On: Slowing aging – sirtuins, NAD, and the epigenetics of aging

Episode: 27

Date: November 2018

Key Subjects:

• Genetics professor at Harvard Medical School and co-Director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for the Biological Mechanisms of Aging.
• Sirtuins.
  • Play a key role in regulating adaptive response to environmental stress (see Sirtuins write-up).
    • Response to heat, caloric restriction, low amino acids, high salt.
    • Switching off genes where needed, repairing DNA.
  • Evolved to deal with adversity, not necessarily to prolong life.
    • Signal to hunker down and survive (and stop breeding).
• Ageing:
  • Nine hallmarks of ageing (see Ageing write-up).
  • General perspective on ageing: loss of information.
    • The genome gets “scratched”.
    • Changes the way the genome is read (epigenetics, see “The Epigenetics Revolution“)
    • Changes patterns of gene expression.
    • Loss of form and function.
    • Question: how to reset cells, manipulate the epigenome.

Key Takeaways:

• -/-

Worth Listening:

Helpful introduction to sirtuins and hallmarks of ageing.

• 7/10