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...

  Calorie restriction or caloric restriction, usually abbreviated to CR, is a strategy proven to extend healthy, average, and maximum life span in many short lived species, including mice and rats, and at least healthy and average life span in primates. In research papers it is more usually called dietary restriction, abbreviated to DR, and rodent studies conducted over the past 20 years have reliably demonstrated up to a 40% increase in maximum life span through life-long DR. These benefits to health and longevity have been shown in animal studies to roughly scale with the degree of calorie restriction imposed, but there is good reason to believe that any gain in primate (and especially human) life span through CR is much more modest than that observed in mice. The calorie restriction response exists in near all species tested to date, and probably evolved very early in the history of life on Earth as a way to increase the chances of surviving seasonal famines or other periodic sh...