DailyDirt: Aging Gracefully

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

The topic of aging is a widely-studied one -- presumably because everyone ages and it's one of the leading causes of death. There's no cure for aging just yet, but scientists are collecting more information on the process of aging. Once the process is understood more thoroughly, there might be ways to treat it and extend human lifespans. Here are just a few more links on the subject of aging and possible ways to prevent it.

• Generally, people are born with about 20,000 hematopoietic stem cells to generate blood cells. When Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper died at the age of 115, she apparently had only two active stem cells -- and researchers are investigating how stem cells might provide an upper limit to aging and extending the human lifespan. [url]
• Syndrome X is the name of the disorder that Brooke Greenberg was diagnosed to have in 2009, but since then, other people have also been found to have similar symptoms that seem to halt the normal aging process. Gabby Williams, Mackenzee Wittke, and another girl are having their entire genome sequences analyzed to try to gain some further understanding of the aging process and how these girls' bodies have altered it. [url]
• Longevity entrepreneurs from silicon valley are looking into the problem of aging and the biotech solutions that might be available. According to Human Longevity Inc (HLI), "aging is the single biggest risk factor for virtually every significant human disease." [url]

If you'd like to read more awesome and interesting stuff, check out this unrelated (but not entirely random!) Techdirt post via StumbleUpon.

Filed Under: aging, biotech, brooke greenberg, death, health, hendrikje van andel-schipper, hli, lifespan, longevity, stem cells, syndrome x
Companies: human longevity inc