Category Archives: Health

Reversing Aging in Primates

April 25, 2023 tremendousblog Leave a comment

Researchers have reversed some signs of aging in mice. But it had never been done in primates — until now.

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Age reversal works in primates to restore vision. Announced by my collaborator Dr. Bruce Ksander & @lifebiosciences. Next up: age reversal in humans.
How’s that @elonmusk? 🚀https://t.co/qLCixcbPE0 1/10… pic.twitter.com/ZQUxz5Rymb
— David Sinclair (@davidasinclair) April 24, 2023

In what appears to be a major scientific breakthrough, Life Biosciences presented results showing the reversal of damage to the eye in non-human primates. From Life Bio’s press release:

Life Bio’s lead platform reprograms the epigenome of older animals to resemble that of younger animals via expression of three Yamanaka factors, Oct4, Sox2, and Klf4, collectively known as OSK. The approach partially reprograms cells to resemble a more youthful state while retaining their original cellular identity. Previous data from Life Bio and academic researchers, which were also presented at ARVO 2023, have shown that treatment with OSK reverses retinal aging and restores vision in old mice in a mouse model of glaucoma. Now, with the data presented today at ARVO, the company has demonstrated restoration of visual function and increased nerve axon survival in [a non-human primate] model that mimics human NAION deficits in retinal ganglion cells.

The researchers intentionally damaged the eyes of primates with lasers. Gruesome, I know.

Then, they gave a series of injections that used Yamanaka factors to reprogram the cells, reversing the damage.

Similar eye problems can occur in humans, often associated with age. If researchers can reverse them in non-human primates, perhaps humans are next.

Professor David Sinclair of Harvard Medical School co-founded Life Bio. Sinclair’s lab did something similar in mice, published in Nature in 2020.

The recent Life Bio results are a corporate press release, not a peer reviewed study. But given this team’s track record, I’d bet the publication is coming any day now.

Consider the path of this research. First it’s in a test tube, then a mouse, then a monkey.
We’re getting closer and closer to humans.

Of course, this result is only about eyes. But if a few injections can fix that, what else can they fix?

Moreover, we’re seeing rapid progress on two fronts: genetics and AI. Where might this lead?

Perhaps in the near future, humans will live to be 250 years old. Throughout our lifetimes, we’ll be 100X more capable, thanks to our AI assistants.

And when medicine can no longer keep us going, we upload our consciousness to our preferred cloud provider and, in a sense, live forever.

That’s a future I look forward to.

What do you think is the future of longevity? Leave a comment and let us know!

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Fasting for a 53 Pound Weight Loss

April 21, 2023 tremendousblog 1 Comment

Did anyone not get fat during COVID?

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I know I did. With snacking one of the few activities still permissible by law, I ballooned up to 219 pounds by the summer of 2021.

Little things show you it’s gone too far.

Bending over to tie my shoes was no picnic. Ahh….picnics….

I knew I had to make a change. And while moderation can be a tough balance, you know what’s pretty simple?

Eating nothing.

I experimented with various fasting schedules until I found one that resulted in weight loss, week after week.

Here’s how I did it:

Schedule

Sunday: Skip breakfast and eat dinner only. (I’m not really into lunch.)

Monday: Fast all day.

Tuesday: Eat a normal, moderate diet.

Wednesday: Same.

Thursday: Fast all day.

Friday: Cheat day!

I eat as much as I want all day, including my favorite foods. Cookies, ice cream, chips, you name it.

But those foods are off limits the rest of the week.

Consuming a lot of calories one day per week can keep your metabolism high. It tells your body not to go into “starvation mode” and expend as little energy as possible to survive.

After all, the feast is coming!

I find including a cheat day makes it much easier for me to eat healthy the rest of the week.

It’s not that I can never have cookies. Just not until Friday.

Saturday: Eat a normal, moderate diet.

Workouts

I also work out five times a week. I generally do 4 cardio sessions of 30 minutes each and a strength session of about 30 minutes.

I try to put as many workouts as I can on fast days. Fasting and cardio together may improve longevity.

