LONGEVITY

The decline in immunity with age is termed as immunosenescence. Clinical features of impaired immune response have been observed in animal and human models deficient in vitamin E.

Spermidine is a naturally occurring polyamine known to promote the process of autophagy. Autophagy is an essential function which enables the body to rid itself of unwanted substances like improperly folded proteins, damaged cellular components and pathological microbes.

PQQ is also known as pyrroloquinoline quinone or methoxatin. It is a type of quinone and has been classified as a B vitamin (Zhang et al., 2012). As a treatment, PQQ is a strong antioxidant and redox regulator, protecting mitochondria from oxidative stress and ROS (Guan et al., 2015). Research also has correlated the molecule with mitochondrial biogenesis and improved metabolism (Harris et al., 2013).

Aging in humans is marked by the onset of deadly diseases such as heart diseases and cancer due to immunosenescence or a declined immune system function in the older population (Haroun, 2018). The involution of the thymus is partly responsible for this since, after puberty, the thymus begins to shrink and go through fatty and fibrotic changes. This results in the thymus losing its structural integrity, reduced thymocyte numbers, and decreased T lymphopoiesis (Dixit, 2010; Crooke et al., 2019). Therefore the emerging concept of thymic rejuvenation seeks to restore immune function as well as thymus tissue in the elderly in order to combat immunosenescence.

“Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food.” - Hippocrates

Zinc supplementation has been shown to reverse immunologic deficits. With the administration of zinc triggering proliferation of thymus cells and the promising response to zinc as a part of the human growth hormone, vitamin D, and metformin cocktail, there appears to be merit in this approach (Fahy et al., 2019; Iovino et al., 2019).

One of the main beneficial aspects of astaxanthin is its anti-oxidizing properties. Aging is associated with the accumulation of oxidative damage to tissues and cells (Junqueira et al., 2004; Bokov et al., 2004). Astaxanthin’s antioxidant activity has been shown to be 100 times greater than other antioxidants including Vitamin E, alpha-tocopherol, zeaxanthin, lutein, canthaxanthin, and β-carotene (Fakhri et al., 2018; Kobayashi et al., 1997).

Stem cells have the ability to differentiate and recreate functional tissue, and their exosomes retain some genetic material in the form of restorative signals to other cells (Chen et al., 2017). However, the concentration of these exosomes decreases with age, and therefore, their beneficial effects decrease as well (D’Anca et al., 2019).

Fasting is an integral practice in many different religious disciplines including Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and Hinduism, and it has been safely practiced for centuries (Lessan & Ali, 2019). In more recent years, however, fasting has become known for its health benefits as well.

Although DNA methylation is supposed to continuously change according to the status of an individual, these changes in methylation begin to become unreliable, leading to aging-related degeneration in the body. These “changes” can be put to use to develop an aging clock, which nowadays are called the epigenetic aging clocks