Growing New Body Parts: Breakthroughs in Regenerative Medicine

Why not engineer new tissue and organs to replace sick ones?

I came upon this fascinating video on regenerative medicine and thought I'd share it. It was posted on TED.com some time ago, but the stuff Alan Russell talks about in his presentation is still very relevant.

If you're not sure where we currently are in terms of growing new body parts and tissue, you might be positively surprised after watching this video. What's interesting is that it's not just about growing organs in a lab somewhere and then transferring them inside patients (even though that's a cool breakthrough too); it's about making the body regrow its own parts. Sound like sci-fi? Fortunately, it's not.

Though some of the "before" images of infected and sick body parts are somewhat grotesque, the "after" images of the results from these new technologies are pretty awe-inspiring.

Watch out especially for the regrown finger.

For more information on anti-aging and longevity, see these posts:

End Aging to End Anxiety: Filmmaker Jason Silva Talks about Immortality
Drinking 10 Cups of Green Tea Daily and Not Smoking Could Add 12 Years to Your Life
Green Tea Reduces the Formation of AGEs
How the Accumulation of Minerals Might Cause Aging in Humans

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Sesame Seeds Increase Absorption of Vitamin E Tocotrienols by Up to 500%

A tablespoon of sesame seeds daily might be enough to do the trick. (Photo by rick)

As you may know, I'm currently taking a tocotrienol supplement called Toco-Sorb to see whether it has an effect on hair growth (if you stumbled upon this post by accident, you can read the beginning of the experiment here).

The challenge

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a post about getting tocotrienols from natural sources. The conlusion was that most foods are so low in tocotrienols that getting the whole tocotrienol complex is difficult, if not impossible, without supplements.

Another problem with tocotrienols is that they're poorly absorbed. The figures I've seen are in the 20-30% range, meaning that at best only a third of the tocotrienols are actually absorbed. So even if you forget the natural way and go for the supplement cabinet to get those tocotrienols, the question of bioavailability still remains.

Then how do we increase the bioavailability of tocotrienols? One answer seems to be sesame seeds.

Feeding rats vitamin E and sesame seeds

In their first experiment, Ikeda et al. fed rats tocopherol with or without tocotrienols. In the second experiment, they fed rats tocopherol or tocotrienols with or without sesame seeds.

As both experiments had control groups as well, the rats in the first experiment were divided into three groups: the first one was fed no vitamin E at all, the second one was fed only alpha-tocopherol, and the third one was fed a palm oil extract with alpha-tocopherol, alpha-tocotrienol and gamma-tocotrienol.

In the second experiment the rats were divided into five groups: the first was fed no vitamin E, the second was fed alpha- and gamma-tocopherol, the third was fed alpha-tocopherol and sesame seeds, the fourth was fed the palm fruit extract and gamma-tocopherol, and the fifth was fed the palm fruit extract with sesame seeds.

Tocotrienols are absorbed only by fat and skin tissues

Since it's the second experiment and its sesame seed groups we're interested in, I'll skip analyzing the first experiment in detail.

The researchers found that, in the second experiment, tocotrienols were not detected in any tissues or plasma in the first three groups (no vitamin E, alpha- and gamma-tocopherol, alpha-tocopherol + sesame seeds). Only negligible levels of tocotrienols were detected in the liver, kidney, heart, lung, brain, muscle and plasma of the last two groups (palm fruit extract + gamma-tocopherol, palm fruit extract + sesame seeds).

However, in the last two groups, tocotrienols were detected in fat and skin tissues. The fifth group also had higher levels than the fourth group.

Sesame seeds improve absorption of tocotrienols

What this means is that consuming the palm oil extract resulted in detectable levels of tocotrienols in fat and skin tissues but not in other tissues. So while the bioavailability of tocotrienols might not be optimal, at least some of them are absorbed by fat and skin tissues in rats.

That's good news of course, but even better news is that when sesame seeds were consumed with the extract, the tocotrienol levels were even higher:

In the graphs above, the bottom row labels refer to alpha-tocopherol, gamma-tocopherol, alpha-tocotrienol and gamma-tocotrienol. The five bars above each label represent the five groups of the second experiment. The numbers are mmol/g.

The black bar is thus group four, i.e. the one fed palm oil extract and gamma-tocopherol, and the rightmost bar is group five, i.e. the one fed the palm oil extract and sesame seeds. As you can see, only the groups fed palm fruit extract had detectable levels of tocotrienols in perirenal adipose tissues, epidymal fat tissues and skin tissues.

The most interesting thing is how strongly sesame seeds increased the tocotrienol levels in these tissues. In fat tissues alpha-tocotrienol levels increased about 50%, and in skin tissues by about 80%. A pretty significant increase. Even more significant is the effect of sesame seeds on gamma-tocotrienol levels: gamma-tocotrienol levels increased in fat tissues by about 400%, and by about 500% in skin tissues.

These are exciting figures – even higher than the "2-3 times better bioavailability" advertised (but unreferenced) by Jarrow on the label of their Toco-Sorb product.

Applying the results to humans

The amount of sesame seeds used in the study was 200 mg per kg of feed. If we assume the male Wistar rats weighed about 400 grams, and that the rats ate daily about 6% of their body weight in solid food (these seem to be common figures in male rats), we get 24 grams of food per day per rat.

