SUBJ: Nearing a cure for Celiac disease
SUBtitle: One should take 500mg vitamin C twice a day to reduce free radical damage.
The reliability of science is based not on certainty but on a radical lack of certainty. -Anaximander
The good person is related to his friend as to himself, for his friend is another self. -Aristotle
From a friend: A comedian said, “In answer to the ol’ chicken vs egg question, I ordered a live chicken and a carton of eggs from Amazon. I’ll let you know.”
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Today’s story: I visited former students and relatives along from Rockford IL to Maine last week. One of my former students was just selected best gastroenterologists in the United States, a prize including 3 years of research support. But I learned that one of my relative’s family has celiac disease, where the kids must eat a diet free of gluten. In my despair for their plight, I wished for some hope. When I got home and read this week’s Science, I learned that there is a new promise that a cure is currently in clinical trials! May our country please continue to fund scientific research to cure diseases.
SHORT NOTES:
1..Nearing a cure for Celiac disease
2..TAME is the first clinical trial approved by the FDA that targets anti-aging drugs.
3..One should take 500mg vitamin C twice a day to reduce free radical damage.
4..There is a dire need to examine the effect of vitamin C as a single supplement.
5..A reader pointed out that Kirkland supplements of CostCo are certified for content.
6..What motivates people to exercise. appearance, physical, and mental health.
7..Celiac disease – Here is the NIH guidance on what to eat. Risk is 1 in 100.
8..Uninsured patients in rural Viriginia and North Dakota will get visits after discharge.
9..Fatty15 is reported in Nature’s Scientific Reports to be an essential fatty acid.
10..Broccoli 1–2 times per week… 32–43% lower mortality risk.
11..Mushroom tea: antibacterial, immune system enhancer and cholesterol lowering agent.
12..A diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, and nuts, reduces retinal vein occlusion risk.
13..Omega-3 fatty acid slows aging as detected by four epigenetic clocks.
14..The benefits of plasma exchange if you have a younger, compatible blood donor.
15..One tbsp of butter daily makes you 15% more likely to die sooner.
16..The Shingles vaccine reduces risk of dementia by 20%.
17..Antiviral drugs like valacyclovir may prevent and slow Alzheimers.
18..Allergic to nuts? Try pumpkin and hemp seeds.
19..Six pillars to stay sharp: eat right, be social, manage stress, engage your brain, exercise, sleep.
20..Omega 6 fats in red meat stimulate cancer cells to grow.
21..Particle pollution esp. in urban areas extends pregnancy to a longer, hazardous term.
LONG NOTES:
Nearing a cure for Celiac disease! Science 21 Mar pg 1265 Cell therapy for celiac disease-The primary approach for individuals with celiac disease to manage their symptoms is a strict gluten-free diet, which is both costly and difficult to maintain. Porret et al. now report early steps toward another approach to control celiac disease that uses cell therapy. The authors show that engineered regulatory T (eTreg) cells modified to orthotopically express T cell receptors specific to gluten peptides could quiet gluten-reactive effector T cells in vitro and in vivo. eTreg cells were able to suppress effector T cells that reacted to the same or different gluten peptides, suggesting that they could also suppress the polyclonal gluten-reactive T cell response observed in individuals with celiac disease. As eTreg therapies are progressing into the clinical setting for other diseases, they may lay the translational path forward for the use of these cells in celiac disease as well.
Sci. Transl. Med. (2025) 10.1126/scitranslmed.adr8941
Rise of the Superhuman, the Mar. 22nd Economist! Metformin is best drug currently for healthspan. TAME is the first clinical trial approved by the FDA that targets anti-aging drugs. Minicircle is a company that makes plasmids to produce follistatin in human cells. Follistatin stimulates muscle growth and lengthen telomeres. Scientists have put genes into mice that produce Yamanaka factors, proteins that cause cells to revert to a more youthful state.
Comprehensive map of age-associated splicing changes across human tissues and their contributions to age-associated diseases is one of a number of papers that have looked at the links between splicing and age
related diseases. It concludes “We find that genome-wide splicing
profile is a better predictor of biological age than the gene and
transcript expression profiles, and furthermore, age-associated splicing
provides additional independent contribution to age-associated complex
diseases.” Both splicing changes and failure to differentiate are caused by too little citrate coming out of the mitochondria.
So why does this happen? we now have two things that can affect splicing and differentiation. A) The Mitochondrial Membrane Potential and B) The number of citrate carriers in the mitochondrial membrane. A) is the most
important. The Mitochondrial Membrane Potential is an indicator of how
efficient the mitochondria are. The issue, therefore, is that if there are wandering reactive molecules (Reactive Oxygen Species, Reactive Nitrogen Species, Free Radicals (both ROS and RNS)) then there is a risk that the mtDNA will damaged and at times even if the DNA can be repaired it ends up mutated and the mitochondria become less efficient. So this is it. Development and Aging is controlled primarily by the state of mitochondrial DNA.
