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Urine Test Measures Rate of Aging Process

Contrary to what Juan Ponce de Leon thought when he searched for it in the 16th century, the fountain of youth is made of anti-oxidants, not water, and it's a lot easier to find than the famed explorer thought, says University of Florida spokesperson, Kristin Harmel. In a study published in this month's American Journal of Physiology, Christiaan Leeuwenburgh, a professor in the University of Florida's College of Health and Human Performance, found that anti-oxidant intervention, which can come from taking vitamin supplements or from a steady routine of exercise, slows parts of the aging process.

"Our most significant finding was that anti-oxidant intervention slows down basal skeletal muscle oxidation, which causes the body to age," said Leeuwenburgh, who did the study with Jay Heinecke, John Holloszy and Polly Hansen of the Washington University School of Medicine. "This is the first evidence of this."

Regular exercise or a diet including plenty of anti-oxidants such as vitamin E, vitamin C and beta carotene, all of which fight the tendency of oxygen to slowly break down muscle mass, might protect against the type of tissue and muscle loss that occur as individuals grow older, Leeuwenburgh said. "When an individual grows old, we all know that the person loses a lot of muscle mass," Leeuwenburgh said.

"One of the mechanisms that causes this is increased oxidant production, in a process known as muscle oxidation. Regular exercise or anti-oxidant supplements could potentially improve and protect against this oxidative stress, which may have direct implications on tissue loss and the aging process."

The study also was the first of its kind to show that levels of oxidation in the body can be determined noninvasively, by using specific markers in the urine. This will allow people to measure their levels of muscle oxidation more quickly and easily.

The marker found in the urine also may be useful as an indicator of other medical problems, which will contribute not only to slowing the aging process but also to protecting people against various diseases. "This marker could be useful in assessing a variety of conditions, like Alzheimers, atherosclerosis, cancer and the aging process itself," Leeuwenburgh said. "They've all been associated with increased free-radical formation, which can be detected in the urine."

A previous study by Leeuwenburgh also showed that a decrease in caloric intake, which can lead to a longer life span because of a reduction in the body's rate of metabolism, also causes a similar decrease in skeletal muscle oxidation. Leeuwenburgh recommends an increase of daily anti-oxidant intake, especially in the form of vitamin E, because it also has been proven to protect against heart disease.

In addition, he says that exercising more and eating less, both of which have been promoted for years as ways to stay healthy in everyday life, also will increase the human life span and help people stay younger longer.
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
"Biologist Says No Firm Limit on Aging"
"Gero-technology Creates Anti-aging Cells"
"Science Helps Boomers Battle Premature Aging"
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Hispanic Elders High Risk for Diabetes

What you don't know CAN hurt you. Particularly when it pertains to diabetes. And especially if you are Hispanic. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Hispanic-Americans are diagnosed with diabetes at twice the rate of European-Americans. But that's not the worst news. The number of existing cases is believed to be twice the number of currently diagnosed cases. No, that wasn't the worst news, either. This is. This high risk of diabetes for Hispanics actually increases with age.

This new data affirms the importance of the government's initiative to eliminate health disparities between minorities and European-Americans in six key areas, including diabetes, by the year 2010. In the fiscal 1999 budget, just approved by Congress, $65 million in first-year funding will go to combat these disparities; including $5 million for a community based, culturally relevant diabetes education and prevention program conducted by CDC.

Diabetes can lead to a number of serious health complications including blindness, lower limb amputation and kidney disease. "There are many things people with diabetes can do to prevent these serious complications and improve their quality of life," said Nilka Ríos Burrows, author of the report. "We must ensure that Hispanics know they may be at higher risk for diabetes and how they can manage the disease if they are diagnosed."

The CDC study is the first to show diabetes prevalence among all Hispanics in the U.S. and Puerto Rico. Most previous diabetes studies that focused on Hispanics have been conducted in Mexican Americans and have found that approximately one out of every 10 Mexican Americans aged 20 years and older has diabetes.

Here's what the CDC knows so far about the diabetes disparity between Hispanics and European-Americans. Diabetes mellitus is a group of diseases characterized by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin secretion, insulin action, or both. People with diabetes can take measures to reduce the likelihood of serious health complications by controlling their blood glucose levels through medication, exercise and proper nutrition. For more information and to order publications about diabetes call toll-free 1-877-CDC-DIAB.
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
"Latina Mothers Risk Late-life Diabetes"
"Study Raises Health Hopes for Black Males"
"Highest Prostate Cancer Risk Is Black Male"
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Fixing Our Bio-Clock Might Buy Us Time

If you're feeling like your "get up and go" has "got up and went", welcome to the club. Millions of Americans are spending literally billions of dollars trying to jump-start their aging bodies. But what, exactly, are all these herbs, brews, and vitamins able to do for our aging bodies? Some experts say, "plenty", others say "only time will tell". In other words, the jury is still out. When we figure out what's broken, then we'll know what to fix. Until then, don't feel discouraged. There's a team of scientists investigating how our biological clock keeps us ticking. More importantly, some day science may be able to jump-start are bio-clocks. When they do, we're in for the time of our lives.

