MAIN POINTS
- The medical industry serves an an impediment to the discovery and adoption of an anti-aging pill.
- Government has made it illegal to claim any natural substance remedies aging.
- The rapid expansion of the volume of scientific information suggests the eradication of all diseases and aging itself is not beyond the reach of modern medicine today.
- The time it takes to make such a discovery is shortening due to the “law of accelerating returns.” Futurists predict the eradication of all disease as well as aging itself.
- There is a boom in the number of centenarians, all who reached 100-years of age without consciously making an effort to do so. Just wait till an anti-aging pill gains traction.
- Government overseers and life insurance companies need the public to die on time. Don’t expect any medical institute or governmental agency approve an anti-aging pill. The personal discovery of an anti-aging pill is left for each individual to explore.
- Valid strategies and practices now exist to reliably make 120-year lifespans and health spans common; namely fasting, calorie-restriction and blood-letting. These are no-cost practices (even less-cost by saving on food). Intermittent fasting is gaining traction, but for reasons of weight control, not the pursuit of longevity.
- Food deprivation is not expected to be popular. A pill that molecularly mimics fasting would augment or even replace the above restrictive dietary measures.
- Longevity seekers can readily find an anti-aging pill once they understand the cause of aging, which is over-mineralization.
- Genes do not control aging, minerals do.
- It is not fewer calories that produces an anti-aging effect, but the fact fewer minerals are consumed when limited calorie diets are practiced.
- Various natural molecules (resveratrol, quercetin, fisetin, rice bran) chelate (bind to) key minerals (iron, copper, calcium) that drive aging and would serve as an anti-aging pill.
- A combination of natural molecules works synergistically to chelate (bind to) minerals and dispose of them.
- A long-ignored study showed a combination of natural molecules was superior to calorie-restriction in its ability to favorably alter anti-aging genes.
- If humans can overcome their fear of longevity, an indefinitely long and healthy life is at hand.
You don’t need a doctor’s permission slip to take an anti-aging pill. An anti-aging pill is not something to be realized at some indefinite time in the future. There are numerous strategies at hand that literally cost next-to-nothing that can help you live 100 healthy years and beyond. Why isn’t your doctor telling you about this? Because modern medicine has no financial incentives to tell you about them.
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You don’t need to understand complicated science to be convinced some simple practices can deliver a quality and quantity of life beyond what you could ever have imagined.
The scientific quest to find the holy grail of human aging is disingenuous. Failure to reach scientific consensus on the primary cause of aging is a shame. Aging is a challenge that is no longer beyond the reach of modern medicine. Certainly, geneticists should have sorted out why humans age by now. Maybe they already have and aren’t telling you.
The law of accelerating returns
Futurist Ray Kurzweil says the increase in the volume of information is now exponential (example: ten times ten, times ten, X ad infinitum) to produce what he calls the “law of accelerating returns.” The cure for aging is not insurmountable. Existing knowledge can be employed to produce an indefinitely long rather than a limited lifespan, that is, if a fearful and trepidatious public wants it.
Kurzweil cites the speed which new discoveries are now being made. The time it took to invent the radio or computers, for example, was many years. But now as discovery times are drastically shortened, humanity is on the cusp of conquering its ultimate challenge — aging. That is, if it has not already been discovered and thrown under the rug. If you read Kurzweil you will discover the cure for cancer should be announced any time now. Kurzweil is talking about the end of disease altogether!
Foot dragging
But modern medicine is dragging its feet. It is in “jobs protection mode.” An anti-aging pill would replace the need for most prescription drugs and indefinitely delay or avert common maladies of old age such as cataracts, high blood pressure, liver disease, failing memory, stiff joints, bone loss and myriads of sources of pain.
The reason modern medicine moves so slowly is because the pace of any discovery is going to take the professional lifetime of any researcher to ensure an income + pension.
It was Upton Sinclair who is credited with saying: “It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”
Parallel example
Foot dragging is prevalent. There is stagnant progress to implement of advances that will revolutionize human life as we know it, and this delay is not just confined to modern medicine. On a parallel front, recognize Volkswagen has introduced composite-body automobile that won’t dent and gets 260-miles per gallon of fuel. Congress won’t allow its entry into the U.S. market. Kurzweil’s theory of “accelerating returns” is being undermined by the need to amortize (pay off) R&D debts before any new technology is introduced; and to forestall progress in order to maintain present income streams – and stock prices.
