Americans are in the habit of never walking if they can ride. —Louis Philippe, Duc d’Orleans (1798) How much exercise should you do each day? If you’re like us, you would rather spend as little time on exercise as is required to maintain a reasonable level of cardiovascular conditioning. Well, we have good news for […]
Psychopharmacology, the science of drugs which affect psychological functions, offers other interesting materials. The amino acid tryptophan is a safe, nonaddictive sleeping aid which works because it is made into serotonin in the brain. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter which initiates sleep. Tryptophan is found in milk and bananas and can often be purchased in pill […]
Recently a new drug was added to the pharmacopoeia of memory-improving drugs: vasopressin. Vasopressin is a natural pituitary-gland hormone which is best known for its regulation of urine volume. It is approved by the FDA for treating diabetes insipidus, a condition of frequent urination (not related to insulin-sugar diabetes) caused by inadequate quantities of vasopressin. […]
GENERAL STAMINA can be greatly increased in a short period of time. For example, calcium pantothenate, the anti stress and life extension vitamin, has been shown to increase total muscular output: (stamina rather than peak output) in frog leg muscles-suspended in a pantothenate solution. Rats taking pantothenate supplements increase their total muscular work output very […]
Read more Some Immediate Benefits of Life Extension Measures III
As mentioned earlier, Dr. W. Donner Denckla thinks he has discovered a death clock in the pituitary gland of the brain. If he removes this gland from mice and supplies them with the pituitary’s growth hormone and thyroid hormone (which would normally be produced and released in response to pituitary hormonal messages), the animals live […]
Everyone is familiar with the so-called “annual” plants which live only a few months, from the time when they sprout, until, after the production of seed, death comes to them naturally. … Natural death can be postponed if the plant be prevented from seeding. —Elie Metchnikoff, The Prolongation of Life (1908) Do DNA genetic clocks […]
A very dramatic story about the effects of L-Dopa on twenty patients with severe Parkinson’s disease is contained in Oliver W. Sack’s book Awakenings. Between 1916 and 1927, nearly five million people fell victim to encephalitis lethargica (sleeping sickness). A third of those affected died either in a coma or in a profound state of […]
Catecholamines are responsible for a number of different effects in normal humans. They are involved in control of locomotor (moving about) behavior, aggressive behavior, sexual behavior, food intake, and behavior dependent upon positive (reward) and negative (punishment) reinforcement. Acetylcholine controls muscle tone and motor activity and has a role in memory, learning, and long-term planning, […]
Read more The Decline of Your Brain’s Chemical Messengers III
Skin is a visible organ which suffers cross-linking damage. However, unlike other tissues, skin is exposed to considerable ultraviolet light (UV) energy from sunlight. Ultraviolet light is a major cause of skin cross-linking. This type of damage can be prevented or retarded by staying out of sunlight or using sun-block preparations containing esters of PABA […]
Read more Cross-linked Molecules and Aging in Skin, Arteries, and Other Tissues IV
One of the most important factors leading to immune system decline is the greatly reduced rate of release of growth hormone by the brain as we age. This hormone, produced by the pituitary gland, begins to fall off in quantity after your teens. Since the thymus gland requires growth hormone to function properly, this decrease […]