Just to recap on some facts:
UCLA Study by Rita Effros used TAT2 provided by Geron which is Cycloastragenol (CAS Registry no. 84605-18-5):
http://www.natap.org...V/060209_01.htm
Dr. Valenzuela verifies cycloastragenol based telomerase by using material provided by RevGenetics:
http://www.jimmunol....Abstracts/90.30
Transient Telomerase is not an Ocogene, from Calvin Harley (Geron):
http://www.nature.co...l/1205076a.html
Transient telomerase in wound healing:
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/11983007
Other Items:
TA Sciences does NOT appear to do small molecule research to discover new materials like Sierra Sciences or Geron, they only appear to license materials for dietary supplements sold through doctor's offices.
TA Sciences does not confirm TA-65 to be the same as TAT2 from Geron.
TA Sciences TA-65 is tested by an independent lab, and is found to contain cyloastrgenol.
RevGenetics confirms Astral Fruit's RGTA complex to use the same material as TAT2 that UCLA tested from Geron (which is called Cycloastragenol and naturally found in Astragalus in very low quantities.)
RevGenetics confirms 150mg or more of Cycloastragenol in each bottle of Astral Fruit.
RevGenetics confirms the addition of two more telomerase support ingredients in Astral Fruit-NF, other than cycloastragenol, in the proprietary RGTA complex.
RevGenetics confirms the addition of two ingredients for increased absorption in Astra Fruit-NF, in the proprietary RGTA complex.
I Hope this helps
A
Telomerase is an enzyme found in a cell and this enzyme has control over the DNA of the cell, to be more specific, it has control over the lifespan of that DNA. At the 'end-cap' region of DNA, there is a structure called Telomere. And whenever the cell divides(replicates), the telomere shortens. And when there is no more telomere left, the cell can't divide any longer and eventually die. Picture a cutter knife. You can renew the knife by snapping off the end of the blade, but only a preset number of times. Telomere works like that.
Ok. so now how do you keep the cell alive forever? - By keeping the telomere from getting short. right? And indeed there is an enzyme that re-lengthens the telomere. It is called Telomerase enzyme or in short, Telomerase. 2009 Nobel Prize in Medicine was awarded to the discoverer of this enzyme. But unfortunately Telomerase enzyme also, is set to deplete and when Telomerase enzyme is no more, telomere keeps getting short and the cell dies.
But there are a couple of substances called Telomerase activator. It is a bit of a misnomer, it should be called Telomerase re-activator. But anyway as its name suggests, it (re) activates or replenishes Telomerase enzyme, which translates into a never-ending telomere hence an immortal cell. This is all the buzz is about.
Easy right?
but unfornately nothing in life(pun intended) is that simple.
As is always the case with most "discoveries", the mother nature already had cells that have been doing this on their own for millenia. They are known as cancer. And cancer cells are the one and only self - Telomerase activating cells found in nature.
Please read on, as you will see what the Telomerase-discovering Nobel Prize winner think about all this.
http://www.hopkinsme...mn/w01/top.htmlIn this article,
"More than 90 percent of cancer cells do reactivate their telomerase."
Now the author of the above 2001 article, Carol W. Greider, is the winner of Nobel Prize in Medicine in 2009, the very Telomerase-discoverer. If you allow me to digress a bit, she is also the one who created mice that are genetically devoid of telomerase enzyme.
"By early 1996, she had created a mouse model in which she genetically“knocked out”the telomerase enzyme. The mouse showed no adverse effects."
"“Her mice that lack telomerase are viable and normal for several generations, and there’s evidence that this lack of telomerase is detrimental to cancer cells. This has turned into a kind of Holy Grail for cancer therapy.”"
Now most of the forum users must have heard the "Harvard scientists created immortal mice" news.
Here is one article, "Harvard scientists reverse the ageing process in mice – now for humans"
http://www.guardian....ing-mice-humansNow for humans? Like mice news wasn't sexy enough.
But if you read it carefully, you will learn that the mice they have used are the telomerase-lacking mice created by the Nobel Laureate Carol W. Greider, not normal mice. Simply put, this experiment bears little relevance to normal mice, much less to human. Spelled out cleary in the article are:
"Raising levels of telomerase in people might slow the ageing process, but it makes the risk of cancer soar."
