[extropy-chat] Fwd: mutated lamin A likely key driver of human aging

[Robert Bradbury]

On 5/3/06, Jeff Davis <jrd1415 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> I've sometimes pondered the mystery of the Methusaleh
> story.  How to explain?  Pure biblical hoo hah?  Myth?
> Accounting irregularities?  Or could it be an
> accurate account of an anomalous (no doubt
> genetically-mediated) incidence of superlongevity?
>
> It's a puzzlement.


More than a decade ago I gave a talk in Russia to some gerontologists and
mentioned the Methuselah "legends".  One of the scientists pointed out to me
that if you interpret the numbers in terms of months instead of years the
numbers make much more sense.  He argued that there was a misinterpretation
of the original material (or the "ancient legend" had been exaggerated).

Since I just spent some time reviewing the Lamin A research I'll make a
couple of comments (since the people who are hyping it do *not* have a long
background in the study of aging/gerontology).

1) Accelerated aging is *NOT* the inverse of longevity!
There are at least dozens, perhaps hundreds or thousands of ways you can
damage the "perfect" human genome and produce effects which cause one to die
prematurely.  Werner's Syndrome and Hutchinson-Guilford Syndrome are the two
which most closely resemble "normal" aging.  But George Martin wrote a paper
long ago (20 years?) detailing the characteristics of many diseases,
including Down's Syndrome, which have some symptoms which resemble aging.
What can be said with relative accuracy is "If you damage the WS gene or the
Lamin A gene in certain ways you will accumulate damage that resembles aging
more quickly than is normally the case."

2) Drugs or gene therapies which correct the defective Lamin A which causes
the accelerated aging in HGS will fix that specific genetic disease -- they
will do little or nothing to prevent "normal" aging.  Animals lacking Lamin
A entirely *still* age and die (just animals on CR *still* age and die).

There has been a recent discussion about this on the GRG list which was
relatively informative.  You should locate their archives (I don't have the
URL) if you want to go into the topic in greater depth.

Robert
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