From: CYMM (cymm@trinidad.net)
Date: Mon Jul 10 2000 - 15:34:11 MDT
...Well, with aminoguanidine it may be never; Cerami et al fairly
conclusively showed it worked in rats and that was '80's.
The chemical has been around for quite a while before that; and like
piracetam; arginine pyroglutamate; and dextromethorphan (...in stroke and
NOT as a trip!!...), I suppose there is little incentive for development as
a commercial wonder drug... and no real hope of it being legally called a
"dietary supplement" to be pushed by the vitamin hawkers.
I'd love to know about aminoguanidine's toxicology though. ...And did you
see Robert-Coyote's post about that dipeptide carnosine?...that probably
isn't toxic, and if you can't buy it you should be able to make it.
>If you read the article, they say it will be "at least" 10 years before
>AGE-breakers are approved for use in humans. That can't be right, can it?
>
>Would it be possible to take aminoguanidine with meals to reduce AGE
>formation? How much would you take?
>
>hal@finney.org wrote:
>>
>> There's an article in the current (July) Scientific American which
>> presents an entirely different mechanism for age-related damage,
>> glycation of tissue proteins. At a minimum it seems there is much
>> more to aging than DNA damage...
>>
>> http://www.sciam.com/2000/0700issue/0700scicit2.html
>>
>> Anthony Cerami of the Kenneth S. Warren Laboratories in Tarrytown,
>> N.Y., suspected some 30 years ago that sugar affects how the body
ages,
>> based on observations of diabetics, who age rapidly. Sugars are an
>> essential source of energy, but once in circulation they can act as
>> molecular glue, attaching themselves to the amino groups in tissue
>> proteins and cross-linking them into hard yellow-brown compounds
>> known as advanced glycation end products, or AGEs.
>>
>> Indeed, after years of bread, noodles and cakes, human tissues
>> inevitably become rigid and yellow with pigmented AGE deposits. For
>> the most part, piling on dark pigments in the teeth, bones and
>> skin is harmless. But where glucose forms tight bonds with the
>> long-lived protein collagen, the result is a constellation of changes,
>> including thickened arteries, stiff joints, feeble muscles and failing
>> organs--the hallmarks of a frail old age.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Cerami's team showed in the mid-1980s that aminoguanidine could keep
>> the tissues of diabetic rats and other old animals as elastic as those
>> of young control subjects. It boosted their cardiovascular function
>> and improved other age-related disorders. Further studies showed
>> that aminoguanidine lowered diabetics' urine albumin--an indicator
>> of kidney malfunction--and delayed AGE-related damage to the retina.
>>
>> ...
>>
>> A single fountain-of-youth elixir is highly unlikely, says Tamara
>> Harris of the National Institute on Aging, because other activities,
>> such as free-radical oxidation and possibly telomere shortening,
>> also contribute to the body's slow decline. Moreover, AGE-related
>> research tends to be slow: Harris points out that there is no easy,
>> well-validated way to measure AGE in the body, a shortcoming that
>> complicates trials. To Harris, however, AGE breakers remain an
>> appealing option. "This is a nice approach because it is multifocal,
>> aimed at a basic process that occurs in multiple systems. But,"
>> she warns, "there won't be one silver bullet."
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