So this is part 4 in the series on LIFESPAN, the new book by David Sinclair.
I'm having a blast on it because he covers articles... he covers items that
I've done videos on. This one I'm very passionate about metformin and
anti-aging.
This is the TAME study. This is Nir Barzilai. TAME stands for "Targeting Aging
with Metformin." Dr. Barzilai is the principal investigator, but as I've said
many times, there were dozens of gerontologists (people that study aging)
involved in the development of this study. Now why would we want to
use metformin for anti-aging? What they're looking for is a composite
outcome things, like decrease eye disease, decreased kidney disease, decreased
cancer, decreased heart disease, decreased stroke, decrease cognitive decline.
So hopefully that begins to make the point why metformin is the
most widely prescribed anti-diabetic medication in the world. And it
decreases hepatic gluconeogenesis.
However, as David Sinclair would say, it also up right-up regulates or amps up
AMPK. Now, why is AMPK an issue? And why is David Sinclair focusing on it? Well, this
is an overview of all of the places in the metabolism where metformin impacts
different places that drive aging, like TNF (Tumor Necrosis Factor alpha), IGF
(insulin-like growth factor), insulin and it's a receptor AMPK.
David Sinclair mentions in his book mTOR as I think is mentioned in the book and
we've mentioned multiple other places as well. These are all SIRT1. David
Sinclair discovered the SIRT enzymes which again are very involved in driving
the epigenetics and the metabolism associated with insulin resistance and
broader aging components. So this is just another quick look from a recent article
in the New England Journal. It mentions AMPK and insulin resistance,
insulin and insulin-like growth factor. This article you may recognize is
on autophagy. So again, hopefully helping connect quite a few
dots here. Again, why metformin? As I've said before, it's been used safely
for over 60 years. It's associated with decreased cancer, decreased cognitive
decline, and all those other diseases that we mentioned. How did they develop a
composite outcome? Again, they wanted things that were age-related, common in
populations, and created a significant health risk. Again, I'm not
going to repeat the different items that were included. When you look at 3 of
the key diseases that we're talking about (and I've already mentioned them),
they are already associated with decreased problems when you're taking
metformin. Here's an example. Observational studies metformin and
cardiovascular outcomes. We saw that in the MACE study the VA/Medicare... I'm sorry...
the VA/Medicare database, Canadian study, REACH study. the VA patients study cancer.
As you see on this, I think this is called Christmas tree plot.
Multiple studies out there showing that people that were on metformin were on
this left side of this vertical line. What does that mean? That means they were
less likely to get cancer. How about cognitive decline? Again,
multiple studies with the Singapore Longitudinal Aging Study, Cheng with the
Taiwan database, Hsu with health insurance in Taiwan, several others. Again,
decreased dementia associated with use of metformin all cause mortality. In
other words, remember I talked about we've talked about this before in other
studies, something may have a huge positive impact on cardiovascular
disease ver since. Even though heart attacks and strokes are only... they are
the number one... and what number three cause of death? They still only cause
about a third of deaths overall, so you'd have to have a huge impact for something
that decreases heart attack and stroke and also decreases
total mortality. That's exactly what you see with metformin. Again, underlining the
strength of the association with anti-aging and positive impacts using
this medication, there's other components. I've already mentioned these before. This
is repetitive. The TAME study design. They're looking at 850 milligrams two
times a day, and it's a double-blind randomized placebo-controlled trial. So
you can't get any better in terms of the type of study. Now, what's the inclusion
criteria? Unfortunately, they're looking at people 65 to 79. I think they're
waiting too late. David Sinclair, for example, started taking metformin in his
late 40s. I started taking it in my mid-50s, late fifties. Where's the TAME
study now? Well, this is like the third or fourth video overall out of over 600. So
don't that I've done on time. So again I've done three or four. If you don't
remember them, don't worry about it, we've covered most of the materials here.
Here's the problem. I don't think it's completely fun to do. This is a Forbes
article on the TAME study from February of this year. In our first videos two
years ago, we talked about how it couldn't be.
It wasn't being funded yet and how the NIH was fighting it. Because it's against
aging. And they can't find something that's against aging. They can only fund
countermeasures against disease. So kind of weird. But Barzilai was fighting
the good fight now about a year ago. We heard that it got funded. Haven't
heard the results though, and this may be why. If you look at the rest of this
Forbes article from February and AMFAR (the American Federation for Aging Research)
has committed 35 million dollars to it. They're hoping for another
40 million from NIH. However, NIH is still dragging its feet.
Because it's not a disease. It's anti-aging. Obviously, you know, the
obvious question comes up, "Why don't they just label it
as one of these diseases?" I'm not there. I'm not involved in that battle. Anyhow,
one other thing that we can say is that the Big Pharma are not involved in
funding this heck. Why would they? Who's gonna make any money off that form? It
doesn't make sense to them. But it does make sense to me, and it's unfortunate
that so few people have investigated this more deeply. This was a
long video. I appreciate your interest, especially if you've made it this far. So
I'm very excited to announce we now have a membership page. Now, what is that?
That's the one place where you can go and access all of our digital products.
It starts off with a few free things, like a lot of infographics which help
you understand the basics of insulin resistance, cardiovascular inflammation,
and other key concepts on how to prevent heart attack and stroke. The next free
item is the intro and first chapter of the book that we're writing on plaque
and the standards of medicine just aren't doing very well right now in
terms of the number one killer and disabler - plaque. We don't do a good job
of measuring it, we don't do a good job of monitoring it, and there are better
ways. So that's what this book is all about. Again, go in, get a free a look at
the intro and in the first chapter. And if you've purchased the cardiovascular
inflammation and IR courses, thank you so much for doing that. You purchased those
at a time before we had them totally cleaned up. And we've cleaned them up now,
and they're available for you right there on the membership page. Hit the
link below, register and go in, and take a look. Look forward to seeing you there.
Thank you.