Long ago and far away a man named Otto Warburg hypothesized that cancer was a metabolic disease. In his view it was a defect in mitochondrial respiration. The politics of the world and of science eventually led to Warburg’s theories taking a back seat and a new theory of cancer took hold. The strongest voice …
A Metabolic Interlude – The thinking behind the Ketogenic Diet Read More »
Drum roll and trumpets please! A new cancer causing pathway has been found. It involves telomeres of course. I bring it to your attention though, not for what it has shown us, but for how it its marketed. You see even scientists know they stand a better chance of getting recognition if they blow the …
I am not sure how many times I’ve said that longer telomeres protect against cancer. Probably almost as many times as I’ve had to refute someone saying “telomerase causes cancer therefore TA-65 might cause cancer.” Back in December 2010 JAMA a very drug centric Big Pharma supported journal published a study that associated short telomere …
I can’t tell you how many times I heard this from cancer doctors (oncologists): “Don’t give my patients antioxidants; you’ll blunt the effect of the chemo and help the cancer!” I always found it ironic that, before the cancer occurred and after they had done whatever they did, which in many cases did not save …
The cancer doctors were wrong about telomerase activators and antioxidants! Read More »
At the end of 2010, one of my least favorite journals, JAMA, published a very important and surprisingly forward-thinking (for them) article on telomere length and cancer. The study was a large Meta-analysis of telomere length and the likelihood of getting cancer. People were divided into “quartiles” according to telomere length. Basically, this means there …
Short telomeres are associated with decreased cancer survival Read More »
Over the past couple of days, I have dug pretty deep into the metabolic associations between obesity, diabetes, and short telomeres. The end result is of course, accelerated aging. But, more and more I have to tell you, I think aging is the real cause, or at least a major contributing factor to many of …
Aging fat as a cause for diabetes – the role of short telomeres Read More »
Arguments continue among the best and brightest scientists concerning the question: Is aging unstoppable. If you think about it, that question has already been answered in a functional way. There are several mammalian cell lines that have been made “immortal” simply by turning on telomerase and expressing it at a higher level than normal. Most …
Ever since the emergence of the so-called Type A personality some 50 years ago, scientists have struggled to understand the relationship between stress, disease, and aging. We all kinda knew there had to be a relationship, but the data did not always bear it out. All kinds of statistical machinations were needed to make things …
In my most recent blog, The Monster is Not Born Immortal, I discussed in real time the results of Dr Maria Blasco’s most recent paper using both telomerase over expression and Calorie Restriction. As usual, I got a bevy of comments, many of which were nasty grams and did not get published for that reason, …
Telomere maintenance – We who are about to die Salute You Read More »
A recent German study has found an association between familial and non familial malignant melanoma and the telomerase gene. I think we should talk about this because it shows where the seemingly unending association with telomerase and cancer came/comes from. First concept: Cancer cells are not normal. They are the result not only of loss …
The monster is not born immortal: When telomerase drives cancer Read More »