Now a felony to make an anti-aging claim
Cloaked under consumer protection legislation, the Department of Justice now bans any dietary supplement company that makes anti-aging claims for its products, even if there is scientific evidence to back that claim, and considers violations subject to criminal prosecution even though no risks or side effects from such products are demonstrated. Categorically there cannot be an anti-aging pill outside of Big Pharma.
Does the public understand, Social Security and Medicare trust funds would be rapidly depleted if everyone started living 100 years and beyond. Social Security has financial incentives if a retiree waits to apply for a government pension, hoping the retiree will die before payouts begin. This may have been a reason why public health authorities were slow to ostracize and regulate tobacco companies, given that smoking cigarettes shortens life by about 10 years. Government saves a lot of money if you die early.
The masses must die on time for life insurance companies to earn profits. Many Americans are now outliving their term life insurance policies. There are an estimated 80,000 centenarians in America today (2020). And virtually all of them reached that golden age WITHOUT an anti-aging pill. Just imagine what would happen if a significant percentage of Americans began to intentionally and conscientiously pursue a long and healthy live by taking an anti-aging pill?
A report entitled “Happy 100th Birthday – Outliving Your Life Insurance” explains that longevinarians may need to file a 1035 exchange to convert their policy into one that expires at age 121. Life insurance companies tip off the greatest demographic change in modern history – the rise of supercentenarians.
Anti-aging pill only on modern medicine’s terms
From the professional side of the issue, no medical research institute is going to get off second base and slide into home plate with an anti-aging pill till doctors and hospitals can figure out how to profit from such an advancement. If aging is to be “cured,” it is going to happen on modern medicine’s terms. A cure for aging has to fit the profit-making schemes of modern medicine or it will never be allowed to happen.
With this realization, the quest for longevity becomes an unguided pursuit. Doctors have no answers beyond the common claim that the latest anti-aging elixir “is unproven.” Yes, but not disproven. Then they never put an anti-aging pill to the test and sweep any convincing evidence back into the research closet.
Oh, you will read about the proposed human trial to test whether an anti-diabetic medication (metformin) will prolong human life. But that anti-aging pill would only be expected to prolong lifespan another 4-6%. For comparison, a calorie-restricted diet, or an anti-aging pill that molecularly mimics a limited-calorie diet, would theoretically double human life expectancy as it does in the animal lab. This study is just a distraction to keep the public appease a growing public demand for an anti-aging pill.
The problem with the need to produce conclusive evidence for an anti-aging pill is that such a study would take decades, require a gabillion dollars, and would be impractical (study would last longer than the researchers themselves). Which is why lab researchers use short-lived animals like rodents (2-3 years) to test anti-aging pills.
Only those longevity seekers who ignore modern medicine’s nostrums and embark on their own course will have any chance of finding an anti-aging pill. If you want to live 120-healthy years, don’t look for a physician with a Mayo Clinic diploma on the wall. Doctors, both conventional or alternative, are disease hunters, and they are clueless and turn a blind eye on any practices that prolong the lives of their patients reduce the need for doctoring.
What if a day comes when there is no age-related disease to treat, as Kurzweil predicts? Health care in America has become an income/job-producing asset rather than what it really is — a burdensome line item on the expense ledger.
So, longevity-seekers are on their own. Alternative doctors may be less invasive, but they too are searching for codes to bill insurance, not cures for disease, let alone aging!
The over-mineralization theory of aging.
We know why humans age — they rust and calcify.
Reduction of iron stores in the body is reported to produce exceptional longevity.
I explained in my treatise THE OVERMINERALIZATIO THEORY OF AGING (2007) that humans age at three different speeds:
(1) Childhood growth; children have birthdays (calendar aging) but aren’t biologically aging. During growth years iron in hemoglobin is needed to make red blood cells; calcium is needed for bones and copper for connective tissue.
(2) With full growth achieved, men begin to age first, accumulating iron and copper and calcium, while fertile women dump iron in their monthly menstrual flow and donate calcium to their offspring, and delay aging till early hysterectomy or cessation of menstruation (menopause) occurs. Only then does iron accumulate in females. Which explains why women generally live longer than men.
By age 40 a man has 4 times as much calcium and twice as much iron stored in their body and experiences twice as much diabetes, cancer and heart disease compared to women. A woman who has an early hysterectomy develops the same health problems as males.
