Prof. Vladimir Khavinson is a respected authority on one of the most speculative fields of knowledge - anti-aging science. He almost never advertises the achievements by the St. Petersburg Institute of Bioregulation and Gerontology which he heads although he has six registered medications to his credit. But he is well-known among the directors of practically all major centers studying the processes of aging worldwide. For over 30 years Khavinson has been studying the impact of peptides on human organism and is convinced that they can effectively prolong human life by at least 30 percent. These studies are the core of a new RAS program.
The impression is that longevity has emerged from a subject of philosophical discussion into a fashionable game that is played by both downright charlatans and professional scientists. How can a person tell real achievements from sheer speculation?
You are offered a new drug that is touted as an anti-aging prescription. Its chemical formula is at odds with the promotional material. It turns out that the drug is certified, for example, as an immunity enhancing compound. This is what was proven in the course of clinical trials. The rest is pure fantasy.
Gerontology is based on experiments with different types of animals since this is the only way to demonstrate a net effect: for instance, by how much (in percentage form) this drug extended the life span of flies or mice. Such experiments are almost never conducted. Several years ago, Prof. Vladimir Anisimov, president of the RAS Gerontology Society, and I visited some of the world's leading research centers to assess the state of the art and the stage that we are at in this hierarchy. We were struck by the absence of reliable data at many centers. One European clinic used a certain prescription made from sheep liver. I asked them: "Where is the proof - experiments on animals, verification, statistics, etc.?" There was none. Their only argument was: Patients are taking it, and it makes them feel better.
We also visited the famous Ana Aslan Institute of Gerontology and Geriatrics in Romania that was founded way back under Ceausescu and where Mao Zedong and many other Communist leaders were treated. They actively used a Novocain-based medication - Gerovital. Again, we were interested in experimental data and asked to be shown the vivarium where animal experiments were conducted. This should be specially equipped premises where mice could be kept for three years (actually they live for two years, but certain substances can prolong their life span by another year). We were brought into a cramped room without air conditioning where animals could not possibly live for very long. There are just a handful of vivaria in Russia, but they are also few in the rest of the world.
So Russia and your institute in particular are front-runners here?
The next, 6th European Congress of Gerontology will take place in St. Petersburg. The international community chose this city in recognition of our achievements. Furthermore, the UN coordinator on problems of aging is Prof. Aleksandr Sidorenko from Kiev, also a representative of our classical school.
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Russia has a big head start in the field. Experiments began in the Soviet era, over 30 years ago, at the St. Petersburg Military Medical Academy. There was a special laboratory designed to create bioregulators. Money was no object: We were getting as much as was necessary. You can judge for yourself: One experiment costs $1.5 million, while we conducted more than 10. And of course there were invaluable experiments on monkeys at the unique Institute of Medical Primatology. Some of the studies conducted there were key to this field of research not only in Russia but in the world in general. Scientists managed to achieve a striking rejuvenation effect in monkeys. Old monkeys who received our prescriptions had the level of melatonin and other hormones on a par with that in younger species.
What prescriptions are you developing?
As of now, these are six registered prescriptions and tens of biologically active additives based on different peptides. Our work has shown that the use of peptides helps slow down aging processes in both animals and humans. We have carried out 10 experiments on flies, mice, rats, and monkeys, each experiment spanning at least three years (monkeys live long, so the experiment continues to date). Life span increases vary from 10% to 40%.
In the mid-1990s, we conducted a research project at a St. Petersburg-based home for elderly people. Over the space of four years one group of patients was given injections with our prescriptions Timalin (thymus extract) and Epitalamin (derived from the pineal gland - a tiny gland at the center of the brain which Descartes called the "vessel of the soul"). Another group was given standard drugs. There were people aged 70 to 80 in each group. Six to eight years later, mortality in the first group (which had been receiving bioregulators) was approximately 40 percent, as compared to the other's 80 percent.
Do you consider the "peptide direction" the most promising line of development today?
Yes, I do. Lying on my table is the first Russian monograph that was brought out by the Swiss-based Karger publishers - up until now practically off-limits to Russian scientists. We called the monograph Gerontological Aspects of Peptide Regulation of the Genome. Our experiments with new prescriptions led us to some fundamental biological laws, identifying certain gene regulation patterns. It turned out that different peptides are responsible for the activity of certain genes, which is a key to extending lifetime. In the course of our work, the greater part of which was for technical reasons conducted in the United States, Great Britain, Germany, Switzerland, and France, our researchers studied about 15,000 genes.
By how much can our life span be extended?
