At the Institute for Healthy Aging, we pride ourselves on the practice of cutting edge medicine. This means constantly reviewing the latest studies in the journals of both traditional and complementary medicine. In addition, Dr. Rosenberg is avidly involved in research. Perhaps the most exciting research Dr. Rosenberg has been involved in is his work with telomeres.

The telomere is the cap on the end of the chromosomes in all species. The telomere is analogous to the plastic part on the end of the shoelace - it holds the shoelace together. If you cut the cap near its base, the shoelace will eventually unravel. Humans are born with a telomere length of approximately 10,000-14,000 base pairs. Each year, we lose between 20 and 50 base pairs. At the time we reach a critical length of 4000-6000 base pairs, we reach the "senescence" phase. At this length, the telomere is simply too short to protect the DNA. The double helix literally begins to unravel and makes mistakes during transcription. When we hit 4000-6000 base pairs, we will soon die. All telomeres shorten with age except for malignant cells and germ cells (eggs and sperm). These cells live forever (until the host dies). Interestingly, the telomere of sperm continues to grow with age (An interesting study done at the Univ. of Calgary in Dec, 2004 revealed that children whose father was older at the time of the child's conception, were born with longer telomeres. We now know that the father transmits his telomere to the offspring. Translation: the older your father is when you are conceived, potentially, the longer you can live).

At the Institute for Healthy Aging, we will begin measuring telomeres, and more importantly, telomere rate of change. We will measure a subject's telomere at time zero, and then re-measure it at a later time. This will reveal their absolute telomere length, as well as how quickly they are losing base pairs. We will literally be able to tell the subject, that if they continue to age at this rate, they will live no longer than "X" years.

The two reasons telomeres shorten are the following: 1. cell division 2. free radical stress. How do you slow cell division? Here we are a bit limited. Do not do anything to cause you to be hyper-metabolic or stimulate mitosis (cell division), such as through over-eating, or use of stimulants.
Free radical stress has been shown to be a major cause of telomere shortening. If we can decrease this stress, we can age slower and live longer. At the current time, all of our anti-oxidant administration is simply guess-work. We don't know what we need, or how effective we're being. We do know that the GI tract is extremely limiting with regards to its ability to take up anti-oxidants. We will get diarrhea from large amounts of anti-oxidants well before we maximize our anti-oxidant capacity.

At the Institute for Healthy Aging, we will bypass the limitations of the GI tract. Not only will we measure telomeres and telomere rate of change, but we will also measure total anti-oxidant capacity in blood, 8-deoxy-guanosine (a measure of DNA oxidation), and levels of catalase, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase (the 3 endogenous antioxidant systems in humans). After we have measured all of these parameters, we will begin to maximize anti-oxidant capacity. We will do this through regular intravenous administration of anti-oxidants such as IV Vitamin C, E, alpha lipoic acid, glutathione, N-acetyl cysteine, and B vitamins. At regular intervals, we will re-measure subjects' anti-oxidant capacity and anti-oxidant systems. Once we maximize antioxidant capacity and minimize free radical production, we will keep them at that level and then re-measure the telomere rate of change. It is quite likely, that at the Institute for Healthy Aging, we will not only be able to slow the aging process and extend life span, but we will actually be able to measure our life extension.