(3) In late life mineralization has reached a steady state (barrel is full) and the rate of aging subsides, even halts altogether.
Just having birthdays: biological aging ceases in old age
It is surprising to learn, biological aging actually slows to a complete halt in old age. “The discovery that aging ceases is one of the most significant discoveries in recent aging research, with potentially revolutionary implications,” says Michael R. Rose and colleagues at the Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Irvine, author of the book entitled Does Aging Stop?” This cessation of biological aging correlates with a decline in blood iron levels in old animals.
Minerals: the drivers of aging
Be mindful, scientifically speaking, there are vast volumes of published studies that reveal habitual fasting and/or blood-letting (known since 1950) to reduce iron load are convincing anti-aging practices, but they don’t produce profits for doctors, hospitals and drug companies.
According to the Iron Disorders Institute, each 500 cc blood donation reduces the amount of blood in the body by ~250 milligrams and lowers typically lowers ferritin (iron storage) by 30 nanograms/milliliter of blood.
Calorie-restriction is another approach to achieve longevity, contrasted with fasting which is short-term (no longer than 40-day) zero-calorie intake. It is not the calories but the fact that eating less food delivers less iron, copper and calcium, that then produces longer/healthier lifespans both in lab animals and humans. Short-term intermittent fasting is gaining traction in America, but with the objective of weight control, not longevity.
Iron & copper drive aging
Iron and copper, two of the most abundant metallic minerals in the human body, drive aging. Here is just some of the evidence:
- Ferritin is a protein that stores iron in the body. A recent study reveals that adults with the highest levels of ferritin (stored iron) are at greater mortality risk. Even men with no major chronic diseases with the highest ferritin levels are at increased risk for death.
- The only internal organ that can be visualized from outside is the human eye. The eye is a window to the body. It has recently been discovered that accumulation of iron in the retina at the back of the eyes correlates with progressive aging.
- Iron accumulation, as measured by ferritin testing, correlates with aging in the brain.
- Iron chelators reverse accumulation of plaque in the brain which has implications in age-related brain disease.
- It is not a coincidence that just when women are losing control of iron via the cessation of menopause (menstrual flow expels ~30 milligrams of iron/month) that iron levels increase in the skin which obviously accelerates skin aging. Of interest, oral contraceptives increase iron levels in younger fertile women, which may predispose females to premature aging.
- Consistent with the over-mineralization theory of aging is a report that shows when women lose their ability to control iron (cessation of menstruation/ menopause), aging accelerates. The earlier menopause sets in and the longer the period of time since the onset of menopause, accelerates aging.
- Higher brain levels of iron are characteristically found in men compared to women which associates with brain disorders.
- There are gender-related differences in the incidence of age-related brain diseases. One study shows that women who undergo early hysterectomy have higher brain/iron levels than women who continue to menstruate, and have equal brain/iron levels to men.
- Men accumulate iron rapidly up to age 30 and then the ferritin levels stabilize. It is not uncommon for physicians to discover ferritin levels exceeding 1000 in adult males which are often overlooked. (Healthy ferritin/iron levels are 20-90 nanograms/milliliter blood sample.)
- Over 90% of iron in the body is in red blood cells. Blood donation effectively reduces stored iron (ferritin). Blood donors are commonly known to be among the healthiest and have a 30% less mortality risk compared to non-donors.
Beyond food deprivation and blood-letting, will an anti-aging pill do?
The question this report attempts to address is, is there an anti-aging pill that can be taken instead of food deprivation or blood-letting? Such a pill would feature mineral chelators (key-lay-tors) that bind to iron, copper and calcium and impair absorption or facilitate disposal of these minerals.
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Iron chelators are proposed as anti-aging agents.
A roadblock to the use of pharmacologic chelators is that they are fraught with side effects and can be toxic to genes. However, nature’s chelator, oral IP6 rice bran extract, abundant in high fiber diets, is non-toxic. The red wine molecule resveratrol (rez-vair-a-trol) exclusively binds to copper and is non-toxic. Fisetin extract, abundant in strawberries, is a new natural iron chelator.
Genes don’t control aging, but minerals do
There is so much hoopla over the Sirtuin1 survival gene, said to be activated by limited-calorie diets and the red wine molecule resveratrol. Genes are involved but aren’t the master controllers of aging. Age-related accumulation of minerals activates disease-related genes. Mineral chelators are posited to even reverse aging.