Electrolyte Supplementation

The key to fasting is keeping electrolyte levels in a healthy range. When your electrolytes get low, your life sucks.

You’re tired, your muscles ache, and your heart can race. Just trust me, it’s not pleasant.

So I never fast without electrolyte supplementation. I like to consume 4-6 eight ounce glasses of electrolyte replacement drink per day.

I usually buy a powdered electrolyte mix from Dollar General, which works great. I’ve also had good results with Liquid IV and Pedialyte.

Isn’t Fasting Dangerous?

Actually, fasting has a ton of health benefits.

In addition to weight loss, you can improve insulin resistance and immune response. You may even live longer too!

But of course, everyone’s body is different. Discussing it with your doctor is always a good idea.

Wrap-Up

If you’re getting chubby, you probably have a hard time with portion sizes. I do too!

That’s the magical thing about fasting. Portion sizes are easy.

Zero!

You also have a ton of free time to work, enjoy the outdoors, and pursue hobbies. It’s amazing how time consuming cooking, eating, and clean-up can be.

If you give it a shot, let me know how it goes! And when your fast is over, get one of these. 🙂

Have you tried fasting? Why or why not?

Male Contraception with One Simple Shot

August 5, 2022 tremendousblog Leave a comment

For generations, preventing pregnancy has fallen mostly on women. Men have few ways to help, aside from often ineffective condoms.

With abortion now illegal in many states, the need for contraception is the greatest in 50 years.

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So I was excited to learn today about an amazing new male contraceptive called Contraline.

Contraline is an injectable gel that blocks sperm before they’re ever released. It has no effect on hormones and ejaculation happens as normal.

The roughly 30 minute procedure happens in an outpatient clinic and remains effective for at least a year.

The gel, called ADAM, is set to enter clinical trials this year.

It works by setting up a barrier in the vas deferens. This barrier blocks the sperm from leaving the body.

When the gel has reached the end of its lifespan, it liquefies, removing the barrier.

Development of male contraceptives has long been stifled by a lack of research funding. Government grants have gone mostly to contraceptive options for women.

But as more federal dollars and venture capital pour into male contraceptive development, things are beginning to change.

University of Minnesota researchers have developed a male birth control pill that’s 99% effective in mice. They hope to begin human trials this year.

A contraceptive gel for men is also in development. But that too is likely five years or more from market.

Should Contraline or another male contraceptive come to market, couples would have more options than ever. Many women find IUD’s painful and birth control pills fraught with side effects.

What’s more, men have had to trust their partners to handle contraception. If men could do it themselves, society may look much different.

John Reynolds-Wright, a male contraceptive researcher at the University of Edinburgh, may have said it best:

“Maybe I’m overstating how exciting it is, but I always think of it like the iPhone. We couldn’t have imagined how the iPhone would impact on our lives until it was invented. And actually, this is something that’s got the potential to completely, radically change how we talk about family planning, about relationships, about sex.”

I hope the awesome team at Contraline can get their product to market and change the lives of couples worldwide. If men and women can share the contraceptive burden more equally, we’ll have a better world!

What do you think the future holds for male contraceptives? Leave a comment at the bottom and let me know!

Have a great weekend everyone! 👋

More on tech:

Male Contraception With an Ultrasound Device?

Inside the Seed Funding Slowdown

The Top 5 Things I’ve Learned from Angel Investing

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3D Printing a Human Ear

December 2, 2021 tremendousblog 3 Comments

What would it be like to not have ears?

Unfortunately, for patients with microtia, this is no hypothetical. Microtia, or lack of a fully developed ear, is a congenital condition affecting about 1 in every 6-8,000 people.

Some patients have a malformed outer ear. Others have almost no ear tissue at all.

The only treatment is taking cartilage from the rib and fashioning a new ear. This requires multiple painful surgeries and tends to produce an unsatisfying outcome.

But now, an incredible NYC startup called 3D Bio can use the patient’s own ear tissue to 3D print a new ear! The patient’s sample is expanded in a cell culture and printed.

The ear can be attached in a simple outpatient procedure.

This treatment is now in early clinical trials. If it works, it could change medicine forever.