Each species of animals and plants has an upper limit to longevity. In humans, it is some 110 to 120 years, while average life expectancy today is 75. These 30 to 40 years can be easily caught up with, so to speak, but it is important to extend not simply old age but the active period of life. We polled long-livers, identifying several simple rules: observance of the daily rhythm (day-night), constant motor activity, and limited-calorie diet. Plus (my own addition) the use of bioregulators. An organism's aging process begins not with the pathological condition of certain organs but with disturbances in genetic bioregulation. I believe it is necessary not only to study aging processes but also intervene in them. After all, I myself would like to live longer.
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Yet far from all people have such an opportunity. In our previous issue we reported on a new phenomenon - the so-called VIP science - wherein "the powers-that-be commission research projects for their own needs, their basic need being to live longer than others." Is this a purely Russian trend?
Not so long ago, the prime minister of Thailand visited our institute. He is 54 - just the right time to start thinking about the future. In the developed world, any course of treatment is only a question of money, while here in Russia it is also a question of accessibility. At the same time, the general level of civilization should be high enough for individual states to begin investing in these big-ticket research projects
MN File FACT BOX
The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine is at the forefront of a major movement in the way preventive medicine approaches aging in the United States. AAM has progressed beyond advocating simple lifestyle change, and is devoted to a science that optimizes the metabolic processes of life itself. The physicians and scientists at AAM seek to facilitate expeditious advances in areas of longevity medicine that include genetic engineering, hormonal replacement therapy, advanced diagnosis of preventable disease, and the biomarkers of aging. We serve the practicing clinician so that the multiple benefits of these life-saving and life-extending technologies may be more rapidly available to the public. We've gone beyond merely verbalizing ideas. We are currently developing therapeutic protocols and innovative diagnostic tools to aid physicians in the implementation of effective longevity treatment. Our vision challenges the present convention of health beliefs, yet we believe those willing to consider the new reality of Anti-Aging will embrace this progressive approach to preventative medicine.
PROSPECTS: Anti-Aging Recipe
For a long time the longevity problem has been the subject of gerontology - a field of science that studies aging and the problems of aged people. Today, however, a more dynamic and purportedly universal "anti-aging medicine" has been jockeying for position. Thus far, according to the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, there are just a handful of proven anti-aging means: a healthy lifestyle, hormonal therapy, antidioxants (substances preventing the oxidization of organic matter), and vitamins. In the foreseeable future, however, this arsenal could be replenished with stem cell and organ replacement therapy.
There is a multitude of factors in the aging process, and it is vital to understand the principal ones, Prof. Stephen Coles, director of the Los Angeles Gerontology Research Group, says. Some species of whales live as long as 240 years, while the European shrew-mouse has a life expectancy of only three months. The 1,000-times difference shows that the life span is predetermined by genes. Prof. Coles hopes to find a key to regulating the genome.
In Russia, this problem has been studied in depth, on the fundamental level by Academician Vladimir Skulachev at the Moscow State University's Institute of Physico-Chemical Biology. Several years ago, businessman Oleg Derispaska took an interest in this area of research, providing funds for the development of a basically new drug.
Another direction is represented by the Nauka dolgoletiya (Art of Longevity) foundation which is working on a program that can provisionally be called "70 Hormones." Specialists from several research centers and institutes - biologists, endocrinologists, cardiologists, hematologists, and even mathematicians - took part in it. Under the program, the researchers studied more than 1,000 people, analyzing the functions of more than 70 hormones and identifying those responsible for aging processes. The study led to the development of a drug called Longevit.
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TEXT 16. Buddy, can you spare a book?
by Vladimir Kozlov at 25/11/2010 20:09
Apart from jobs and living standards, one of the biggest casualties of the recent economic crisis has been Russians reading habits.
Since the crisis hit in 2008, Russians are buying one-third fewer books and the book publishing industrys sales revenues are down by one-fifth.
Its a big turnaround from the boom times, when total sales were growing by 10-15 per cent a year and reached nearly $2.5 billion in 2008, says Oleg Novikov, general director of Eksmo, one of the countrys largest book publishers.
As retail prices went up and so did the [industrys] financial performance, demand stagnated while no one paid attention to it, Novikov said. Now were facing a decline not only in reading but also in the consumption of books. In 2009 and 2010, the number of books sold declined by one-third, and that cannot be compensated by raising prices. In monetary terms, the industry shrank by about 20 per cent.
In 2010, the numbers of books sold is likely to fall a further 10 per cent, Novikov said.
On the one hand, against the background of the crisis, this doesnt look catastrophic, Novikov said. But, on the other hand, it is hard to believe that the market is going to rebound, as people have been reading less.
The drastic post-crisis fall in reading has accelerated a process that was going on anyway, he says. Since the mid-1990s, reading in Russia has been declining, with 2 per cent of the countrys population a year quitting reading altogether. As a result, the proportion of actively reading people has declined by roughly one-third over the last 15 years.
