18 replies to this topic

[Iporuru]

http://www.tribune24...ageing-process/

Has anyone heard about this man before (in the context of stem cell research)?

Edited by Iporuru, 07 March 2014 - 12:46 PM.

[Turnbuckle]

BILLIONAIRE fashion designer and Bahamas resident Peter Nygard says he is getting younger - after he reversed the ageing process using stem cells.

He was born in '43 and looks it. So if he's actually benefited, he ought to provide some data.

[Mind]

His outward appearance still looks kind-of "old' in that picture. It would be nice to see what he looked like before he started the stem cell treatment.

Whether he is truly getting younger or not, I am thrilled to see "risky" research being done somewhere in the world, and he is personally taking the risk. Hopefully we will all benefit by the knowledge gained from his experiment.

[BobSeitz]

I think Mr. Nygard deserves our appreciation for sharing his good news with the world. In doing so, I suspect that by now, he's drawing fire from trolls and ankle-biters, not to mention those with a pro-aging agenda. ("Never let a good deed go unpunished.") There's nothing that says that he or any other man or woman who manages to slow, halt, or reverse degenerative aging has to tell the rest of us about it. We're just lucky if he/she does.
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There's another aspect of anti-aging research that I think might have stayed the hands of various billionaires: anti-aging research hasn't been considered "cool". (I know I'm far from the first to point this out. Dave Kekich has written about it for one.) The movers and shakers whom Paul Krugman dubs the "Very Serious People" have entertained (I think) attitudes ranging from amused skepticism to outright hostility over presumed problems with radical life extension ranging from funding unexpectedly extended retirements to over-population. I wonder what kind of response Mr. Nygard is getting as a reward for his announcement? Are other billionaires watching to see what kind of treatment he gets?
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I should think that if we want people of exceptional means to fund radical life extension research and to let the rest of us know the results of their investigations, it behooves us to be more than appreciative when they publicly share their findings.

[Brett Black]

Here is a fascinating short video on Peter Nygard's attempt to reverse aging with stem cells:

Apparently, he went to the Bahamas because it was there that he was able to help get the legislation passed that was necessary for the embryonic stem cell work done on him.

(For those interested, there are some "before and after" images in the video just after 8:00.)

Edited by Brett Black, 08 March 2014 - 04:56 AM.

[beatsme]

(For those interested, there are some "before and after" images in the video just after 8:00.)

Hard to say if the stem cells are responsible. It just looks like he got fit.

[BobSeitz]

Brett Black and Postscarce, after reading your posts, I'm wondering if Mr. Nygard's "aging reversal" might possibly be a partial result of his becoming physically fit along with, maybe, dietary and other lifestyle changes. I've been reviewing the literature dealing with ing all-cause mortality as a function of exercise, diet, and meditation. In their review of lifestyle factors and risk, Oxford University concludes that the members of the lowest-risk groups have 1/5th to 1/10th the risk of dying as do the members of their highest-risk groups.

Similarly,
"A study in this month’s Journal of the American Geriatrics Society finds that women in their 70s who live in senior citizen communities may still be able to improve the length of their years with an exercise and healthy eating plan. The researchers studied the exercise and eating habits of 713 women, aged 70 to 79, as part of the Women’s Health and Aging Studies.
They found that women with both the highest level of physical fitness, as measured by survey responses, and the highest consumption of fruits and vegetables (measured via a blood test) were eight times less likely to die than the women who performed the worst in both of these categories." (copied from Aging in Motion)

David Kekich, in his book, "Smart, Strong, and Sexy at 100", has referred to the 15-or-more-year improvements in biomarkers that normally deteriorate monotonically with age that occur for those who follow the program set forth in his (free, downloadable) book.

I'm wondering how much of Mr. Nygard's improvements in health-related biomarkers are a consequence of his fitness program and how much are a result of his having undergone more stem cell treatment "than any other man on the planet".
Mr. Nygard is funding a $52,000,000 stem cell institute on Grand Bahama Island, with plans to open other branches in various parts of the world. His alleged aging reversal through stem cell technology could help draw affluent customers to his stem cell institutes. But "life is real and life is earnest... ". When Mr. Nygard echoes Bill Andrew's mantra that he'll conquer aging or die trying, he's speaking the truth. It would be a lot better to be among the first to reverse aging than to die the richest man in the graveyard.

Of course, I sincerely hope that his pioneering stem cell treatments are the driving force behind his aging reversal.

It should be interesting to see how this plays out. (I'm keeping my fingers crossed.)

[nowayout]

(For those interested, there are some "before and after" images in the video just after 8:00.)

Hard to say if the stem cells are responsible. It just looks like he got fit.

Yes, and almost certainly got on testosterone replacement.

[Luminosity]

There are other measures of aging than looks like mobility, being pain-free, disease free, being lucid, having good digestion, etc. Maybe he improved in some ways. He looks good for his age, and he looks vital. Generally it looks like stem cells might work out.

If someone can lift out the before and after images, that would be great.

[beatsme]

If someone can lift out the before and after images, that would be great.