What if we could print new hearts, lungs, or livers? Imagine making a new, functional eye for a blind person.

Such technology could alleviate enormous suffering and greatly expand human life expectancy. And I’m extremely excited about it.

Best of luck to the incredible team at 3D Bio!

A Vaccine for Breast Cancer?

November 2, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

Breast cancer killed 685,000 women worldwide last year. But the Cleveland Clinic has a new drug that could change that:

Cleveland Clinic researchers have opened a novel study for a vaccine aimed at eventually preventing triple-negative breast cancer, the most aggressive and lethal form of the disease.

Triple negative breast cancer only accounts for 12-15% of cases, but it’s unusually deadly.

Unlike most vaccines, the breast cancer vaccine could even help people who already have cancer:

“We are hopeful that this research will lead to more advanced trials to determine the effectiveness of the vaccine against this highly aggressive type of breast cancer,” said G. Thomas Budd, M.D., of Cleveland Clinic’s Taussig Cancer Institute and principal investigator of the study. “Long term, we are hoping that this can be a true preventive vaccine that would be administered to healthy women to prevent them from developing triple-negative breast cancer, the form of breast cancer for which we have the least effective treatments.”

Dr. Vincent Tuohy, inventor of the breast cancer vaccine, thinks vaccines may also work against ovarian and endometrial cancers:

“If successful, these vaccines have the potential to transform the way we control adult-onset cancers and enhance life expectancy in a manner similar to the impact that the childhood vaccination program has had.”

The idea of a vaccine for cancer isn’t as crazy as it may sound. BioNTech, producer of the first COVID vaccine approved in the United States, was working on cancer vaccines when the pandemic hit.

BioNTech currently has a colorectal cancer vaccine in Phase 2 clinical trials. That drug is even customized to each person’s body for maximum effectiveness.

We may be headed toward a world where if you have cancer, a few injections could stop the tumors in their tracks. And if you don’t have cancer, a preventive vaccine could ensure you never develop it.

The breast cancer vaccine’s Phase 1 trials should wrap up in September of 2022. I can’t wait for the results!

Why Aren’t Flu Vaccines Free for Everyone?

April 20, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

If you have health insurance in the United States, you can usually get a flu vaccine for nothing. But for the 28.9 million Americans who are uninsured, a flu vaccine can cost up to $50. For a population that is often hard pressed, this can be unaffordable. And if you have a family of 4 to vaccinate, the numbers are even worse.

Meanwhile, COVID vaccines cost absolutely nothing, whether you have insurance or not. Why aren’t we doing the same for flu vaccines?

Medicare pays $10-60 for flu vaccines, with an average price of $36 across all the vaccines they cover. If the federal government bought one for every uninsured American, the price would be $1.04 billion.

In the midst of the COVID pandemic, it’s easy to forget just how deadly the common flu can be. But the flu has killed between 12,000 and 61,000 Americans per year since 2010.

How do we decide if a policy is worth it compared to the number of lives it could save? The government uses a figure called the “statistical value of a human life” to measure whether many policies, such as environmental regulations, are worth it or not. That figure is about $10 million.

At that rate, giving a free flu shot to every uninsured American would only have to save 100 lives a year in order to pay for itself entirely. That’s just 0.2% to 0.8% of all flu deaths. Offering free flu vaccines to 8.8% of the entire population would probably prevent a lot more than a fraction of a percent of flu deaths.

Let’s give this policy a try!

For more on health, check out these posts:

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Photo: “01a.UStreet.NW.WDC.13September2015” by Elvert Barnes is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

COVID, Health

This Tiny Country Beat COVID

April 12, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

On the southern tip of Spain, the tiny UK territory of Gibraltar has vaccinated almost its entire population. COVID deaths have dropped to zero:

Gibraltar has 33k residents and 7k day workers, vaccinated almost all of them. #COVID19 deaths this week = Zero, l… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…—
Keith Humphreys (@KeithNHumphreys) April 11, 2021

Life is beginning to get back to normal. Masks are no longer required outside, curfews are gone, and bars and restaurants are full. Even sporting events have resumed:

Events have also returned to the Rock as Gibraltar hosted what’s thought to be the first fully vaccinated major sporting fixture in the world on Saturday.
Five hundred spectators, each tested for Covid-19 prior to the event, were able to witness British heavyweight fighter Dillian Whyte claim victory over Russia’s Alexander Povetkin at Gibraltar’s Europa Sports Complex.
The fight, called the Rumble on the Rock, was originally meant to take place at the Matchroom HQ, a venue in southeastern England, but was switched to Gibraltar thanks to its Covid-19 safe environment.
Soccer fans were also allowed to witness sporting matches starting with Gibraltar’s World Cup qualifier clash against the Netherlands on Tuesday.
Victoria Stadium welcomed 600 attendees who had previously received two doses of the vaccine and tested negative for the virus on the day of the match.

Only 3% of residents refused the vaccine, which may be one reason why Gibraltar’s results are so good. That may be difficult to recreate in the US or other nations, but Gibraltar provides a welcome view of what life could look like soon as the world races to vaccinate.

I encourage you to get your shot if you haven’t already. Let’s get back to normal life!

For more on COVID and vaccines, check out these posts:

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Photo: “Gibraltar – Rosia” by Roy McGrail (krm gib) is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Health

How I Eat Delicious Organic Produce for Next to Nothing: Introducing Misfits Market

March 4, 2021 tremendousblog 292 Comments

Last Saturday, my wife went to a farmer’s market with her friend. As her friend loaded up on yummy veggies, my wife noticed something: she was paying $40 for a small bag of vegetables while we pay $26 for twice as much. And ours is 100% organic, whereas the farmer’s market haul was only about half.

Do we have special connections down on the farm? Sort of…

For over a year, my wife and I have gotten almost all our produce from Misfits Market, a subscription service that sends a big box of delicious, all-organic fruits and vegetables to your door every week. The quality is absolutely exceptional. I thought radishes were cold, tasteless chunks under harsh lights on salad bars until I tried theirs! Colorful, peppery, crispy, delicious!

Misfits is a great way to introduce yourself to new kinds of produce. I’ve tried golden beets, turnips, rutabagas, chard, collard greens, and countless other delicious things I never would’ve thought to buy otherwise. Getting the surprise veg each week is like Christmas! But if you prefer to choose your produce, they offer that as well.

We pay $26.25 a week for more than enough veggies for both of us. In fact, we often have to delay our next shipment (easy to do), so our real cost is probably barely over $20/week.

Before we got Misfits, I would buy a smaller assortment of veggies at Aldi for about $20. To get as much produce as Misfits, Aldi would run at least $30, even for non-organic! And Aldi is about the cheapest grocery store there is.

So let’s review:

1) Cheaper than any grocery store
2) Incredible taste
3) All-organic
4) Shipped to your door

What’s not to like? Well, nothing, which is why my wife and I have been loyal Misfits customers for so long! If you want to join us, use this link to sign up and you’ll save $10 on your first order. I’ll also get $10.

They have plans for households of 2-3 and a larger box for bigger households. FYI: Single-person households won’t be able to eat all this.

Enjoy in good health!

For more posts about health and nutrition, check out some of these:

Check out the Stuff I Use page for some great deals on products and services I use to improve my health and productivity. They just might help you too!

COVID, Health, Life

I Got The Moderna Vaccine! Here’s What It’s Like.

February 22, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

At 1:48pm today New Jersey time, I got my vaccine!

I’ve been waiting for this moment for many months, and I’m so grateful to have a chance to get it. It was the Moderna vaccine and I got it through the Hudson County vaccination site. So far, I feel 100%!

Having lived through the dark period of spring 2020 in the New York City area, when sirens were almost constant and my neighbors were dying in huge numbers, reaching this moment is cathartic. It prompted a lot of feelings for me: relief, gratitude, and hope!

So, what’s it like? This is a drive through site, and I don’t own a car, so I took an Uber. The driver very patiently waited with me in the lengthy line to get the jab. Many cars slowly snaked ahead in the cold snow.

Once we finally made it to the front, I showed a QR code on my phone that the county had e-mailed me. Shortly therafter, the nurse came up and asked if I had been feeling sick today. Then, she gave me the shot!

