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Quiz: Take Healthy Living for Every Age HERE

An aging body has changed in many ways, and not just in those obvious to visual inspection. The typical old body is identifiably different from the typical middle-aged body at the level of cells, genes and biochemistry: biochemical processes, gene expression, levels of molecular damage, cellular behaviors, cellular populations, and so on.

Some of these differences are clearly causally linked - a wide range of age-related changes can often be shown to be caused by a lesser number of underlying changes. For example, damage to mitochondria leads to oxidization of low-density lipoproteins (LDL), which in turn leads to detrimental changes involved in atherosclerosis, which is the principal cause of coronary heart disease and other forms of cardiovascular disease. Most modes of biochemical wear and tear contribute to a wide range of recognized age-related conditions and frailty.

One role of aging research should be to explore these linkages, so as to better characterize the core of aging; what, really, are the essential changes of aging when all the chains of failure have been cut back to their root causes? Read on

BREAKTHROUGH:STOP MEMORY LOSS

MS lesions within the brain and spinal cord are produced when inflammatory processes mistakenly attack myelin, the insulating sheath around nerve fibres. It has long been thought that the reconstitution and repair of damaged myelin might help reverse disease. One way to achieve this would be to provide the body with new myelin-producing cells, known as oligodendrocytes, to rebuild the myelin which has been lost. This is the goal of stem cell research, which uses reprogrammed cells that are capable of developing into many different cell types to treat disease. Often, the focus of MS research has been on how to generate and treat myelin loss with oligodendrocyte progenitor cells (OPCs), the precursor cells that develop into oligodendrocytes.

This has previously been achieved with stem cells made from foetal tissue, but researchers from the University of Rochester Medical Centre are the first to successfully create OPCs from skin cells.Read on

ALCHEMY OF SUCCESS

GOOD ALCHEMY IS GREAT

Plastic and Cancerous Compounds in Tea Bags—A Surprising Source of Potential Toxins

I’ve long advocated drinking tea in lieu of coffee, but the downside of modern food technology is again rearing its ugly head and causing brand new health concerns over this otherwise healthful brew.

A recent article in The Atlantic¹ raises questions about the safety of plastic tea bags, some of which have fancy pyramid shapes, designed to allow the tea leaves to unfurl during infusion.

Chances are you’ve never even given the tea bag a second thought. But indeed, some of the newer tea bags are made with a variety of plastics; some are nylon, some are made of viscose rayon, and others are made of thermoplastic, PVC or polypropylene.

Anyone aware of the dangers of plastic chemicals leaching out of plastic containers and bottles is likely to be concerned about drinking tea steeped through heated plastic.

The other bad news is that paper tea bags may be just as bad, or worse, than the plastic ones because many of them are treated with epichlorohydrin, a compound mainly used in the production of epoxy resins.

Considered a potential carcinogen by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health² (NIOSH), epichlorohydrin is also used as a pesticide. Besides making its way into tea bags, it can also be found in coffee filters, water filters, and sausage casings.

When epichlorohydrin comes in contact with water, it hydrolyzes to 3-MCPD, which has been shown to cause cancer in animals. It’s also been implicated in infertility (it has a spermatoxic effect in male rats³) and suppressed immune function⁴.

This chemical is already a well-known “process contaminant” associated with modern food production. According to the American Oil Chemicals Society⁵(AOCS), 3-MCPD can also be found in variable levels in refined vegetable oils, which is yet another reason to avoid such cooking oils and replace them with organic coconut oil.

Do Plastic Tea Bags Pose a Health Concern?

As you probably know, chemicals in plastic containers and bottles have been found to leach into food and drink, thereby posing a number of health hazards. Examples include bisphenol-A (BPA), bisphenol-S (BPS), and phthalates, all of which mimic hormones and act as potent endocrine disruptors.  

Unfortunately, according to the featured article, neither the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice nor the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have any information on the toxicity of plastic tea bags or the levels of plastic chemicals that might migrate into the tea when steeped in hot water. Hard to believe, but true, the US federal agencies are not supervising this potential toxic exposure.