612 replies to this topic

[resveratrol_guy]

I think I know who knows the eye drop answer: Pietro Calissano, president of EBRI. "Every day, she takes NGF in the form of eye drops". I would call them myself, but considering that we may only have one shot at this before they get annoyed or freak out for whatever reason, we need someone who can discuss such matters competently in Italian. Any takers?

I went back and searched this study that playground posted above and of which RLM was among the authors. Buried in with the rat data is the following: "Effects of Topical NGF in Patients with Glaucoma. All 3 patients treated with 200ug/mL NGF showed improvements in psychofunctional and electrofunctional parameters after 3 months of treatment." This tells us (1) we're not wasting our time mistaking a glaucoma treatment for a structural nootropic and (2) we have some reason to suspect that this is close to RLM's personal concentration, because she probably would not have subject these patients to concentrations far beyond what had been established as safe in her own mind, and furthermore it seems unlikely for practical reasons that more than a few drops would have comprised a single dose.

Yeah I agree completely that human NGF is the way to go. It's not clear which version RLM was using because Calissano's comment appears to have been recent. Even though the discovery of NGF was published in 1979, she did not necessarily start dosing immediately. So 36 years would be the upper bound.

As to the radiotagged NGF data ("third"): if it were radiotagged, then the migration over 2 hours was surely the original NGF dripped into the eyes, not induced NGF (which would not have been radiotagged). It would make no sense to design an experiment wherein one went to the trouble of radiotagging NGF, only to measure "any old" NGF after the fact. So diffusion is happening, fat molecule or not.

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 02 June 2015 - 12:09 PM.

[playground]

As to the radiotagged NGF data ("third"): if it were radiotagged, then the migration over 2 hours was surely the original NGF dripped into the eyes, not induced NGF (which would not have been radiotagged). It would make no sense to design an experiment wherein one went to the trouble of radiotagging NGF, only to measure "any old" NGF after the fact. So diffusion is happening, fat molecule or not.

 

Brilliant ! 

Well done for noticing that RG.

You're absolutely right... the NGF must have diffused.

 

Playground.

 

[playground]

Yeah I agree completely that human NGF is the way to go. It's not clear which version RLM was using because Calissano's comment appears to have been recent. Even though the discovery of NGF was published in 1979, she did not necessarily start dosing immediately. So 36 years would be the upper bound.
 

 

Hi RG,

 

I think there are good reasons for believing that
'our Rita' was working on NGF prior to 1975.

There are two lines of evidence for this.
1.  The patent (as supplied by Metagene)
2.  A 2011 review of NGF by A. Aloe.

1. The patent:

"NGF was discovered by Prof Rita Levi-Montalcini, in the Zoology Institute of
Washington University of St. Louis (Levi-Montalcini R., Harvey Lect., 60:217, 1966)"

 

source: http://www.google.co...nts/EP1948217B1

and in the same patent it states:

"The biochemical properties of murine NGF have been described,
in particular, in a work dating back to 1968
(Levi-Montalcini R. & Angeletti P.U., Physiological Reviews, 48:534, 1968)"

 

2. A 2011 NGF Review Paper
 

"Using in vitro analysis, she
studied the effect of this extract on isolated sensory
and sympathetic nerve cells and clearly demonstrated
the direct stimulating action effect of the tumor
extract on neurite outgrowth and named initially this
yet unknown molecule nerve growth-stimulating
factor, later termed NGF (Levi-Montalcini and
Hamburger, 1951; Levi-Montalcini, 1952; Levi-
Montalcini and Booker, 1960;.."

That appears in the introduction to:
Rita Levi-Montalcini and the discovery of NGF,
the first nerve cell growth factor.  by A. Aloe
Archives Italiennes de Biologie, 149: 175-181, 2011.

My conclusion is:
There are good reasons for thinking our Rita has plenty
of experience of NGF prior to 1975, actually, as far back as the 1950's
 

And she must have had plenty of access to NGF by 1975.

But.. what i can't yet support, is my belief that she was using
the eye drops for 40 years.  It's just a memory of something i
read a few years ago, and i have so far been unable to find the
original source.  Perhaps i'll run into that article again in due time.