I barely felt a thing, which was surprising. Since then, I’ve had no side effects that I can discern. I hope it stays that way!

Just after the shot, we took the picture above. It’s actually staged…she had already given me the jab before we ever thought to document the moment for posterity! So she posed with the needle near my arm, and I took a snap to record this wonderful moment in my life that I’ve waited so long for.

“This is a historic moment,” she said. I agreed.

If you’re still trying to get an appointment, don’t give up! I’ve been checking every area provider’s website repeatedly for months. And I almost wasn’t going to check again today, but I did, and found an appointment for just 90 minutes away! Perhaps someone cancelled last minute. The best strategy seems to be to check over and over.

Now, I can begin to plan for a life after COVID. A week after the 2nd dose, which will be around the end of March, it should have achieved its full 94% efficacy. I will finally be able to get on a plane and visit my mom for the first time since December 2019! And I’m looking forward to getting some great protection even sooner: just 2 weeks after the first dose, the vaccine is 80% effective.

I really encourage everyone to get this vaccine, although I know each person has to make their own decision. COVID may be something to fear, but this really isn’t! If I didn’t keel over after, you won’t either! 🙂

COVID, Health, Science

The Miracle Particles Behind COVID Vaccines

February 17, 2021 tremendousblog Leave a comment

The particles that the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines rely on are 1/1000th the width of a human hair. They’re called lipid nanoparticles, and they’re revolutionizing medicine as we speak.

The Pfizer and Moderna COVID vaccines work by sending mRNA to your cells. The mRNA tells the cells how to make proteins that block the virus. But you can’t send the mRNA on its own, because it would be repelled and flushed out through the kidneys.

The mRNA needs a wrapper, and that’s where the lipid nanoparticle comes in. The mRNA molecules are negatively charged and so are our cells. These two negatives push each other away. But, the nanoparticle can make it inside the cell.

Once inside the cell, the particle faces another barrier. The cell wraps it in a container called an endosome, because the cell doesn’t want to be contaminated. So, the lipid nanoparticle has to be specially designed to escape that endosomal prison.

Decades of research has gone into these particles, and they can now escape and spread the necessary information into the watery substance inside the cell (called the cytoplasm). Our commitment to funding basic science decades ago is paying off today in ways we could never have anticipated.

I learned a great deal about these incredible particles today at an online seminar hosted by the journal Nature with Kathryn Whitehead of Carnegie Mellon University and Yizhou Dong of Ohio State University. They gave some great perspective on the development of this amazing technology.

One thing Professor Whitehead mentioned was that despite concerns that the mRNA vaccines are too new and unproven to be safe, the lipid nanoparticles they use have existed for decades. In fact, she said she’s had research rejected for publication because these particles are considered too old hat!

I also finally learned why the vaccines have to be stored at such cold temperatures: molecules will start moving around too much once the temperature rises, so the lipid nanoparticles could come apart. Perhaps one reason Moderna’s vaccine doesn’t need quite as cold of storage is that they’ve been researching these particles for much longer than Pfizer/BioNTech, so their particles may be a bit more stable.

Beyond COVID, lipid nanoparticles and the mRNA therapies they’re a part of could be used for other viruses like the flu, Zika and Ebola. They may also be used as cancer immunotherapies. (This echoes what the co-founders of BioNTech said recently.)

These particles seem likely to underlie an entire new generation of medicines. I’ll be keeping a close eye on them, microscopic as they are!

Photo: “2020_06_020100 – a human cell attacked by Covid-19” by Gwydion M. Williams is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Tremendous

Category Archives: Health

Reversing Aging in Primates

Fasting for a 53 Pound Weight Loss

Male Contraception with One Simple Shot

3D Printing a Human Ear

A Vaccine for Breast Cancer?

Why Aren’t Flu Vaccines Free for Everyone?

This Tiny Country Beat COVID

How I Eat Delicious Organic Produce for Next to Nothing: Introducing Misfits Market

I Got The Moderna Vaccine! Here’s What It’s Like.

The Miracle Particles Behind COVID Vaccines

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