BOSTON -- What if you could pop a pill and kill cancer before you even
knew you had it? Or destroy diabetes before it destroys you? Would you
let doctors inject a tiny robot into your body that targets disease
without you even realizing it? These innovations could add decades to
your life.

The end of the road comes fast! But what if you could get an extra
mile or two, or decade or two, out of your life? A little bottle may
hold the key.

"What we're talking about is a single pill that you can take every day
that would ward off most diseases," said David Sinclair, Ph.D., a
pathologist at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Sirtris
Pharmaceuticals.

Eliminating disease
The end of the road comes fast! But what if you could get an extra
mile or two, or decade or two, out of your life? A little bottle may
hold the key.

Dr. Sinclair and his business partner, Christoph Westphal, believe
they have found an elixir for a longer life.

"We're talking about treating a very large set of very important
diseases. Really, most of the key killers of most of the western
world," explained Westphal, CEO of Sirtris Pharmaceuticals.

It's a chemical found in red wine that destroys diabetes, Alzheimer's,
Parkinsons and cancer.

"Resveratrol is a molecule that comes from plants, and the way we
think it works is it binds to a protein in our cells that combats
diseases of aging," said Dr. Sinclair.

Resveratrol activates a gene called SIRT1.

"When you activate SIRT1, which is this anti-aging gene, you seem to
be able to treat disease of aging, such as diabetes," Westphal added.

SIRT1 is activated by cutting calories. Mice live much longer when
they are fed a diet with 30 percent to 40 percent fewer calories.
Resveratrol mimics caloric restriction without the strict diet that
few people are able to maintain.

"What my hope is that doctors will start to prescribe this drug for
diabetes, but doctors will also start to find that this drug starts to
do other things like protect against heart disease, cancer,
Alzheimer's. That's really what the animal models are predicting. In
mice, we see this same molecule, resveratrol, protect against all of
these major diseases," Dr. Sinclair said.

But nobody knows if resveratrol will be toxic when taken by humans.
Mice have consumed 400-milligrams of resveratrol per kilogram of body
weight without ill-effect. In fact, the rodents became sleek, slim and
powerfully athletic.

"We think that resveratrol from red wine is just the beginning. It's
more of just a proof of what's possible and what is to come," Dr.
Sinclair continued.

If the answer isn't in this pill, scientists around the globe are
banking on nanotechnology to add years to everyone's life. These tiny
robots would exist inside the human body, small enough to assemble and
re-assemble molecular parts to detect and even prevent disease.

Nanotechnology is being used now in Germany to kill prostate cancer.
Particles of iron so tiny you cannot see them with the human eye are
injected into the prostate.

"They have been shown not only to infiltrate tissues if you inject
them directly into a tumor, but also, they can selectively go into
tumor cells," said Manfred Johannsen, M.D., a urologist at Charité
Hospital in Berlin.

The nanoparticles are heated to extremely high temperatures by a
magnetic field, literally burning out the cancer.

"This green is the prostate and the blue spots are nanoparticle
deposits," Dr. Johannsen added.

But this is just the beginning of nanotechnology.

"We would like to inject them into the veins and they would find their
way into the organ that needs to be treated," Dr. Johannsen said.

At Johns Hopkins, researchers have encapsulated the anti-cancer agent
curcumin in nanoparticles. At Northwestern, paralyzed mice were
injected with nanoliquid. Six weeks later, they could walk. Right now,
both are just in studies, but we could realize the benefits of
nanotechnology in the next 10 to 20 years.

"Our goal is to keep people out of nursing homes, instead of extend
the time they're in nursing homes," Dr. Sinclair said.

But neither of these breakthroughs is a guarantee.

"It's very hard to make living things live forever. The ravages of
time are very hard on the body," Dr. Sinclair said.

But we want to make sure we're on the road as long as possible, and by
eliminating disease, we can make our life's journey last even longer.

As for the magic pill, scientists are now working on molecules up to
1,000 times more potent and active than resveratrol. Human clinical
trials will start next year. Dr. Sinclair believes a pill to fight
heart disease, cancer and Alzheimer's could hit the market in the next
five years. Nanotechnology clinical trials are already underway and
are expected to be mainstream in the next decade. If you think just
drinking red wine will do the trick, think again. It would take 1,000
glasses of red wine to equal the resveratrol found in just one pill.

FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Sirtris Pharmaceuticals
http://www.sirtrispharma.com
i...@sirtrispharma.com

Ray and Terry's Longevity Products
http://www.rayandterrys.com
(877) 263-8263
http://www.kurzweilai.net

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