Playground.
 

Edited by playground, 02 June 2015 - 05:47 PM.

[Metagene]

Thanks for the summary Playground.

[resveratrol_guy]

 

But.. what i can't yet support, is my belief that she was using
the eye drops for 40 years.  It's just a memory of something i
read a few years ago, and i have so far been unable to find the
original source.  Perhaps i'll run into that article again in due time.

Playground.
 

 

 

Yes, "4 decades" is my personal recollection as well. You make a strong case for the reality of that, although of course we have no clue as to how her dose varied over time. I'm working right now on getting a suitable Italian speaker to help us gently convince EBRI that they should talk to us about this eye drop issue with our Rita. (Naturally, they may fear lawsuits etc. from the equivalent of the FDA over there, so we have to tread very softly.) I have email outstanding and will report back here when I make progress. I will not wait too long on any one person to reply. There is simply too much at stake for too many people, to remain ignorant of the only longterm human data we have.

[Asor]

I think I know who knows the eye drop answer: Pietro Calissano, president of EBRI. "Every day, she takes NGF in the form of eye drops". I would call them myself, but considering that we may only have one shot at this before they get annoyed or freak out for whatever reason, we need someone who can discuss such matters competently in Italian. Any takers?

 

Well i'm Italian, born and raised, still living in Italy...im happy if i can help.

I havent read the thread yet, will do it tomorrow, my eyes are very tired but i just seen the alert about a personal message and i answered before going to sleep.

 

Let me know how i can help.

[playground]

Welcome Asor,

 

Your help will be very much appreciated

I expect Resveratrol_Guy will be in touch with you.

Sleep well.

 

Playground.

 

Addendum:

 

I notice that Rita has a facebook page, perhaps she makes mention of her

daily NGF eye-drop routine there?  Perhaps she fielded questions about it

from her FB friends?.... of-course, most of it is in Italian

 

https://www.facebook...aLeviMontalcini

Edited by playground, 02 June 2015 - 10:28 PM.

[resveratrol_guy]

 

I think I know who knows the eye drop answer: Pietro Calissano, president of EBRI. "Every day, she takes NGF in the form of eye drops". I would call them myself, but considering that we may only have one shot at this before they get annoyed or freak out for whatever reason, we need someone who can discuss such matters competently in Italian. Any takers?

 

Well i'm Italian, born and raised, still living in Italy...im happy if i can help.

I havent read the thread yet, will do it tomorrow, my eyes are very tired but i just seen the alert about a personal message and i answered before going to sleep.

 

Let me know how i can help.

 

 

Welcome, Asor! I invited you here because (1) you evidentally speak fluent Italian, (2) I could see from your last login date that you are active here, and (3) based on your posts, you have your own personal reasons to care about how we might enhance brain power using NGF or similar compounds. I think you are a prime candidate for the job.

So first of all, to echo Playground, thank you for volunteering.

Allow me to enumerate the help that we currently require. Anyone who has different ideas or opinions is encouraged to speak up. After waiting a day or two in order for feedback to occur, it will be up to you.

Brief Summary

Rita Levi-Montalcini is the codiscoverer of neurve growth factor (NGF), for which she won the Nobel Prize in the 1980s. Until her last days, she served as president of the Eurpean Brain Research Institute (http://ebri.it) in Italy. Presently, that role belongs to Pietro Calissano.

Based on Calissano's testimony, we know that our Rita administered NGF eye drops to herself for a long period of time. Even at age 100, she was extremely smart. I do not think these facts are unrelated.

The Problem

We do not know the details of our Rita's dosing regimen. Lives might literally be saved, or dementia averted, if we did.

Any of us could easily call EBRI and ask to talk to Mr. Calissano about this matter. But I'm confident that, compared to everyone else here, you are the most qualified in terms of language and proper telephone manners in Italian. This is not a small consideration because, literally, Mr. Calissano may be the only person on the planet who knows the history of the eye drops. If for any reason he might suspect that someone is trying to steal his research secrets, draw his institute into a lawsuit, or otherwise make trouble, then we might lose the results of the single most informative longterm trial of NGF dosing in history. To the contrary, I think that his institute's work is of utmost interest to all of us. We could also write an email, but email is so easy to ignore or misinterpret. This deserves a phone call. (Their number appears at the bottom of the front page.) No doubt, at best, you will have to call a few times in order to contact him or a competent assistant. And probably the first thing that he will tell you is that he cannot give medical advice. He may also say that NGF is not an approved drug. We all know that here. We are not looking for doctors to sue.

