Stop the Clock

Posted Wednesday, September 12, 2007 to PROCEDURES > Anti-Aging

Posted by The Original Anti-Aging & Cosmetic Surgery Magazine

Rebecca Grey discusses what's new on the horizon of anti-aging medicine.

Stop the clock! That appears to be the current mantra of our generation as we cross over into the 21st century. Is there a fountain of youth to slow down aging? Are we really on the verge of finding a total cure for cancer or other debilitating diseases?

Medical researchers release new discoveries and advances in the field of anti-aging and longevity medicine every day. At 16.5 billion dollars annually, antiaging is medicine's fastest growing sub-specialty. Over the next 17 years, seventy-six million people will be approaching 50 years of age at a rate of one every 7.5 seconds. Before you get through my next paragraph another youth-hugging boomer just turned 50!

The Fourth Annual Anti-Aging Conference was held last December in Las Vegas Researchers, experts, and health and beauty businesses worldwide presented new information, products and revolutionary breakthroughs in the field of anti-aging medicine. Interested minds lined up to hear what's new - scientifically, holistically and spiritually. Lecture topics ranged from cancer and immunology research, to gene therapy and fetal stem cells. Something that caught my eye was a "cell harvesting machine" designed to preserve stem cells so they can be cloned and, infused back into the bloodstream at a future date.

Stem cells are self-renewing cells found in both fetal and adult tissue and have the ability to repair themselves well into the aging process. What exactly does this mean? The theory is if you harvest your cells at the age of 30 and replace them at the age of 60, the cells will function as those of a 30 year-old. So does this cell harvesting mechanism work?

This was a question for my interview with Dr Hans Kugler, is a 65 year-old German scientist with an Arnold Schwartzenegger physique. He is an avid athlete and a former military pilot who continues to pursue his passion for flying. Kugler, a pioneer and researcher in the field of anti-aging medicine and gene therapy has seven books under his belt on health and aging.

He is the President of The International Academy of Alternative and Anti-Aging Medicine and Senior Science Advisor to The Journal of Longevity. The journal recently published an article of his entitled Can Humans Be Immortal? In my interview I asked about making cells immortal through a process known as Telomerase Gene Therapy which he discusses in his article. "Within the nucleus of every cell there is the DNA double helix and at the end of the double helix there exist telomeres." Similar to the plastic ends of a shoelace, each telomere has 60 segments known as repeat sequences.

"When the cell comes to the end of its life span and divides, signals are given and one of these segments of the 60 repeat sequences is chopped off or shortened," explained Dr Kugler. "When they are all used up having reached the "maximum" life span, there is nowhere to go and the species dies. The telomere length or the number of DNA repeats determine the number of cell divisions. The key to maintaining telomere length is the enzyme Telomerase."

Telomerase maintains telomere length because every time the sequence is chopped off the telomerase enzyme replaces it. Currently we know that Telomerase is found in cancer cells - making cells immortal without uncontrolled cancer growth is the real goal of gerontologists. Researchers have now discovered the gene codes for the enzyme Telomerase, which means they can clone it and reinsert it back into healthy human cells.

So the Telomerase gene inserted into cells maintains the telomere length and the result is immortality? "Exactly!" Kugler exclaims with his German gusto, "they stay young, like truly young cells in their function and appearance."

Although Telomerase Gene Therapy is still in research and clinical trial phases, medical science continues to prove that aging, by and large, may prove to be a treatable condition. The ethics of molecular medicine are continually being challenged and it will be interesting to see what new technology establishes itself in the 21st century.

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