To repeat the point I made above… The Rejuvenation Studies also implicate NF-kB as being important in aging and suggest that NF-kB reduction in the circulation might be usefully explored for its importance for increased Health and Longevity. (Getting across what Kurzweil calls Bridges 1 and 2.)
It seems premature and unwise to me to discount the importance of those studies.
NfkB is over-activated when tissues accumulate AGEs.
NAD+ is depleted when PARP is over-activated to compensate for genomic instability.
Inhibiting NfkB and PARP will not take care of the underlying problem, at best it will slow down pathologies.
If there is a programmed downreagulation it's upstream of NfkB and NAD. To begin with the ammount of NAD+ and NfkB change visibly in people in their 50s an up.
What drives aging up to that point?
Salminen and Kaarniranta in their NF-kB paper say:
Moreover, Spencer et al. [16] and Poynter and Daynes [17] have demonstrated that dietary therapies with antioxidants and PPAR-α agonist can down-regulate the age-related increase in the DNA-binding activity of the NF-κB complex, as well as the increased expression of IL-6 and IL-12 cytokines.These observations imply that oxidative stress has a major role in the constitutive activation of the NF-κB system in tissues during aging.
Oxidative stress is upregulated by damaged mitochondria, so this is an example of how damage can trigger a change in a signalling factor. This doesn't mean that there aren't other "programmed" events that are independent of damage; I'm waiting for evidence that such a thing exists, but not specifically discounting it.
Oxidative Stress is upstream of NF-kB activation. It’s also downstream of it so NF-kB inhibition implicates less oxidative stress. Eradication of aging requires that something be done about AGEs. We agree.
But my thinking has evolved about Bridge 1 and 2 anti-aging strategies and I'm trying to think through the larger significance and practical implications of the graphic figures from those studies I assembled in a set of slides.
The Healthful Functions of the Vagus-CAIP-HRV Nexus are a positive Evolutionary Adaptation in Humans. The Settled Science of the Vagus-CAIP-HRV Nexus makes clear that these functions can enable us to prevent or slow morbidity and eventual mortality. That said, as shown in the first two slides, these functions are degraded during aging on account of damage to Vagus-CAIP signaling.
The upshot... Vagus-CAIP-HRV Signaling, itself, turns out to need repair over time, . That's why bringing this up is on-topic in this thread.
Now... Consider this... Evolution has Selected for the Vagus-CAIP-HRV Nexus developing means, that we can consciously trigger, to Simulate its healthful functional behavior as if it had not been damaged.
Anatomical, functional, and molecular lesions in the vagus nerve enhance cytokine production associated with nonresolving inflammation. Under basal conditions, the vagus nerve transmits tonic inhibitory activity that dampens the activity of the innate immune response to pathogen associated molecular products. The inhibitory activity of the inflammatory reflex can be enhanced by methods that increase the generation of adrenergic signals in the splenic nerve. This has been accomplished experimentally by electrically stimulating the vagus nerve, by electrically stimulating the splenic nerve directly, or by pharmacologically activating the adrenergic splenic neurons using cholinergic agonists.
Fredrickson and Epel, among several others have shown that various states of Cognition, including "Positive Cognition" and/or Mindfulness increase HRV. Consider the meaning of that fact...
Evolution in Humans has been Selecting for Increased, Conscious, Cognitive manipulation of Our Physical Health through means which Simulate Healthy Vagus-CAIP signaling.
I'm not suggesting that current capabilities associated with the Vagus-CAIP-HRV Nexus will overcome the maximum human lifespan to date. Obviously, that will require something more. I am suggesting that, in the Vagus-CAIP-HRV Nexus itself, we have potential capabilities, yet unexplored, to get across what Kurzweil calls Bridges 1 and 2 for radical life extension.
Edited by HighDesertWizard, 08 February 2015 - 06:53 PM.