Specific Questions

1. What dosing schedule did our Rita follow? For example, what time(s) of day did she use them? Did she use them every day, or skip some days?

2. What was the concentration of the NGF eye drops which she used? For example, 100 or 200 micrograms per milliliter seems to be popular. Please confirm the details here. "milli" and "micro" are easily confused.

3. We are assuming that she counted drops, wherein 50 drops equals 1 milliliter. Is that correct? How many drops in each eye?

4. What was the nature of the NGF? Human recombinant (rhNGF)? Murine (mNGF)? Cobra? Something else?

5. When did she start taking NGF eye drops?

6. Where did she acquire the drops? Do you have a brand name or institute name?

7. How did her dosing schedule vary over the years?

8. Did she ever say anything about avoiding certain things because she feared that it might react in a bad way with the NGF?

9. Is there any way in which we might arrange a telephone interview with her family, so that these great secrets might not be lost forever?
 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 02 June 2015 - 10:38 PM.

[playground]

Number (9) ... 

Obviously her parents died decades ago.

She had no children, she had 2 sisters and a brother.

They all died before she did.

I don't know if her siblings had children, my guess is probably at least one of them did.

I suspect any approach by us to her family would be viewed as inappropriate and/or unwelcome.

 

I think any questions to her friends or colleagues should be handled with

care and... well.... delicately. Probably most of them cared about her and respected her.

And now she's dead, so they may be protective of her image and/or their memories of her.

 

Probably, the best tack is to consult the information that's already published first.

And then, subsequently, seek contact with living people.

 

I have the following suggestions for pursuing already published material:

(A) she has a facebook page. 

Someone, somewhere, must have popped a few NGF eye-drops questions.

I'd like to bet someone did.. and that the questions and answers are still

visible on her FB page (probably in Italian)

 

(B) She also wrote an autobiography 'In Praise of Imperfection'

... i've been trying to find a downloadable pdf copy... the book,

even as a 'used softback', is expensive.  

But perhaps there's mention of NGF eye drops in there. 

It's an obvious place to detail something as significant as NGF eye-drops

that (putatively) provides mental clarity a long way into old age.

 

© RG came up with a good suggestion when he mentioned Pietro Calissano's name.

He's credited with spilling the beans about her NGF eye drops routine.

Where did he say that ?  Did he repeat it in other interviews ?

Perhaps there's a juicy paragraph somewhere. 

Perhaps an interview on youtube ? 

 

 

Some other thoughts.

1.  Rita had an identical twin sister.  Identical twin means, obviously, the same DNA.

So this is a very fortunate experiment for us. 

You might argue that any differences between their age of death (or state of old age)

is (at least partly) attributable to the NGF eye drops.

So, Key Question, how old was Paolo (her sister) when she died ?

Answer: She died in 2000.  She was 91. 

Rita out lived her identical twin sister by 12 years.

 

This paper looked specifically at age of death between monozygotic (MZ) and dizygotic (DZ)

twins  (identical and non-identical twins, respectively).  They analysed 135 pairs of twins.

Their results, in a nutshell: 6.65 +/- 5.6 years in the MZ pairs, (and 8.66 +/- 7.2 years n the DZ pairs).

souce: http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/1302428

 

12 years is right on the edge of that range:  6.65 years +/- 5.6 years.

Was this a 'significant' difference ?   Don't know..

A 20 year difference at age of death would have been clearly outside of the statistical norm.

A 30 year difference would have been a red flag.

But 12 years falls (just about) inside the normal range.

 

On the other hand, with twins, either can die first... It's a 50:50 scenario. 

In this case, Rita died second, which is what we would expect (given the NGF eye drops). 