Antioxidant pills fail; or did they?
Antioxidants like vitamins C and E have been proposed as anti-aging agents. A small percentage (~5%) of the oxygen atoms we breathe lose an electron and become what is called a “free radical” that destroys cells and tissues. Antioxidants donate an electron and rebalance atoms. So, as the antioxidant theory of aging goes, accumulated damage results in aging. A temporary supply of antioxidants cannot possibly prevent or slow down aging, say antioxidant researchers. The “free radical theory of aging is dead” claim scientists. These know-it-alls go so far as to say “increased antioxidant protection may even lead to shortened lifespans.”
But what goes unmentioned is that mild-dose biological stressors, like the red wine molecule resveratrol, which initially promote oxidation, then defensively activate an array of internal enzymatic antioxidants (glutathione, catalase, superoxide dismutase) that pre-protect vulnerable and un-regenerative tissues in the brain and heart from damage. It’s not the antioxidant vitamin pills you take that slow or reverse aging per se. It is internally-produced antioxidants that do.
While the oxygen and nitrogen that humans breathe can induce destructive oxidation, after childhood growth is achieved, iron and copper accumulate in the human body over time and generate most of the “free radical” injury to tissues and organs and most of the age-related diseases.
A gene-controlling factor called Nrf2 is involved in this endogenous antioxidant system and is thought to regulate longevity. A low-dose toxin activates internal antioxidants, a biological phenomenon called hormesis. This is why modest wine drinkers live longer than tee-totalers.
It was Hippocrates, the father of medicine, who said: “Wine is a thing wonderfully appropriate to man if, in health as in disease, it is administered with appropriate and just measure according to the individual constitution.” Or said in another way: “Let us drink fewer, but drink better, to live older.” Wine without the alcohol would be ideal. That is precisely what a resveratrol pill is.
Cell senescence; not the end-all of aging
Researchers thought they had the cause of aging in their grasp — cell senescence. Over time a significant percentage of cells in the human body become zombies – they don’t renew themselves like young cells do. Around age 20, after full growth is achieved, the human body begins to accumulate senescent cells. Over time senescent cells represent 1-3% of the body’s total cells, which roughly amounts to 370 million to 1.110 billion senescent cells. Over a period of 45 years, from age 20-65, let’s presume these senescent cells accumulate at a steady rate. That would come to ~22,500 cells/day becoming senescent or ~8 million per year.
But now anti-senescent molecules have been identified and have been demonstrated to completely eradicate senescent cells. And why do living cells become senescent? Because they accumulate up to 30-fold more iron and considerably more copper than younger cells. Natural molecules like fisetin (found in strawberries) and resveratrol (in grapes and red wine) chelate (bind to) iron and copper respectively to effectively eliminate senescent cells.
But as promising as the recent research on cell senescence is, Steve Horvath, UCLA researcher, says cellular aging is distinct from cellular senescence. In fact, cellular aging is independent of DNA damage or telomere length. Horvath shows slowing or abolishing cellular senescence is beneficial, it would have little impact on epigenetic aging.
Mitochondrial theory of aging: ironing out the cause of aging
The mitochondrial theory of aging has received much attention. Mitochondria are the atomic power plants inside cells that produce cellular energy. And yes, mitochondria typically begin to fail and cell energy wanes as humans age. This is critically important in the heart where muscle cells require energy to keep the heart pumping blood.
Weakened mitochondria are involved in any aging theory, but there is often no mention as to why the mitochondria fail. Iron chelators have been demonstrated to prevent destruction of mitochondria. In fact, mitochondria actually renew themselves when resveratrol, a natural copper chelator naturally extracted from grapes, is employed, which researchers claim is also an anti-aging strategy.
The main genetic pathway to aging
There is a central genetic mechanism that drives aging. It is called NF-kappa B – a group of proteins that controls cell growth, survival, immunity and inflammation. Inflammation is such a key component of aging that aging itself has been coined as “inflammaging.”
Any proposed anti-aging pill must inhibit NF-kappa B proteins. Inhibition of NF-kappa B slows or halts aging altogether. Disruption of this single gene has been demonstrated to reverse aging as we know it.