[niner]

I watched the video, and I have to say... wow. It makes him sound like some kind of Euro-fashion cult leader, with all the "save the world" talk. Pretty weird. It would be great to see some hard data. If there was anything impressive, I'd think he'd put it out there, which makes me think that it's mostly pre- and post- TRT, with a Vogue-ish voiceover and various bits of disco music. I do like the fact that he's built this center in the Bahamas, (conveniently close to the US baby-boomer market) and gotten the Bahamians to legalize SCNT. If it really works, that is super great, but I don't think we know it works yet.

[Luminosity]

Thanks postcarce

[jakeb]

Absolutely fascinating. That video was really cringeworthy and the product of a insanely huge ego. But, I appreciate that there are billionaires willing to throw caution to the wind and go all-in on this kind of thing. 

[resveratrol_guy]

This website appears to be for Nygard Biotech, which looks like it's under development in order to support his SCNT business model. At the moment, the only scientifically established capability of SCNT cell injections is that they enhance one's marketing prowess. This is rather unfortunate, because it casts a pseudoscientific pallor on his uncontrolled but potentially breakthrough self-experimentation and the startup therapy center behind it. But at least, despite the pleuripotency, Nygard has survived more than 4 years with no obvious sign of cancer and at least outward evidence of excellent health for his age. (This is highly significant in itself, especially at his age, and considering the reports of teratomas with other pleuripotent therapies. All in all, it just skews the likely clinical significance in the positive direction.) And just because it's a pseudoscientific Edisonian endeavor doesn't mean it's false; after all, quality scientific "proof" really just comes down to the relative narrowness of various statistical distributions.

 

It's encouraging that this thread suggests that SCNT may be the most promising means by which to accomplish tissue rejuvenation, in the sense of avoiding erroneous DNA methylation which one's "normal" cells have accrued over time.

 

It seems that the next step in SCNT would be error correction: Instead of just injecting one's chromosomes into a denucleated donor cell, why not fully sequence one's genome first, using statistics to identify and correct erroneous nucleotides (and perhaps undesirable epigenetic methylations as well), then use a PCR "DNA printer" to manufacture an effectively embryonic copy, which only then would be inserted into the donor cell? I know PCR is a very slow process, so perhaps many parallel machines or some better printing technology would be required for practical applications. But I don't see any fundamental technological barriers to doing so.

 

[Mind]

Absolutely fascinating. That video was really cringeworthy and the product of a insanely huge ego. But, I appreciate that there are billionaires willing to throw caution to the wind and go all-in on this kind of thing. 

 

More on the possible "insanely huge ego": http://www.forbes.co...-to-no-one.html

[resveratrol_guy]

Nygard Biotech's site confirmed as of 12/29/2014 that the $100M facility will indeed be built in 2015. In the interim, the website has introduced a convenient stem cell news feed, which actually involves some news of failures and isn't all sunshine BS. (I suspect they just hooked up an RSS feed from Science Daily etc. to improve their stem cell search ranking.) While Nygard's personal story would great material for People magazine, the important point here is that the general public is soon to have access to SCNT. And if his history in the fashion business is any clue, it's likely to be moderately priced.

[jakeb]

That video is bananas. Seriously. It was made by him, but still makes him look like a complete nutjob. 

 

That said, just because he's a guy who doesn't have a good grasp on how he comes across, doesn't mean that this all might do some good. He's put a lot of money into "convincing" Bahamas to set up the right legal framework and is now apparently willing to spend billions on research. The question is whether there are enough good researchers in the world who will consider the benefits of ample funding and freedom outweighing the downside of signing up with an organization with a "nutty" reputation rather than a more prestigious university, government, or mainstream biotech company. 

Edited by jakeb, 02 May 2015 - 11:52 PM.

[John Schloendorn]

despite the pleuripotency, Nygard has survived more than 4 years with no obvious sign of cancer

 

I can't imagine they would have injected him with real, live SCNT-ESC.  You have to just wave these cells in the general direction of a matched animal, and it gets a giant tumor.  They're unbelievably infectious.  Thankfully, anyone with the skill to actually handle these kinds of cells and keep them undifferentiated knows that.  They wouldn't be up for it.  The intention of SCNT research is to figure out later how to make them into a differentiated product that has known therapeutic value, such as blood or bone marrow, or replacement organs.  But nobody has that part down yet. 

 

So when they're injecting him with "stem cells", those are almost certainly an adult / mesenchymal / adipocyte preparation that does not engraft permanently, is nowadays well known to be inefficacious, and would have been called a "plain old cell" 10 years ago.  (Before "scientists" figured out that by re-naming random other cells into "stem cells" they can fool billionaires and governments into funding them.)

 

But that's OK.  You win some, you lose some.  It appears that he did figure the SCNT thing out, and that deserves praise.  It could have been done 10 years earlier.  None of the old guard wanna-be immortality billionaires could fathom it's worthwhile.  This is no accident.  It would be too unlikely to find it by accident.  It's more likely that Nygard is capable of original technical thought.  That's incredibly good news ;-P 

[alc]

" But nobody has that part down yet. "

 

I'm no specialist  in this field, but I saw this from Salk Institute, is this pushing forward?

 

Scientists stumble across unknown stem-cell type

http://www.nature.co...ll-type-1.17496