Had Paolo outlived Rita by 12 years that would be highly suggestive that the

NGF eye drops had no effect whatsoever, or worse, hastened her demise.

So at least the data are in the expected direction.

 

Rita was clearly playing with a full set of (cognitive) marbles right up until her death.

Key question, given the prevalence of dementia in the old, a rate that increases with

increasing age, was Paolo also playing with a full set of marbles ?

Is there mention anywhere that Paolo was losing her marbles in the decade,

or decades, before her death ? 

Finding the answer to that question would be helpful.

 

Obviously, both of these 'Key' questions are seeking some evidence that the

eye-drops were doing positive things to Rita's longevity and cognitive state.

 

Playground.

[HappyShoe]

Great news, I believe there is company linked to her some how. They produce the branch cobra bdnf eye drops.


I believe her and her fellow researchers have been eye dropping for a couple years.

 

Email them and ask?

[Asor]

Interesting, few considerations:

 

-Rita Levi Montalcini is indeed a legend in Italy.

-Pietro Calissano worked several years in the United States so i bet his English is pretty good and can be contacted in English too.

-Having some experience in trying to contact researchers to ask for information, i believe it's going to be REALLY hard to get any of those answers, exactly for the same reasons you mentioned (afraid of getting sued, being considered unprofessional for giving advices though telephone or internet etc.).

 

Anyway the whole thing is really interesting, it doesnt seem to have any relation to my issue (mitochondrial disease) but it could help in other ways.

 

This is quite fascinating too, from wikipidia of all places:

 

"In 2005, Enzo Emanuele and coworkers at University of Pavia found that nerve growth factor (NGF) has high levels when people first fall in love, but these levels return to as they were after one year. To be specific, four neurotrophin levels, i.e., NGF, BDNF, NT-3, and NT-4, of 58 subjects who had recently fallen in love were compared with levels in a control group who were either single or already engaged in a long-term relationship. The results showed that NGF levels were significantly higher in the subjects in love than as compared to either of the control groups.^[44][45][46] Nerve growth factor may contribute to increased longevity and mental capacity.^[47]Centenarian Rita Levi-Montalcini took a daily solution in the form of eye drops, and has stated that her brain is more active now than it was four decades ago.^[47] In 2014, Sundaravadivel Balasubramanian and coworkers at Medical University of South Carolina showed that NGF level is elevated in people who performed a single session 20 minute Yoga Breathing involving Om chanting and Thirumoolar Pranayama, when compared to Control group.^[48]"

 

Now the question is: what's the best way to approach Dr. Calissano or other experts in the field?

The last time i tried something similar, i asked this researcher whether there was any clinician expert in a certain field who was working on patients, and he redirected me to a neurologist that was involved in the same type of study, in my area.

This could be a good start to establish come kind of contact with the guy.

 

Now im going to read the whole thread to understand this thing a little better.

 

 

 

[Asor]

oh and btw that doesnt really look like her Facebook page (i doubt she had one...) more like some sort of fan page.

[playground]

oh and btw that doesnt really look like her Facebook page (i doubt she had one...) more like some sort of fan page.

 

Damn!
 

[normalizing]

no more bothering with this actually. im set! ill just inject cobra venom up my ass for NGF effect.

[playground]

Maths / Statistics help requested :-)

 

 

 

 

Imagine you see the following statistics quoted in an academic paper:

 

        6.65 years +/- 5.6 years  

 

I'm interested in the +/- 5.6 part.

 

I understand that this is saying that some data have a mean of 6.65 years.

And that some volume of that data fall within X standard deviation points

My question is... What's X ?

 

I think, probably, the answer is either 1 standard deviation points or 2.

 

But there is a convention for expressing   +/- values   (to either 1 or 2 SD points).

Does anyone know what that convention is ?

 

Please let me know.

 

Playground.

[ceridwen]

I have a question my brain is dying due to over activity neurotoxicity. Is NGF going to help me? Or is it just going to make things worse? Really interesting thread though. Maybe NGF just fixes every thing?

[playground]

 

Great news, I believe there is company linked to her some how. They produce the branch cobra bdnf eye drops.