According to Harvard Medical School spokesperson, Misia Landau, the study of biological clocks is a field whose time has come and with breathtaking speed. Landau reports that a team of Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) scientists has discovered that the same genetic machinery that controls the inner movements of the clock may drive the basic rhythms of the body the rise and fall of body temperature, blood pressure, hormones and the sleep­wake cycle.

"We think this is the first example of an output of the biological clock that we understand at a molecular level, that is, how a bodily rhythm is controlled from the core clock loop," says Steven Reppert, professor of pediatrics at MGH and Harvard Medical School. Xiaowei Jin and Lauren Shearman, who are both research fellows in pediatrics at MGH, are lead authors of a publication on the study's findings which appear in the January issue of Cell. The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health.

The discovery is also significant because it sheds further light on a biologically unique phenomenon, Reppert says. "We're talking about a time domain that is unusual in biology. We¹re talking about a cell being able to keep 24-hour time rather than millisecond or second-by-second time. That's what I think is so unusual. Feedback loops are very common in biology, but this sort of time domain is what makes this loop special," he says.

Ultimately, it may be possible to correct defects in the clock or harness it to improve the function of the body's daily, or circadian, rhythms. "Understanding the clock may allow us to manipulate sleep or at least to understand abnormalities of sleep in patients based on aberration of their central clock," he says. They have discovered that the clock consists of at least six proteins that engage in a series of precisely timed events that result in genes being switched on and off over a 24-hour cycle.

Reppert and his colleagues have discovered that the gene for arginine vasopressin, a peptide that is released rhythmically in specific brain regions over the course of the day, contains the same on switch as one of the six genes in the central clock mechanism. And the switch for this output gene appears to be turned on and off by the same proteins, or transcription factors, that control the central clock genes.

A better understanding of how the clock mechanism drives bodily rhythms could also lead to more effective treatments of disease. For example, heart and asthma attacks are more likely to occur at certain times of day. And certain medications have greater efficiency and lower toxicity depending on what hour they are given. "It's a whole area of circadian biology that is coming into its own," Reppert says.

If Reppert's work continues to produce greater insights, and if science can enhance the working of our biological clock, then aging boomers may just be in for the time of their life.
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
"Gero-technology Creates Anti-aging Cells"
"Science Helps Boomers Battle Premature Aging"
"Genes Still Tight With Aging"
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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Elder Expertise: Big Help for Small Business

Ever catch yourself saying, "If I only knew back then, what I know now"?. Or, perhaps your favorite phrase is "Too soon old, too late smart". Well, a lot of small business owners feel the same way, and collectively, the small business community is the life-blood of the American economy. There's just no substitute for experience, but experience can take a lifetime to accumulate.

Thanks to a new alliance, small business owners won't have to wait a lifetime to acquire the wisdom they need right now in order to survive and thrive in today's competitive economy. SCORE (Service Corps of Retired Executives) and Bank of America have partnered in order to launch a national effort to provide small businesses with financial know how. Both SCORE and Bank of America are making plans to provide small business training on developing a financial plan within an overall business plan. The training will give small business owners the strategies necessary to access the capital required for success.

This new alliance will aid small businesses in their pursuit of business financing, lines of credit and good financial practices. As partners, SCORE and Bank of America will work together to provide entrepreneurs with the financial management knowledge they need to apply for credit and successfully manage credit. "Financing is a value to small business. Since many small businesses are undercapitalized, a better understanding of financing and how to be a good bank customer is a big advantage to a small business planning for growth," says SCORE President Emmett Gumm.

Both the SCORE Small Business Site (www.score.org) and Bank of America Small Business Site (www.nationsbank.com) will feature information on financing, credit and access to capital. Look for new workshops under the heading Managing Business Finances on the SCORE Web site in January. "The SCORE and Bank of America alliance will help SCORE better serve small businesses by bringing more information about business capitalization, financing and credit to the small business community. Just visit the SCORE and Bank of America Web sites in January" says Gumm.

The SCORE Association (Service Corps of Retired Executives) was formed in 1964 as a nonprofit association dedicated to entrepreneur education and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide. More than 12,400 volunteer members provide individual counseling and business workshops for aspiring entrepreneurs and small business owners. Since 1964, nearly 4 million Americans have participated in SCORE counseling and workshops.

There seems to be a greater lesson in all of this. Perhaps, it's time for social scientists to take a lesson from the natural scientists who have long advocated the sheparding and recycling of our resources in order to save the environment. Maybe social policy-makers need to re-think their social policies which push valuable human resources, like these mature executives, into the enforced idleness of retirement. If experience and maturity are such great business assets, why are we intent on throwing it away onto the retirement heap?
See related articles in the AgeVenture archives.
"Retirees Help Small Biz SCORE Big"
"Volunteerism Boosts Energy and Esteem"
"Lifestyle Study Says Elders Improve With Age"
AgeVenture News Service, www.demko.com
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