forgive me Justin I'm currently on night shift. Take my response then as an extension on what you said

[eternaltraveler]

Exercise most certainly has the ability to change the rate at which which biologically age. Exercise can increase the rate of aging (intense wear and tear scenario) as well as decrease the rate of aging (preserve integrity of organ systems and organelles such as muscle and mitochondria).

I suspect that exercise may reduce maximum lifespan while increasing average lifespan for the reasons you give here.

[eternaltraveler]

I'm going to talk to the supercentenarian research foundation guys and see if they think my suspicions have any merit. Until then ignore them.

[maestro949]

I think the jury's still out as to the molecular causes as to why the heart shrinks, declines in function and eventually fails but it's likely to be a multivariate answer that lives within the machinery of DNA regulation and the loss of the heart cells' innate ability to heal themselves and recruit stem cell replacements over time. Fixing the minute damage will likely require a much more sophisticated understanding of these processes. Simply removing damage through biodegrading amyloid fibrils might restore some of the plasticity and function of aged heart cells but doing so may not fully heal the more extensive damage that likely permeates the cells' network of functionality. This looks like a good book that might provide the state of the art research into the molecular basis of cardiovascular aging:

Aging and the Heart: A Post-Genomic View

With all of the physiological functions performed within heart cells and it's mechanical nature, it might be easier to simply invest more effort in building a better artificial heart rather than attempting to fix all of it's damage. The longest lived person with an artificial heart is now 7 years. There's no reason these couldn't be improved to keep blood pumping efficiently for 50+ years. I bet they will continuously improve to a point where they are simply better than the evolutionary model.

[missminni]

Wouldn't resveratrol help keep the heart from shrinking?
It appears to affect muscle positively with increased strength and flexibility, from reports of those taking it,
and since the heart is a muscle, maybe it would be helpful in that respect.
I would think regular aerobic exercise would keep the heart from shrinking as well. Doesn't mature muscle
that is regularly exercised keep it's size and in fact grow? I've always heard it does. Why would the heart be different?
I think with regular weight bearing exercise, aerobics, and supplements, one could keep muscle mass and bones
from shrinking. I know that at my age I am expected to have bone loss, but I have none and I have worked out with weight
most of my adult life and still do. Maybe the people in the study didn't continue to exercise as they got older.
Even athletes get lazy.

[maxwatt]

Sarcopenia is a major problem for aging, and it seems to apply to heart muscle as well. As I understand it in muscle cells, some mitochondria become defective, producng little energy, and perhaps excessive ROS. The nucleus sensing decreased energy production signalsthe mitochondria to divide, but the defective mitochondria reproduce as fast or faster than the good ones. From there is is a downhill spiral; muscle cells reach a critical point, too many defective mtochondria, and become non-functional or dir.

If this is the mechanism, anything to repair mitochondria would help. A few years ago it was roposed to transplant avian mitochondria into mammalian cells; avian mitochondria are superior. (For that matter West African mitochondria are superior to Caucasian and Asian mitochondria in terms of energy production.) This doesn't work, as the number and specific mitochondrial genes hat are encoded in mammal and avian muclei are different.

Regeneratin muscles from stem cells is still a long way in the future.

Ames proposed the use of acetyl-l-carnitin and lipoic acid to slow or reverse this mitochondrial decline, and the use of creatine in one article I saw. I believe this as shown limited effectiveness. No one has replicated his studies' results that I know of.

Resveratrol is supposed to improve the number, size and efficiency of mitochondria; witness the humungous threads generated in the supplements forums since the Awerx paper last year sowing this result in mice. Some of the anecdotal reports from people using this supplement suggest that it is helpful this way. Until mitochondrial implants are possible, it may be the best option.

[solbanger]

Heart shrinks with age=sucks.

I suppose the heart, just like every muscle in our body, wastes away with advancing age. According to Chris Heward's presentation at the Imminst conference athletes age at the same rate as everyone else, so exercise is not going to save us from this eventual deterioration. Even if we are successful in most SENS strands and other aging interventions we still have to deal with shrinking muscle mass - including the heart. I don't see how we will counteract this without hormone supplementation. We might be able to clean up all the junk within and old person's cells and cure all the major diseases but that will not lead to muscle regrowth...will it?

The whole idea with nanotechnology is to replace the heart altogether. By the time we have the hive nano that is able to clean cell waste on a cell by cell basis I think we could easily patch in the deteriorated holes with synthetic muscle mass. In fact I believe that reenforcing muscle is probably easier than attempting to vacuum out waste found next to mitochondria.

Kurzweil suspected that tiny oxygenator devices could swim through the body to deliver nutrients, as well as nearly replacing the need to breathe. That's the basis for making the heart obsolete, save for romantic purposes which we all agree is the most important reason of all to keep it.

Edited by solbanger, 10 January 2008 - 06:23 PM.

[tham]

Heart shrinks with age=sucks.

I suppose the heart, just like every muscle in our body, wastes away with advancing age. According to Chris Heward's presentation at the Imminst conference athletes age at the same rate as everyone else, so exercise is not going to save us from this eventual deterioration. Even if we are successful in most SENS strands and other aging interventions we still have to deal with shrinking muscle mass - including the heart. I don't see how we will counteract this without hormone supplementation. We might be able to clean up all the junk within and old person's cells and cure all the major diseases but that will not lead to muscle regrowth...will it?

Live cell therapy, popular in Switzerland and Mexico, might
well help to ward off such degeneration, or rather the heart's
enlargement (dilated/hypertrophic cardiomyopathy, as in my
father's case). One or two doctors here in Malaysia gives it,
but at M$15,000 per treatment.

Failing that, glandular therapy is the closest thing one could try :

http://www.betterlif...sp?prod_id=3260

[VictorBjoerk]

Does there exist any current therapy that old people get to increase heart size?