I believe her and her fellow researchers have been eye dropping for a couple years.

 

Email them and ask?

 

 

What's the company name ?
 

[playground]

Rita and Paola.... the story so far.

 

Rita had an identical twin sister, called Paola.

The fact they were identical twins means they had the same DNA.

 

We have two 'key' questions regarding Rita and her use of NGF eye-drops:

Q1.  Did Rita live 'significantly' longer than her twin sister Paola ?

Q2.  Did Rita enjoy better cognitive health than her sister Paola ?

 

We can't begin to answer Q2 yet, but progress has been made on Q1

I'm told that the convention is 2 standard deviation points for expressing

variance using +/- values from a mean.

 

So... we want to know if Rita lived (statistically) significantly longer than Paola.

We know when they both died and the difference is 12.16 years.

 

I've taken the twin study data reported here : http://www.ncbi.nlm..../pubmed/1302428

as a reference data set.  Their data say that identical twins die with a difference

in years of 5.6 years +/- 6.65 years. 

 

What does that mean ? 

It means if you study 100 twins, and record the date of their deaths,

you can create a distribution of data expressing the duration between their deaths.

eg. 

Sam and Peter died in  Jan 1971 and July 1973  ..... so that data point is 2.5 (years)

Julie and Samantha died in Jan 2000 and April 2003... so that data point is 3.25 (years)

... i'm sure you get the idea.

 

Do that 100 times and you'll have 100 numbers that range from 0 to .. upto .... about 20.

Now take the average of those numbers.

 

In the case of the cited twin study, the average was 5.6 years.

That means approximately 50% of the data were below 5.6 years

and approximately 50% of the data were above 5.6 years.

 

In terms of Rita and Paola, this means that Rita should have died

within 5.6 years of Paola (on average).... that is.. 5.6 years before

or 5.6 years after Paola  (i.e. within 5.6 years of each other, on average)

 

So the question is:

Is it statistically significant that Rita died 12.16 years after Paola ?

 

To answer that question, it's usual to refer to the normal distribution.

In a nutshell, we look at the distance from the centre of the distribution

to the data point of interest (12.16 years)

... and then count the % of the distribution between the

data point and the end of the distribution.

 

The results provided by the twins study are: 5.6 +/- 6.65.

So 5.6 + 6.65 = 12.25.  years.

(5.6 is the middle of the distribution,

and 6.65 is years from the centre to 2 standard deviation points)

 

Looking at the Normal distribution table supplied above 

we see that 1.7% of the population exist beyond +2 standard deviation points.

 

So there's only 1.7% chance that one twin will die 12.25 years after the other twin.

 

Rita died 12.16 years after Paola, that's very nearly as much as 12.25

At a rough guess, perhaps there's only a 2% chance that Rita would die 12.16 years after Paola.

 

The standard level of statistical significance is 5%.

Anything less than 5% is deemed statistically significant.

 

Clearly... 2% is less than 5%.

 

Meaning...  Rita lived longer than Paola than would be expected by chance.

It's a statistically significant difference in their lifespans.

 

And now that I've figured that out, it seems obvious, that of-course, living 12 years longer

than someone that died at the age of 91 is clearly significant.

 

Intuitively it seems obvious because, the likelihood of you dying in the next 12 months,

is much, much greater when you are 91, than it is when you're, say, 21. 

 

The chances of you surviving another year, decrease every year.

And those survival chances decline dramatically after your 70s.

 

So to live 12 years longer than someone in their 91st year, is actually quite an achievement.

 

In summary,

I'm told that the "+/-" convention is to express a variance to 2 standard deviation points. 

Assuming this is correct, it means that:

 

Rita lived longer than Paola than would be expected by chance.

It's a statistically significant difference in their lifespans.

 

We might, not unreasonably, wonder if Rita's use of NGF eye drops was a factor in her

remarkable longevity.

 

 

Edited by playground, 03 June 2015 - 03:34 PM.

[Asor]

Rita's twin sister name is Paola, not Paolo (Paolo is a male name).

Rita had another sister, Anna, who lived 95 years (1905-2000). Anna died same year as Rita's twin Paola.

