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Unger: Telomere Length Analysis in Chronic Fatigue Syndrome

Waverunner

Senior Member
Messages
1,079
Yeah, that is what I read, multiple sources (Life Extension and Reason magazine). Maybe it is time for major reforms? Not saying no Regulation! But most people are to timid from the scare- mongering, they are fine with the status quo. Until they get sick and there quality of life suffers, or death is knocking on the door!

GG

Yes, I fully agree. People who are not affected by severe diseases don't care about treatment at all. They want maximum safety and don't care about the consequences of these policies (e.g. little to no innovation). In my eyes patients should decide themselves whether they want full regulation or partly regulation or no regulation at all. We are all free human beings. The problem we encounter today is that healthcare has become a multibillion dollar business with lots of vested interest. The system can't be changed from the inside anymore. Medical tourism will be the only viable solution in my eyes. Elizabeth Parrish is a wonderful person. All the best to her.
 

Marky90

Science breeds knowledge, opinion breeds ignorance
Messages
1,253
Yes, I fully agree. People who are not affected by severe diseases don't care about treatment at all. They want maximum safety and don't care about the consequences of these policies (e.g. little to no innovation). In my eyes patients should decide themselves whether they want full regulation or partly regulation or no regulation at all. We are all free human beings. The problem we encounter today is that healthcare has become a multibillion dollar business with lots of vested interest. The system can't be changed from the inside anymore. Medical tourism will be the only viable solution in my eyes. Elizabeth Parrish is a wonderful person. All the best to her.

Indeed, I get this scaremongering all the time from my mother, as I`m gonna take rtx soon. I try to get across that I have no interest in this passive and restricted life, at all. Still she worries about the one out of 25 000 people that get PML from Rituximab (although those cases have been on other immunosuppresives as well). It`s really hard to explain that ME is a serious disase, that unfortunately probably needs pretty serious interventions.
 

panckage

Senior Member
Messages
777
Location
Vancouver, BC
Telomere shortening is reversible! We live in wonderful times, don't we :) Lizz Parrish did exactly what I have been proposing over and over again. The current drug approval process is completely flawed
Come on she hasn't even published research. The studies own scientific adviser quit because he had issues with the study:

The 45-year-old Seattle-area woman, who has no scientific or medical training, underwent the experimental treatment last September in an undisclosed clinic in Colombia. The unorthodox, overseas trial, which was designed to skirt US federal regulations, prompted the resignation of one of the company’s scientific advisors. George Martin, of the University of Washington, quit after telling MIT Technology Review, "This is a big problem. I am very upset by what is happening. I would urge lots of preclinical studies.”
telomere length doesn’t have a clear connection to health—for instance, cardiovascular diseases are linked to shorter telomeres, but cancer is associated with longer lengths. “[T]he idea that in the general population relatively short telomeres are bad and relatively long telomeres are good is nonsense,” Abraham Aviv, a telomere researcher at Rutgers, wrote in an e-mail to The Scientist.
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016...-on-herself-claims-it-added-20-years-of-life/
 

M Paine

Senior Member
Messages
341
Location
Auckland, New Zealand
It's like Chinese whispers, each time a cell divides, the content of the genomic information changes. DNA replication has error checking, but it's not 100% able to copy the genome entirely as it was.

Telomeres are your cell's mechanism to track how many times a cell has divided, and in essence how many DNA errors a cell will contain.

Limiting cellular division by shortened Telomeres protects you from cancer. If you artificially introduce Telomerase genes into a cell line, sure, you will have more new cells generated, but their genone will be 'old', containing more mutations.

Really, this sort of treatment can only work in tandem with treatments which resolve genetic mutations and errors. Until we have the ability to fix our aging, mutating genomes, then simply lengthening Telomeres artificially will lead to diseases associated with genetic mutations, such as Cancer.
 

barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Sounds like there are more studies needed.

She's making money scamming those who are desperately ill. Unfortunately, this sidetracks from finding things that really help.

What @panckage and @M Paine said!
 
