Reverberation 》

In recent years, we can definitely say that we have witnessed a great era: we have just emerged from the global pandemic, and AI technology has experienced explosive growth, which has frightened leaders in the technology industry such as Elon Musk and others to sign a petition to slow down the development of AI and avoid human civilization. collapse. In fact, Elon Musk stated on Twitter at the beginning of this year that human lifespan is fixed and limited, which immediately triggered a rebuttal from Professor David Sinclair, a life sciences expert at Harvard Medical School. This is related to the fact that he just announced in January that he had successfully artificially aged and rejuvenated experimental mice. What will happen in the future? Another experiment was carried out on Ma Liu, and the final attempt was made to reverse the biological age of the human body. He half-heartedly predicted that human beings in a few decades would be like Deadpool, unable to survive a beating.

As long as you search for the name David Sinclair on the Internet, you will inevitably see a lot of advertisements for age-reversing drugs, such as NMN, NR or Resveratrol. There are a lot of letters that dazzle you. Among them, you are more likely to see many familiar celebrities in the entertainment industry taking or selling them. This type of product is like Xu Fu's elixir of life. Is the so-called age-reversing technology really so magical, or is it just "blown up" by health product companies? The scientific research on extending life span is real, but it’s just a matter of simplification without advertising.

Has the scientific research on immortality that even the First King of Qin failed to tackle, been successful today?

Before discussing the so-called anti-aging scientific research, we must first understand the basic principles of aging. If you photocopy a page of a book, make another photocopy of the photocopy, and so on... the text will slowly become blurry and unreadable. Aging of the human body is caused by cells replicating over the years, and cell information begins to lose and become disordered, affecting the functioning of organs, and then becoming weak and sickly.

The "epigenome" responsible for regulating cell replication will gradually wear out, resulting in substandard cells, which is called senescence. In 2006, Professor Shinya Yamanaka broke the traditional understanding of biology and successfully traced cells back to their multi-purpose original state (Yamanaka factor) through genetic technology, providing a new basis for anti-aging scientific research.

From 2015 to 2017, Professor Greg Fahey used growth hormone and the diabetes drug Metformin to control Yamanaka factors. After one year of treatment, he successfully reduced the biological age of the elderly by 2.5 years. Tingluo is not too special, but assuming that follow-up visits every two years, one can theoretically achieve immortality. If the number of treatments is increased, will the body gradually regain its youth? The scientific research community is still looking forward to further results.

In 2020, David Sinclair's team injected genetic instructions into blind mice with damaged optic nerves to activate the Yamanaka factor to restore the eyes to a younger "construction period." As a result, the mice regenerated optic nerves and restored vision. This experiment is regarded as reverse A major breakthrough in aging technology: If you can "rejuvenate" your eyes, it can do the same for other parts of the body.

Even if these technologies are successful, are they only for the rich?

If you are not the selected elderly person or laboratory rat who can accept reverse-aging technology, David Sinclair pointed out in his book in 2019 that there is currently a civilian version of the method that can be done.

The human body actually retains the original original genes. Even if the epigenes responsible for replicating cells are worn out, there are still ways to modify them and regenerate healthy and normal cells. The human body's "original settings" have a repair mode that, once activated, can slow down or even partially reverse the aging process. The ancients have already mastered this trick.

There is a passage in the Historical Records "Liuhou Family" that describes Zhang Liang: "Liuhou has been sick since he entered the pass. That is to say, Daoyin will not eat grain, and Dumen will not eat grain for more than a year." The so-called Daoyin does not eat grain, which is quite popular nowadays. Fasting therapy. Once the human body is in trouble, such as famine, it will stop building and switch to survival mode, carrying out various repair work, including repairing epigenes. Other "difficulties" include physical exertion (weight training and cardiorespiratory exercise) and moderate amounts of cold stimulation such as cold baths, which combined can slow or reverse biological age.

There are different ways to further activate the repair mechanism, including using Metformin (a prescription drug for lowering blood sugar) to deliberately trigger the body's distress response, making it easier for urbanites to continue their normal diet and life while still having the self-healing ability that Zhang Liang had when he was practicing immortality.

As for NMN and Resveratrol, the new favorites in the health care market, it was actually the Sinclair team who fed them to old mice and found that they regained their vitality and completed long-distance running equivalent to a marathon at the age of 80 or 90 years old. This phenomenon comes from a coenzyme called NAD in animals, which determines a variety of vitamin functions in the body. NAD levels decrease with age, falling by more than half after middle age.

NAD cannot be directly absorbed and supplemented. Currently, there are three supplements to increase human NAD levels (NMN, NR, B3). Taking the raw material NMN can help the body synthesize more NAD. The indirect step is to take a supplement called NR, which helps the body produce NMN, which is then converted into NAD. Another indirect step is to take vitamin B3, which causes the body to produce NR and then NMN. Comparing the three supplements, NMN requires the smallest conversion steps, so its effect is the fastest and most obvious, directly providing energy to cells.

Resveratrol itself has the function of maintaining cardiovascular function, and at the same time it greatly increases the activity of NMN by more than two times, complementing each other.

I don’t want to take so many pills. Do I advocate nature?

It's like racing with a cyclist barefoot, not as efficient and much harder. The above-mentioned supplements are actually produced naturally in food and in the human body, but it is often close to impossible to absorb sufficient amounts through food. For example, it would take more than two hundred glasses of red wine to absorb a day's worth of Resveratrol.

Taking supplements is not a magic pill. In fact, it can make you less tired, have more regular sleep cycles, increase food absorption efficiency, and improve body functions. These ordinary things are no longer taken for granted as you get older.

People who are currently paying attention to the scientific research on anti-aging, such as Professor Hu Bowen, MMA famous speaker Logan and even David Sinclair himself, mainly maintain their biological age at a younger level through daily healthy habits. Sinclair is in her fifties, and her heart function remains at that of a twenty-year-old. All physical indicators are ten to twenty years older than her chronological age. However, she said in Google Talk that she still has presbyopia. It seems that the technology that fully reverses age will still take some time. time.

"Heroes who live too long will turn into villains."

The irony is that since NMN became famous, major pharmaceutical companies have wanted a piece of the pie. Last year, a pharmaceutical company applied to the FDA to use NMN as a prescription drug. The reason is that experiments have shown that NMN is effective in treating a variety of diseases (including post-war PTSD in the US military). If this ban is implemented, NMN products will no longer be sold in the North American market. Who is the applicant? It's Metro International Biotech, which David Sinclair is a shareholder of. Circles focusing on anti-aging scientific research have protested. Even his partner, Professor Hu Bowen, tactfully criticized this approach as putting NMN in the hands of a small group of people. He called on everyone to write to the FDA to protest and try to store enough quantities for later use.

Mr. Lu from Regentify in Hong Kong has been following North American health care and anti-aging scientific research for many years. He noticed that Amazon had removed the mainstream NMN from its shelves in March this year, leaving only the B3 vitamin version. Although you can still buy NMN produced by major American manufacturers in Hong Kong, such as DoubleWood with a higher CP value, unfortunately not many people are paying attention to the situation, and even fewer people know how to be wary of counterfeit goods. Mr. Luk lamented that Hong Kong people just want to read a good book until they grow old. In fact, even Professors David Sinclair and Woo Bowen are still trying various health products, monitoring physical indicators and adjusting their lifestyle and mentality. Mr. Lu, who is a marketing planner himself, founded Regentify because he understood that anti-ageing research is changing rapidly and hopes to use a perspective that is closer to the development of the industry so that Hong Kong people can stay healthy and welcome new people who are 100 or even 15 years old in the future. Average lifespan.