Brother Gino lived from 1902-1974 (72 years).

 

Adamo Levi (1867-1932) is the father.

Adele Montalcini (1879-1963) the mother, who also lived a long time (84 years).

 

So it appears all the women in her family had great longevity.

 

Her family is Sephardic-Jewish,

 

[beatstar]

hi,

I called the Department of Scientific EBRI. They told me that I must speak with the doctor Malerba or the doctor D'Onofrio for technical issues.

With the professor Cattaneo for other informations (sales, availability, etc.). But he will be back next week.

Tomorrow I'll try to call the doctor Malerba

Raffaele

[playground]

Rita's twin sister name is Paola, not Paolo (Paolo is a male name).

Rita had another sister, Anna, who lived 95 years (1905-2000). Anna died same year as Rita's twin Paola.

Brother Gino lived from 1902-1974 (72 years).

 

Adamo Levi (1867-1932) is the father.

Adele Montalcini (1879-1963) the mother, who also lived a long time (84 years).

 

So it appears all the women in her family had great longevity.

 

Her family is Sephardic-Jewish,

 

Hi Asor,

 

Thanks for pointing out my error with Paola's name. 

(i've corrected it now).

 

Key question #2 concerns Paola's cognitive health.

I've already been doing some searching for details about Paola.

But i can find nothing 'personal' about her in english.

What i really want to know is, did she have any kind of dementia ?

Is there any evidence of problems with memory, walking, shaking, ..etc.

I'd be very grateful if you could have a search on the Italian internet to see what might

be lurking there.... whenever you have time... whenever you fancy it  :-)

What, i wonder, was listed as the cause of Paola's death ?

 

Quid pro quo, i'll be happy to trade my help for your help.

If you need anything,  let me know.

 

Playground.
 

[Asor]

I did an extensive googling in italian sources on Paola Levi Montalcini but i havent found much, she was a brilliant painter, no death cause listed on any of the few biographies i found.

 

This is her picture

 

 

 

 

Here with Rita, her twin sister.

 

 

 

 

Dont worry about the Quid pro quo, i am happy to help, im interested in this as well, as im interested on anything related to longevity or "cool scientific stuff"

 

[Hebbeh]

Perhaps Rita was sharing the NGF drops with her twin....I was married to a twin and twins are usually close like that....they never do anything without the other.

[dz93]

Maybe it had nothing to do with longevity or cognition. Maybe she was just taking it to keep her vision sharp or something. We can all sit here and make educated guesses but since there's just no information to go on we'll never really know until someone calls them and talks to them directly. Personally, I don't believe NGF by itself is as beneficial as we may think. But there's just too little information to make any definitive statement.

[Keizo]

Perhaps Rita was sharing the NGF drops with her twin....I was married to a twin and twins are usually close like that....they never do anything without the other.

Or maybe she shared her genes with her.

http://en.wikipedia....ve_epidemiology

[Hebbeh]

Perhaps Rita was sharing the NGF drops with her twin....I was married to a twin and twins are usually close like that....they never do anything without the other.

Or maybe she shared her genes with her.
http://en.wikipedia....ve_epidemiology

I assumed that went without saying considering identical twins...

[resveratrol_guy]

Playground, here is the article where Calissano's quote was found. Thanks to you and Asor for all that background research, which is definitely going to make it easier to have the conversations that we need to have with EBRI.

It seems that Rita's twin was nonidentical, unless somehow Rita is standing on something to make her considerably taller than her sister in the photo above. Their facial structure also appears quite different, but that could be aging or angle. So unfortunately, I'm not sure we can say much about a 12 year lifespan difference. (But if they are identical, and that photo is illusory, then 12 years is very much statistically significant for the reasons Playground explained, mainly, the huge mortality risk associated with being 91.) However, reaching 103 in and of itself is probably on the order of 1 in 10,000 people. Reaching 103 and speaking like a 30-year-old is virtually unheard of.

I'm not going to second guess Asor and Raffaele on how they should approach the matter of interviewing the right people at EBRI, once we have all agreed that we've exhausted publicly available background information. Except to say, thanks guys for taking this seriously.
 

