The Genesis of the Age of Life Extention

In November 2006, to much worldwide press excitement, researchers released a report that showed how a component in grape skin, called resveratrol, significantly extended the lives of mice raised on a high fat diet. The biological mechanism that achieved these results in mice is both fascinating and exciting. It could hold the key to the body's ability to control, or at least, significantly slow down the aging process. Without getting into the hard core science of this new discovery I provide here a brief outline of the current understanding of this mechanism that may have brought us to the Genesis of the Age of Life Extention:

1) It has long been known that a diet that dramatically restricts calorie input by 30% to 40% has tremendous health benefits (but who wants to be hungry and scrawny??). This is referred to as the Calorie Restriction Diet ("CRD"). http://nymag.com/news/features/23169/ Lab animals and even some humans who have tried the CRD do not suffer from age related diseases such as diabetes and cancer for example.

2) Recent research has found that normally inactive enzymes in most living cells called sirtuins are activated when a cell is subject to a CRD. When a cell is getting normal nutrition sirtuins remain inactive. This defense mechanism is believed to be a surviving trait of the evolutionary process that would help protect an organism from long periods where nutrition is scarce.http://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/press/2003/January/030104.htm

3) When activated, a certain sirtuin has been shown to reduce glucose production levels and slow the aging process in mice. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070815154329.htm

4) High levels of resveratrol, a compound found in many fruits especially in red grape skin, have been shown to activate sirtuin enzymes in the body. http://www.drpressman.com/Library/Resveratrol.htm

5) A little company called Sirtris Pharmacueticals is the leader in sirtuin research and has numerous patents to show for it. SIRTRIS already has a proprietary stable formula of resveratrol in clinical trials to treat Type 2 diabetes. It has also developed a non-resveratrol based small molecule that is 1000 times more potent than its resveratrol based product. http://www.sirtrispharma.com/Science/Technology/tabid/3732/Default.aspx

I will be following this company through this blog as The Sirtuin Investor as I am fascinated by long term implications of sirtuins and the potential to earn substantial returns investing in them. Live longer requires having extra money, so pairing the two goals on this blog are the perfect complements.