Don’t say there are no anti-aging pills. There are 785 natural and synthetic NF-kappa-B inhibitors. Calorie restricted diets, fasting, reduction of iron load via use of iron chelators, grape molecules (resveratrol, quercetin), all inhibit NF-kappa B proteins. Caffeine in coffee and tea extends the lifespan of various organisms and is considered an anti-aging agent for its ability to inhibit NF-kappa B.
Modern medicine need not wait for a patentable synthetic NF-kappa B inhibitor. Yet at least 19 prescription drugs inhibit NF-kappa B could be utilized as anti-aging molecules but go unused for that purpose. Both natural and prescription synthetic NF-kappa B inhibitors represent molecules that modern medicine keeps hidden in the research closet.
The medical establishment is an impediment
The medical establishment is the greatest impediment to discovery of an anti-aging pill. The medical research community derives billions of research dollars, largely from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and should an anti-aging pill be found, it would literally abolish the need for large budgets to explore the origins of each and every disease, given that aging is the primary cause of age-related maladies that predominate in society. There are 27 empires within the NIH that would largely be eliminated by an anti-aging pill. Modern medicine is organized to preserve incomes and the status quo, not to be progressive.
There is overwhelming unequivocal evidence that the speed of aging is caused by the rate of mineralization in the human body. Investigators continue to report the sequelae (diseases) that emanate from rusting and calcification of organs and tissues with advancing age in the human body. This is hidden science, kept from public view and interpretation. But it can’t be erased and it continues to grow.
Public fear
While biologists selectively ignore evidence that aging is caused by over-mineralization, the fear of a new paradigm for aging in biology and the advent of an anti-aging pill is matched by the public’s fear of living the last decades of life in a debilitated state.
Adults fear old-age will be experienced as loss of independence (driver’s license), immobility (wheelchair), poor bowel control (diapers), failing eyesight (macular degeneration), loss of memory (can’t remember names or faces), and lots of pain and suffering, and also fear outliving their pension plans. Many people simply can’t imagine long lifespan would be accompanied by a prolonged healthspan.
Modern medicine covertly creates greater reliance upon drugs, doctoring and treatment of symptoms rather than causes. Knowledgeable adults can’t imagine modern medicine schemes to ensure there is plenty of disease to treat. Discussion about anti-aging pill is not a public narrative. A survey conducted years ago by MIT showed an anti-aging pill was not in the top five discoveries the public desired.
Workers in America are threatened by robotics (around 25% of all boring and repetitive jobs like taxi and truck drivers, stock clerks, soldiers, factory and assembly, lawyers, proofreaders, telemarketers, bookkeepers, etc.). But recognize a bona fide anti-aging pill would push a lot of doctors and pharmacists into being taxi drivers! No one has an answer to all the lost jobs an anti-aging pill would produce. Facetiously, better to have disease and die prematurely.
It’s not like an anti-aging pill is unavailable today. Once the primary cause of aging is understood, it only requires a longevity seeker to find molecules that address the cause of aging. Then what?
The closest thing to an anti-aging pill so far
A multi-chelator anti-aging pill would work synergistically to combat aging. A landmark study reveals that neither resveratrol, quercetin or catechin molecules individually arrested tumor growth, but when combined they exerted demonstrably beneficial effects.
Such a pill that I formulated was put to the test in 2008. It was tested in laboratory animals and compared with a calorie-restricted diet and plain resveratrol. For comparison, a prior animal study showed a life-long calorie-restricted diet activated 831 genes in laboratory mice.
A 12-week limited-calorie diet activated 198 genes; plain resveratrol 225 genes; a proprietary combination of resveratrol/ quercetin/ IP6 rice bran, 1711 genes. So, a synergistic combination of natural molecules produced a more demonstrable effect in just 12 weeks than life-long calorie restriction. This is the closest humanity has come to creating an anti-aging pill that mimics the lifespan/healthspan doubling of calorie restriction. This also means plain resveratrol pills on store shelves may disappoint if for no other reason than they would take a lifetime to fully yield health benefits.
In adulthood (past age 40), consumption of less iron-rich red meat and calcium-rich dairy products would also slow aging.
Prolonging the fasting signal
I have written of a strategy that prolongs the “fasting signal” in the body, given that humans fast during sleep. The strategy consists of taking a morning pill that mimics fasting thus prolonging the fasting time. An alternative is to skip breakfast and not eat till noon and then take an anti-aging pill at that time. (See graphic below)