The amount of sesame seeds eaten per day is then 0.2 grams * 24 grams = 4.8 grams. This number may not be directly applicable to humans, but it certainly seems that a huge amount of sesame seeds is not needed to see the increased absorption of tocotrienols. In fact, compared to trying to consume more actual tocotrienols by eating more natural foods, this seems like a remarkably easy way.

Since my experiment is mainly about the effect of tocotrienols on hair growth, the fact that sesame seeds improve absorption into skin tissue is the most interesting result of the study. I'm now adding a tablespoon of sesame seeds (about 9 grams) into my morning smoothie and taking my tocotrienol supplement with it.

For more information on tocotrienols, see these posts:

Getting Tocotrienols from Natural Food Sources: Is It Possible?
Hair Growth with Vitamin E Tocotrienols from Palm Oil – Experiment Conclusion
Vitamin E Tocotrienols May Grow Hair in Humans

Read More......

Drinking 10 Cups of Green Tea Daily and Not Smoking Could Add 12 Years to Your Life

Drinking green tea and not smoking could add over a decade to your life. (Photo by Kanko*)

Since green tea has such a wide range of health benefits, it is commonly assumed that drinking green tea slows down aging in general. However, epidemiological proof of tea extending lifespan is lacking for the most part.

Now it seems that this hypothesis has indeed been proven true. Nakachi et al. followed the green tea consumption and deaths (cancer, cardiovascular death and all cause mortality) in a Japanese population for 13 years. Since the Japanese have one of the longest life expectancies in the world, they're ideal for a study like this.

Green tea and cancer

The authors found that onset of cancer and death from cancer were significantly delayed in those who drank the most green tea. That is, they developed cancer later and died from cancer later than those who drank less tea. Compared to people who drank three cups or less per day, those who consumed at least 10 cups had a 41% less chance of getting cancer.

The cancer-preventative effect was more pronounced in women than men: mean age at cancer onset in women who drank more than 10 cups was 7.6 years later than in those who drank less than three cups, whereas in men the delay was 4.1 years. The difference in age at cancer death was 3.9 years and 5.9 years in men and women, respectively.



The figure above shows the age-specific cancer death rates among women by daily consumption of green tea. You can see that up until the age of 80, higher green tea consumption correlates with less cancer rather clearly, but after that the data gets mixed.

Green tea and cardiovascular deaths

Cardiovascular deaths were similarly inversely correlated with green tea consumption in both men and women.

In men, mean age at cardiovascular death was 74.9 years in those who drank up to 3 cups, 76.2 years in those who drank 4-9 cups, and 76.8 years in those who drank more than 10 cups. In women, the values were 79.5 years, 80.6 years, and 80.9 years. Even though the women lived longer, here the effect of green tea on lifespan was more pronounced in men.

Green tea and all cause death

Mean age at death among men and women drinking more than 10 cups per day was 4.3 and 3.8 years higher, respectively, than those consuming less than three cups.

The largest difference in age of death was observed between smokers who drank less than 3 cups and non-smokers who drank more than 10 cups: mean ages of death were 67.7 and 79.4 years, respectively. So drinking lots of green tea and not smoking extended lifespan by more than ten years.



The figure above shows the cumulative survival among women over 40 by daily consumption of green tea. Again, those who drank more had a better chance of surviving onto the next year: 74% of those who drank up to three cups, 80% of those who drank 4-9 cups, and 82% of those who drank more than 10 cups were alive at age 80. After that, the differences became smaller.

The authors conclude:

The median survival time (equivalent to average lifespan of women who have already lived to the age of 40) was 87.1, 88.2 or 89.9 years for groups consuming below 3 cups, 4-9 cups, and over 10 cups a day, respectively, indicating about two years longer lifetime associated with large consumption of green tea.

On the other hand, cumulative survival among men did not show such clear differences by consumption of green tea as were seen in women. This is in part due to the deleterious effect of cigarette smoking, which apparently disturbs the beneficial effects of green tea. In fact, when we divided men by smoking status, the life-table analysis among non-smokers showed [that] current smokers consuming over 10 cups a day showed the highest survival in ages before 70, and there were no substantial differences in cumulative survival in ages after 70 between the group consuming over 10 cups and 4-9 cups a day, although smokers consuming below three cups had a much lower survival.

Conclusion

Green tea increases lifespan by preventing death from age-related illnesses, especially cancer. The cancer-protective effect of green tea is especially pronounced in women, whereas the protection from cardiovascular death seems to be stronger in men.

Mean age at death from all causes was ~4 years higher in those who drank more than 10 cups than those who drank less than three cups per day. The best combination was more than 10 cups of green tea and no smoking, whereas the worst combination was less than three cups of green tea plus smoking. The difference in age of death between these two groups was almost 12 years.

If you're after those extra years, you should start drinking green tea during middle age or earlier. And even though more may not always be better, in this case it seems to be: if you can handle 10 cups per day like some of the Japanese in this study did, go for it.

For more information on green tea, see these posts:

Green Tea, Black Tea & Oolong Tea Increase Insulin Activity by More than 1500%
Green Tea Grows Hair in Vitro, Might Work in Vivo
Green Tea Reduces the Formation of AGEs
Dental Health Effects of Green and Black Tea

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