molecules – modblog

Our Subversive Free Radicals I

… Spontaneous mutations, cancer, and aging can be looked upon as a result of continuous “internal radiation” while these same processes produced by external radiation are largely the result of an increment in the amount of total “radiation” to which the organism is exposed. —Dr. Denham Harman, originator of the free radical theory of aging […]

atherosclerosis, cancer, DNA, enzymes, fats, free radicals, glutathione peroxidase, hydrogen peroxide, immune system, molecules, mutations, nucleic acid, oxidation, radiation, RNA, SOD, superoxide dismutase, vitamin c, vitamin E

Cross-linked Molecules and Aging in Skin, Arteries, and Other Tissues III

Proteins are complex molecules, made up of amino acids, which perform a wide variety of functions in the human body, from chemical reaction-controlling enzymes, to structural molecules like collagen, to necessary components in human memory. In order to function properly, proteins must assume a correct three-dimensional configuration. In their proper shape, some proteins act as […]

Cross-linked Molecules and Aging in Skin, Arteries, and Other Tissues II

As you grow older, your body becomes stiffer, less elastic, and less agile. This is due to cross-linking at a molecular level. You become stiffer for the same reason that old rubber becomes brittle and stiff—your large structural molecules such as collagen (an important protein in connective tissues) are welded together by cross-links. This process […]

agile, bitamin B1, collagen, Cross-linking, flexibility, molecules, nutrients, PABA, vitamin A, vitamin B5, vitamin B6, vitamin c, vitamin E

Cross-linked Molecules and Aging in Skin, Arteries, and Other Tissues I

Empiricism may serve to accumulate facts, but it will never build science. The experimenter who does not know what he is looking for will not understand what he finds. —Claude Bernard, 1813-1878 When your skin wrinkles, or arteries or bread hardens, or rubber becomes brittle, or old Jell-O® stiffens, we are seeing examples of the […]

Molecules of Life and Life Extension: An Introduction to the Cast I

… all diseases may by sure means be prevented or cured, not excepting that of old age, and our lives lengthened at pleasure even beyond the antediluvian standard. —Benjamin Franklin, in a letter to English chemist Joseph Priestley The same molecules that serve us well by keeping us alive and healthy can, if they fail […]

We are all getting older I

“I mean,” she [Alice] said, “that one can’t help growing older.” “One can’t, perhaps,” said Humpty Dumpty, “but two can. With proper assistance, you might have left off at seven.” —Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland Although conceptions of aging differ among lay persons and even among scientists, we all know that aging accelerates as time […]