ROC’S RESPONSE: Thanks, John, for a great explanation of mitochondrial aging and free radical production. This is why Linus Pauling advocated high dose vitamin C, which led to my discovery in 1994 that one should take 500mg vitamin C twice a day to reduce free radical production and damage. I have been doing it religiously since 1990, and when I am 130, I expect GRG members will decide to do the same.
Is vitamin C supplementation beneficial? Lessons learned from randomised controlled trials. As little as 10 mg/d will largely prevent development of the most well-known clinical and ultimately mortal manifestation of severe vitamin C deficiency: scurvy (Reference Weber, Bendich and Schalch1). Nevertheless, the RDA for vitamin C was recently increased from 60 mg/d to 75 mg/d for women and 90 mg/d for men in the US, primarily based on biochemical evidence(2). Others have argued that the optimum plasma concentration is about the level of saturation (70 μmol/l), which would require a daily intake of about 200 mg(2–Reference Lykkesfeldt, Loft and Nielsen4 Up to 50 % of subpopulations of the Western world can have hypovitaminosis C. This means that information from clinical trials with defined and verified vitamin C deficiency from a practical point of view is not available. In contrast, large and long-duration trials with β-carotene are available and show that ‘hypervitaminosis’ of β-carotene carries a risk for adverse effects on mortality (Alpha-Tocopherol, Beta-Carotene cancer prevention study, etc). It must therefore be concluded that at present we do not have the necessary scientific evidence to judge the effect on health – be that beneficial or deleterious – from vitamin C supplementation. In conclusion, we find that from a public health point of view, there is a dire need to examine the effect of vitamin C as a single supplement in populations which have been carefully defined with inclusion criteria of different levels of vitamin C status and with variable demand for vitamin C, for example, smokers v. non-smokers.
A reader pointed out that Kirkland supplements of CostCo are certified for content.
Tel Aviv University researchers used AI tools to discover what motivates people to exercise. They found that 23.9% of those who engage in sports do so to improve their appearance, 18.9% exercise to maintain their physical health, and 16.9% exercise to maintain their mental health.
Remote healthcare in Virginia and North Dakota. (TY OurCrowd) Uninsured patients in rural southwest Virginia will receive remote medical monitors from Israel’s TytoCare (see here previously) to save hospital visits. Meanwhile, medics in North Dakota with TytoCare devices will visit patients discharged from hospital.
FATTY15 is reported in Nature’s Scientific Reports to be an essential fatty acid.
[GRG] Claim: Broccoli 1–2 times per week… 32–43% lower mortality risk: Prospective cohort study of broccoli consumption frequency and all-cause and all-cause-specific mortality risks
Mushroom tea: On a recent trip, a friend asked about mushroom tea benefits. “Mushrooms act as antibacterial, immune system enhancer and cholesterol lowering agents; additionally, they are important sources of bioactive compounds. As a result of these properties, some mushroom extracts are used to promote human health and are found as dietary supplements.” From Intl. J of Microbio!
For retinal vein occlusion (RVO), a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, fish, and nuts, along with maintaining a healthy weight and managing underlying conditions, can help support overall cardiovascular health and potentially reduce RVO risk. For more details, see here.
Celiac disease – Here is the NIH guidance on what to eat. If you have celiac disease, you will need to remove foods and drinks that contain gluten from your diet. Following a gluten-free diet can relieve celiac disease symptoms and heal damage to the small intestine. People with celiac disease need to follow a gluten-free diet for life to prevent symptoms and intestinal damage from coming back. Your doctor or a registered dietitian can guide you on what to eat and drink to maintain a balanced diet. Currently, there is no definitive cure for celiac disease, an autoimmune disorder that damages the small intestine when gluten is consumed. 1 in 100 – Number of people worldwide affected by celiac disease. Qualify For a Study or Trial. There are two trials you may qualify for to find a cure.
Omega-3 fatty acid slows aging as detected by four epigenetic clocks.
An hour long video by the Chairman of GRG advocating the benefits of plasma exchange if you have a younger (about 20 yrs old) compatible blood donor. The process will help you feel younger. He claims it makes him 9 years younger by “objective” measures.
From the Economist: Based on Nurses/Doctors Health Study, 1 tbsp of butter daily makes you 15% more likely to die sooner than those using olive oil; The Shingles vaccine reduces risk of dementia by 20%; Antiviral drugs like valacyclovir may prevent and slow Alzheimers.
AARP: Allergic to nuts? Try pumpkin and hemp seeds.
6 pillars to stay sharp: eat right, be social, manage stress, engage your brain, exercise, sleep.
Science 14 Mar pg 1147 -Omega 6 fats in red meat stimulate cancer cells to grow; Particle pollution esp. in urban areas extends pregnancy to a longer, hazardous term.
