Healthy Aging News and ResearchVirus infection and aging

User avatar
AlbertY
Posts: 175
Joined: Mon Aug 12, 2019 4:01 pm
Location: Boston, MA

Virus infection and aging

Post by AlbertY »

Hi all, recently there is not much interesting news about aging research and labs in Harvard med school will be closed for the next few months. Hope everyone stays safe!

Recently I'm working on a project about the COVID19, data is unpublished so I can't talk too much here but we found that the ACE2, the receptor that virus used to get into the cell, is strongly (oddly) associate with lifespan. And old people actually have more ACE2 in the liver and kidney. Also, based on data from Sinclair lab, virus infection alone (even though the virus they are using actually doing no malignant things but just expressing the fluorescent protein GFP), can increase the biological age of the cell (here it is not significant, but I bet it will be with larger sample size).

Image

So altogether, this virus is very dangerous to old people. Not very deadly to young people but MIGHT still accelerate the aging process in young people after getting it. Take care!


Ph.D. student at Harvard Medical School, doing research on aging
drkris69
Posts: 1413
Joined: Tue Aug 20, 2019 2:41 pm

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by drkris69 »

Thanks AlbertY for posting this, very interesting indeed.
NewLifeScience
Posts: 686
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2019 4:17 pm

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by NewLifeScience »

Yes I have an 84 year old mom i am watching closely.

She gets NMN and The NAD+ Booster. I think it can help her immune system. But if she gets infected, I will stop all the suppliments.

We are in a relatively remote part of Canada with no local cases yet. But we have to stay vigilant.
OzSport
Posts: 476
Joined: Wed Aug 21, 2019 5:08 am

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by OzSport »

Thanks for sharing, AlbertY! Looking forward to reading the research when it's officially published. :D
CeeJayBee
Posts: 243
Joined: Thu Aug 22, 2019 4:19 pm

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by CeeJayBee »

AlbertY wrote: Mon Mar 16, 2020 2:28 pm Hi all, recently there is not much interesting news about aging research and labs in Harvard med school will be closed for the next few months. Hope everyone stays safe!

Recently I'm working on a project about the COVID19, data is unpublished so I can't talk too much here but we found that the ACE2, the receptor that virus used to get into the cell, is strongly (oddly) associate with lifespan. And old people actually have more ACE2 in the liver and kidney. Also, based on data from Sinclair lab, virus infection alone (even though the virus they are using actually doing no malignant things but just expressing the fluorescent protein GFP), can increase the biological age of the cell (here it is not significant, but I bet it will be with larger sample size).

Image

So altogether, this virus is very dangerous to old people. Not very deadly to young people but MIGHT still accelerate the aging process in young people after getting it. Take care!
Hi Albert
Is any of the work you are doing related to developing of a vaccine?
jessicaP
Posts: 214
Joined: Sun Nov 03, 2019 10:52 am

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by jessicaP »

It is frustrating, but anyone who would be working on a vaccine says 10 to 12 months at best. That is a long time, but maybe if social distancing slows in down to a crawl, a residue of our normal life may partially resume.
Drdavid
Posts: 687
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2019 9:59 am

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by Drdavid »

Thank you for the update. Can this receptor be modified or bound? Does NAD+/NMN interact with this receptor?
smokinjoe
Posts: 198
Joined: Sun Sep 01, 2019 9:24 am

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by smokinjoe »

I wonder what causes Covid-19 to be significantly more fatal for males than females.

There have been enough cases to see it is more than one standard deviation of difference between genders.

My general understanding of viruses like flue or cold is that they trick the immune system into attacking one's own tissues, often in the lung.
Drdavid
Posts: 687
Joined: Thu Aug 15, 2019 9:59 am

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by Drdavid »

Drug Dev Res. 2020 Mar 4. doi: 10.1002/ddr.21656. [Epub ahead of print]
Angiotensin receptor blockers as tentative SARS-CoV-2 therapeutics.
Gurwitz D1.
Author information
1
Department of Human Molecular Genetics and Biochemistry, Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel-Aviv University, Tel-Aviv, Israel.
Abstract
At the time of writing this commentary (February 2020), the coronavirus COVID-19 epidemic has already resulted in more fatalities compared with the SARS and MERS coronavirus epidemics combined. Therapeutics that may assist to contain its rapid spread and reduce its high mortality rates are urgently needed. Developing vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus may take many months. Moreover, vaccines based on viral-encoded peptides may not be effective against future coronavirus epidemics, as virus mutations could make them futile. Indeed, new Influenza virus strains emerge every year, requiring new immunizations. A tentative suggestion based on existing therapeutics, which would likely be resistant to new coronavirus mutations, is to use available angiotensin receptor 1 (AT1R) blockers, such as losartan, as therapeutics for reducing the aggressiveness and mortality from SARS-CoV-2 virus infections. This idea is based on observations that the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) very likely serves as the binding site for SARS-CoV-2, the strain implicated in the current COVID-19 epidemic, similarly to strain SARS-CoV implicated in the 2002-2003 SARS epidemic. This commentary elaborates on the idea of considering AT1R blockers as tentative treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infections, and proposes a research direction based on datamining of clinical patient records for assessing its feasibility.
Fred

Re: Virus infection and aging

Post by Fred »

Nice find David. But I´m a bit confused, wasn´t hypertension described as one of the risk factors when they looked at deaths from COVID-19? You would think that many of these diagnosed hypertensive patients were taking angiotensin receptor 1 (AT1R) blockers, like losartan, already? A post mortem analysis will tell I guess.
Post Reply Previous topicNext topic