Word: fats
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...successful Olympic Games - something the rest of the planet was sure we couldn't do. Practically from the moment Athens was named as the venue, in 1997, folks began predicting we'd make a hash of it. (How many times did headline writers trot out groaners like "big fat Greek flop"?) But we defied the Cassandras. The graceful canopy that construction crews hauled over the main Olympic stadium just in time didn't come crashing down. The flashlights we tucked in our bags for fear of a blackout were never used. And for all the anguish over our alleged lack...
Will Americans in the supersize age resolve to go medieval on their own bodies? It would help, if they want to live to 100. As Poon says of his research pools, "I don't have any fat centenarians." And if research really does extend life by a vigorous couple of decades, the new millions of centenarians will need a support system that spreads beyond family and friends to include a hugely expensive Social Security and Medicare apparatus. The coming gerontocracy won't come cheap...
...free radicals, which can damage DNA. Another set directs the creation of proteins called chaperones; they help other proteins fold into their proper shapes. They also detect and destroy improperly folded proteins that can cause such aging-related ailments as Huntington's disease. Other genes affect the transport of fat around the body--which may also have an effect on aging--and create proteins that kill invading microbes. "It's like an orchestra," says Kenyon. "The conductor is the hormones. You have the flutes as the antioxidant genes. The violins would be the chaperones, the cellos the metabolic genes...
...monkeys have shown no evidence of diabetes, for example, while it affects about half of normal monkeys. Only four of his CR monkeys, moreover, have died from age-related diseases--half the rate of the control group. He believes the explanation lies in the complex activities of fat cells. The CR monkeys have much less body fat, and that--just as with slim vs. obese humans--seems to protect against a wide range of ills...
...Lost (ABC, Wednesdays, 8 p.m. E.T., debuts Sept. 22) has an even more ridiculous premise. A transpacific flight crashes on a remote island, leaving a few dozen survivors of a type that suggests that the best protection against a 30,000-ft. drop is good hair and low body fat. The plane was a thousand miles off course and out of radio contact--the survivors are stranded. But not alone: at night the jungle chatters with the sounds of unseen, hungry and possibly supernatural creatures. Gilligan, meet Mulder and Scully...