Is Coffee, the latest antidote for aging?

You can now stop feeling guilty about the second or third cup of coffee every morning. A new study published in Nature Medicine has shown an inverse association between caffeine intake and age related morbidity and mortality.

An inverse association exist between amount of tea and coffee consumed and long term morbidity has been suggested in many earlier studies, but the mechanism about this cause and effect relationship was not clear.

The study focused on cells of coffee drinker and non-coffee drinker and found that those who consumed high levels of caffeine tend to have lower levels of inflammation.

 Inflammasomes are protein complexes that regulate expression of interleukin-1 (IL-1) family cytokines, and are central to the regulation of a broad variety of inflammatory disease processes, A culprit responsible for many things like aging, cancer, heart disease, Type 2 DM and Alzheimer’s. 

Whole blood gene expression was measured by microarray from blood samples provided by 100 young and old people. They found that as people age they show a higher activity of Inflammasomes genes associated with the production of a circulating inflammatory protein, called interleukin-1β (IL-1-beta). Older people had significantly high levels of this inflammatory protein.

They further sub analyzed the older group, and after controlling for other confounders found out that those people who consumed at least 5 or more cup of coffee per day have the lowest level of inflammation in the body. The other groups with low caffeine intake had elevated oxidative stress, high rates of hypertension and arterial stiffness. They were also more likely to die during the 8 years of follow up of the study participants.

The researchers than isolated the protein, IL-1-beta and injected it into mice. It triggered massive systematic inflammation and arterial stiffness.

They then added IL-1-beta to human immune cells in the lab, followed by adding caffeine into the mix, too. They discovered that caffeine prevented those compounds from producing their inflammatory effects.

“The more caffeine people consumed, the more protected they were against a chronic state of inflammation,” says study author David Furman, consulting associate professor at the Institute for Immunity, Transplantation and Infection at Stanford University. “There was no boundary, apparently.”

"Most of the diseases of aging are not really diseases of aging, per se, but rather diseases of inflammation,” he further added.

The study is important because it traces novel connection between aging and chronic diseases via Inflammasomes. Inflammatory high expressors and the downward spiral towards many chronic diseases awaits further research. But, interestingly high caffeine levels were found to be associated with low expressors and protective against age related morbidity and mortality.

Further studies with large sample size are underway, till then, most of us can continue drinking coffee without feeling guilt over the second or third cup in the morning. 

Access the abstract in Nature Medicine here.

Access the Editorial published in Science Translational Medicine here.

Engineered invisible second skin- Will it make wrinkles and eye bags a thing of past!

Photo Courtesy : Katu.com.

Does it sound like a plot in a High Tech Sci-Fi movie, or another fake claim in the world of anti-aging gimmicks?  No, this is a reality made possible by researchers at MIT, Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), Olivo Labs and Jennifer Aniston’s beauty company Living Proof reported in a recently published advanced online research paper in Nature Materials.

Study author Daniel Anderson, an associate professor in MIT’s Department of Chemical Engineering and a member of MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research and Institute for Medical Engineering and Science (IMES) said “It’s an invisible layer that can provide a barrier, provide cosmetic improvement, and potentially deliver a drug locally to the area that’s being treated. Those three things together could really make it ideal for use in humans.”

According to it, the ‘second skin’ is made of wearable crosslinked polymer layer (XPL) that mimics the properties and look of natural skin.

XPL was developed 5 years back and  is made of a tunable polysiloxane-based material that can be engineered with specific elasticity, contractility, adhesion, tensile strength and occlusivity.

As our skin ages, be it chronologically or premature due to sun exposure results in loss of suppleness and tone due to baseline laxity.

Antiaging skin products dominate the cosmetic industry and according to market research skin care market will be worth USD $131 billion Globally by 2019. Antiaging products not only targets wrinkles but issues such as skin firmness, dry skin, uneven skin tone, hyper-pigmentation and under eyes bags. It is estimated that 68% of population use skin care products daily and another 20% use it at least weekly.  

The designing and adoption of the second skin comes with many challenges like it must be safe, non-irritating, non-allergic, it must adhere to skin at the same time allowing it to breathe, must have the mechanical strength and it should simulate the appearance of normal, youthful skin.

In the study, XPL was deposited on the skin using a two-step optical delivering system. In the First step a flowable, skin-conformal, reactive polysiloxane component is applied that is then crosslinked in situ on exposure to the platinum catalyst as a second step. The second step also allows for optical modulation by depositing light scattering particles in the second step.

The study describes 4 in vivo human studies examining the efficacy of XPL as natural looking youthful skin. The studies comprises of application of XPL on under-eye area and volar forearm to test the mechanical and barrier function, on the dry leg skin to test its properties of barrier to water loss and finally a double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study. The RCT tested all the criteria of XPL so as to function as a second skin.

The results showed that XPL reliably reshapes the skin due to its mechanical strength and contractibility. A marked decrease in under-eye bags and wrinkles were observed, which was mainly due to the cross linking because of the second application.

It also imparted a smooth and defined contour to the skin, increasing epidermal hydration, performing far better over the course of 24 hours than the leading petrolatum, a commercial moisturizer and a conventional highly occlusive agent.

Apart from its use in cosmetic industry, it also has important medical applications in eczema, concealers of vascular anomalies such as port-wine stains and UV protector after incorporating SPF.

The downside is it cannot be applied with makeup, currently expensive, and needs reapplication after every 24 hours.

All the authors of the paper have an equity in Olivo Laboratories and Living proof.

References:

http://www.bbc.com/news/health-36245728

http://www.nature.com/nmat/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nmat4635.html

http://www.foxnews.com/health/2016/05/10/scientists-engineer-second-skin-that-corrects-wrinkles.html

http://www.streetinsider.com/Press+Releases/Olivo+Labs+Scientists+Develop+Novel+Polymer+That+Replicates+Young+Skin/11603494.html

Wonderdrug ' Metformin', the next breakthrough in anti-aging.

Common Diabetes drug Metformin could be next breakthrough in Anti-aging.