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Waverunner

Senior Member
Messages
1,079
Come on she hasn't even published research. The studies own scientific adviser quit because he had issues with the study:
http://arstechnica.com/science/2016...-on-herself-claims-it-added-20-years-of-life/

Working with regulatory agencies has been a sticking point for BioViva, hence Parrish’s trip to Colombia. Her controversial move—to skirt oversight by the US Food and Drug Administration by receiving the gene therapies outside the country—prompted a member of the company’s advisory board, the University of Washington’s George Martin, to resign, MIT Technology Review reported in October.
The scientific adviser quit because the study was not conducted under FDA regulation and not because he was unhappy with the methods. Thanks for omitting this fact, I couldn't care less about him. The only question of interest to us is if the treatment worked and telomeres lengthened. I don't think that telomere lengthening is the holy grail but it is so important that researchers move abroad and offer innovative treatments that are not under FDA regulation.

cancer is associated with longer lengths
Again, thank you for posting half-truths and omitting the rest of the evidence.

here is suggestive evidence that short surrogate tissue TL is associated with cancer; the strongest evidence exists for bladder, esophageal, gastric, and renal cancers.
http://cebp.aacrjournals.org/content/20/6/1238.abstract

Convincing evidence was observed for the association of short telomeres with an increased risk of gastrointestinal tumor and head and neck cancer. Significant dose-response associations were also observed for gastrointestinal tumor and head and neck cancer. Our findings indicate that telomeres may play diverse roles in different cancers, and short telomeres may be risk factors for the tumors of digestive system.
http://www.nature.com/articles/srep22243

Sounds like there are more studies needed.
She's making money scamming those who are desperately ill. Unfortunately, this sidetracks from finding things that really help.
More studies are needed, I agree.
 
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barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
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barbc56

Senior Member
Messages
3,657
Government heathcare has nothing to do with this company. Even if healthcare is abysmal, that does not mean by default that other health systems are great. There is a chance it is and a chance it's not. But they are not necessarily related.

This is called the strawman fallacy.

I guess it's a matter of semantics that she is scamming patients. Her company, at this time is developing treatments that are not scientifically valid. That's what I find dodgey.

I call it the "silicon valley syndrome" where everyone wants to be the next Mark Zuckerberg, get rich quickly, and will sometimes cut corners to get there. Mark Zuckerberg is the exception and not the rule.

I find it rather disparaging when it's implied to that those who follow government health care are not making appropriate health decisions. Some people may blindly follow government recommendations without critical thinking while others do think things through or even somewhere in between. It is an over generalization to say it's only one or the other.

I think there's going to be some exciting advances in the near future. Research into mecfs is getting more attention, relatively speaking. While there have been very real political obstacles preventing research, there's also the reality that the state of the knowledge hasn't been there.

There's also the possibility that there is no real cure and only symptom management. I guess time will tell.

There's always personal choice.
 
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*GG*

senior member
Messages
6,389
Location
Concord, NH
I think there's going to be some exciting advances in the near future. Research into mecfs is getting more attention, relatively speaking. While there have been very real political obstacles preventing research, there's also the reality that the state of the knowledge hasn't been there.

There's also the possibility that there is no real cure and only symptom management. I guess time will tell.

There's always personal choice.

I think that some people who really follow the research would disagree with that I know that Dr Anthony Komaroff talks about over 3,000 studies published. I would think that it gives you a good base of knowledge.

I wonder how 3K studies compares with other similar illnesses? Perhaps MS 20 to 30 years ago?

GG
 

Waverunner

Senior Member
Messages
1,079
Government heathcare has nothing to do with this company. Even if healthcare is abysmal, that does not mean by default that other health systems are great. There is a chance it is and a chance it's not. But they are not necessarily related.

This is called the strawman fallacy.

Have you actually read the definition you linked to? "A straw man is a common form of argument and is an informal fallacy based on giving the impression of refuting an opponent's argument, while actually refuting an argument that was not advanced by that opponent." You weren't making any arguments about government healthcare, I was. So by posting a link to the strawman fallacy are you the one using an informal fallacy? By government healthcare I mean government regulation and especially the FDA. I have no problem when government pays for healthcare, I have my problem with governments regulating drug approval. BioViva went abroad because it didn't want to be under FDA regulation, that was the only reason.

I guess it's a matter of semantics that she is scamming patients. Her company, at this time is developing treatments that are not scientifically valid. That's what I find dodgey.

Again, how do you come up with these fallacies? "Scientifically not valid"? AAV-vectors used for gene therapy are scientifically not valid and that's what you find dodgey?

AAVs are widely used in research and clinical trials. You may wanna read these 10.000 papers: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/?term=Adeno-Associated+Virus+Vectors


I find it rather disparaging when it's implied to that those who follow government health care are not making appropriate health decisions. Some people may blindly follow government recommendations without critical thinking while others do think things through or even somewhere in between. It is an over generalization to say it's only one or the other.

To make things clear, you were the first one to make disparaging comments about Elizabeth Parrish. My point is this, everyone should do as he or she pleases. If you like government healthcare and regulation please stick to it but you have no, absolutely no right, to force others to stick to it too. If this is something we can agree on, I'm perfectly fine.
 
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