Optimal Being

Supplementation with spermidine may slow down cardiovascular aging. This is suggested by a German animal study, published in GeroScience, in which researchers gave mice a fairly high dose of spermidine. Study German molecular scientists from Hanover Medical School gave middle-aged to elderly mice spermidine via their drinking water every day for 6 months. A control group was given drinking water without any additives. After 6 months of supplementation, the researchers compared both groups of mice with each other - and with a group of relatively young mice. Results Old mice lose some of their fur, but spermidine supplementation counteracted this. In the heart muscle of older mice in the control group, the researchers found signs of mild and severe degeneration due to aging. However, spermidine supplementation reduced the signs of severe degeneration. At the molecular level, aging leads to a decrease in the telomeres in the DNA of the cells. The more intense aging processes, the faster t...

  Free radicals , and   reactive oxygen species (ROS)   in particular, play an important part in aging. These are (usually small) molecules lacking an   electron   needed for stability; they will steal an electron from the first thing they bump into. Like pulling a cog out from clockwork, stealing an electron from a protein or enzyme is usually not good for the finely-tuned biochemical machinery of our cells. The free radical might be rendered safe in the process, but it has left some form of chaos and damage in its wake. Free radicals are sufficiently dangerous to biochemical machinery that some of our body's defenders  use bursts of free radicals as a kill mechanism . Scientists generally concur that accumulated damage throughout the body due to free radicals is one important root cause of age-related degeneration - but the devil is in the details. The vast, overwhelming majority of those free radicals are generated by your own metabolism as an unavoidabl...