"Furthermore, there is the ever-present anxiety that telomerase reactivation is a hallmark of most human cancers."
Amazing how journalistic hoopla gets you totally confused.
What we should learn from this is that, it was Carol W. Greider's achievement of identifying the telomerase enzyme and her subsequent work with it that won her the Nobel Prize, but it was not the potential role of telomerase for longevity/immortality that won her the Nobel Prize, and if anything, her entire lifework with telomerase is focused on DE-activating telomerase in order to cure cancer, as is clearly expressed in her article.
More words from the article,
http://www.hopkinsme...mn/w01/top.html"By the mid-’90s, Greider had begun thinking about cancer cells—they divide far more often than average cells. If the telomeres in cancer cells shortened with each division, as they do in other cells, cancerous cells should die in the same way. But they don’t. Greider and Harley hypothesized that telomerase might somehow be reactivated in cancer cells, allowing them to go on lengthening their telomeres and dividing indefinitely. The two researchers began to imagine a treatment for cancer in which telomerase could be inhibited long enough to wipe out the telomeres in the malignant cells. This would trigger death in the cancer cells but not in normal ones with their longer telomeres. No one took the idea seriously...."
Now, a world renowned scientist like Ms. Carol W. Greider could have profited billions with the slightest hinting of a possible connection between telomerase activation and longevity but she didn't and never will since she knows in heart that it just isn't true, on the contrary what she realised and won nobel prize for was a profound connection between telemerase activation and occurance of over 90 percent of cancer. The Nobel comittee saw her work as a great potential for cancer cure, but not for longevity. What happened and is happening is that, "Nobel Prize was given to Telomerase enzyme discoverer!" has got distorted to "Telomerase keeps cells alive so it must expand lifespan!" and running rampant, misguiding the uninformed and confused mass, as clearly stated in her article,
http://www.hopkinsme...mn/w01/top.html"“Don’t believe it!” Greider yells. “If you put telomerase back in normal cells in culture, you can extend the lifespan of the cells, but extending cell life has nothing to do with the lifespan of an organism.”Her voice gets faster as she talks. “Journalists don’t call me as much anymore. I think they’re tired of hearing me say, ‘Look guys, the aging thing is not that big a deal.’ On the cancer side I still say there’s great hope for treatments, but telomerase is definitely not going to change human longevity.”"
Now when someone shows a "study" that guarantees the safety of some substance/product, you first need to check if the study has been peer-reviewed. This ensures the study has undergone thorough scrutiny. Now there are a couple of studies that tell you Telomerase activators will not give you cancer, but up to this moment to my knowledge, none of these studies are peer-reviewed, not to mention none of these studies were conducted on human, except one, the TA-65 study on volunteering humans, which unfortunately is not peer-reviewed. On the other hand there are plenty of peer-reviewed, PubMed published studies that link deactivating telomerase and curing cancer.
I'll tell you one story. There is a new antibiotic on the block. It is called Ketek. And obviously for any new drug to earn FDA's approval, the drug has to undergo strict clinical trials, Ketek was no exception. And only after Ketek received pass notice from FDA, unearthed a fraud on a clinical trial study on 24,000 patients. The doctor who faked the study result is now serving 57-month sentence in federal prison. Note that this happened only 4 years ago, also note that it was no other than the pharmaceutical giant Sanofi-Aventis, this doctor was conducting the clinical trials for. Enough said why you should be vigilant with any studies, let alone those that did not go through the peer-review process.
When the smoke clears, Two facts remain;
More than 90 percent of cancer cells activate their telomerase and these cancer cells are the only existing 'Telomerase - activating' cells found in nature.
No one in the world can guarantee you that you won't get cancer when you intake Telomerase activator.
Examples of good studies that link elimination of telomerase enzyme and curing cancer.
Telomerase in cancer diagnosis and therapy: a clinical perspective.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/18031190Strategies Targeting Telomerase Inhibition.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....les/PMC2628964/Telomerase in cancer and aging.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/11796230Treatment of bladder cancer cells in vitro and in vivo with 2-5A antisense telomerase RNA.
http://www.ncbi.nlm....pubmed/11320413
Edited by jettax, 19 March 2011 - 03:18 AM.