It seems remarkable that Rita could have benefitted from NGF in terms of longevity, because she started it at least in her 60s and possibly much later. I was contemplating this today when I remembered a lecture I saw in around 2007 wherein the speaker said that giving L-dopa and selegiline to animals late in life nonetheless extended their lives, in a manner which would equate to adding 8 years to the life of a 60-something human. The effect of these drugs, overwhelmingly, was neurological. That's what made it so astounding: they were not suppressing cancer or supporting the cardiovascular system, yet the life extension was profound. This is not something that I would intuitively associate with NGF, but perhaps Rita's case is illustrative. Unfortunately, I have no immediate way to locate the lecture, although it's likely on YouTube. So take this with a grain of salt. But perhaps there are other precedents for neurologically targetted therapies which end up behaving as broad-spectrum life extenders. As though we need any more motivation to solve the eye drop mystery and get on with our own dosing...

 

[Keizo]

 

 

Perhaps Rita was sharing the NGF drops with her twin....I was married to a twin and twins are usually close like that....they never do anything without the other.

Or maybe she shared her genes with her.
http://en.wikipedia....ve_epidemiology

I assumed that went without saying considering identical twins...

 

I don't think most people believe in the effects of genes and evolution (atheists in particular), just hand picked parts of it. 

So... I think for example it is worthwhile to mention that IQ (which from what I hear is very heritable, something like 75%) is associated with longevity, and considering Rita was an acclaimed scientist she should do well in that category. Thus her sibling should be quite a bit more likely to live long as well. Then she might be assumed to have more specific longevity genes, and the same reasoning can apply.

This seems to me a much more substantiated claim, than NGF having something to do with it. Through what mechanism? who are the observed beneficiaries? 

Now I can see the reasoning (rejuvenating the CNS makes the whole body function better, or something like that), but...there are probably more easy inference to make. 

[playground]

It seems that Rita's twin was nonidentical, unless somehow Rita is standing on something to make her considerably taller than her sister in the photo above. Their facial structure also appears quite different, but that could be aging or angle. So unfortunately, I'm not sure we can say much about a 12 year lifespan difference. (But if they are identical, and that photo is illusory, then 12 years is very much statistically significant for the reasons Playground explained, mainly, the huge mortality risk associated with being 91.) However, reaching 103 in and of itself is probably on the order of 1 in 10,000 people. Reaching 103 and speaking like a 30-year-old is virtually unheard of.
 

 

Hi RG,

 

According to the online sources, they were identical twins:

 

"She described this experience decades later in the science
documentary film 'Death by Design/The Life and Times of Life and Times (1997)',
which also features her identical twin sister Paola,
who had entered a decades-long career in the arts."

 

source: http://en.wikipedia....Levi-Montalcini

and

"Together with her identical twin sister, Levi-Montalcini was the youngest of four children."

 

source: http://www.whatisbio...Levi-Montalcini

 

 

But i completely agree that they don't look identical in some of those later photos.

I suspect they looked rather more similar at 20.

I presume... 70 years later, they grew to look rather more distinct.

 

I  guess what those later photos show us, is how different you can look

given (possibly minor) differences in eating habits and exercise.

 

I absolutely agree with this statement:

     Reaching 103 and speaking like a 30-year-old is virtually unheard of.

 

Playground.

[resveratrol_guy]

OK so if they really were identical twins, then we need to explain the gap of 12 years somehow. Perhaps Keizo is right that it's something else. For instance, it seems from what I've read that Rita was somewhat calorically restricted. Then again, a genetic copy of Rita with whom she closely communicated would probably have followed a very similar diet. However, it might not have been feasible to provide her twin with NGF eye drops, considering that even today they cost thousands of dollars per year. After adjusting for inflation, they might have cost 10X as much when she started dosing.

 

And getting back to Keizo's point, NGF is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind when we have to explain life extension. But it is a factor, and I can't think of a better explanation in this case of these twins. Then again, we know very little about the case. So I'm content to assume that NGF had nothing to do with Rita's lifespan. After all, all I want is a few more neurons!

 

Edited by resveratrol_guy, 04 June 2015 - 01:34 PM.