Every year in mid December Vegas hosts the world A4M conference (from the American Academy Of Anti-Aging Medicine). This year’s conference was at the Venetian/Palazzo Resort in Las Vegas, NV from December 13th to 15th, 2013.
There were more than 3,500 attendees who participated in this yearly continuing medical education event in preventive and integrative medicine. Over 50 speakers reviewed various anti-aging topics including aesthetic medicine and stem cell topics. In addition there was a huge exhibition with over 300 exhibiting companies of health related products and books.
I attended this conference to see what is new in anti-aging medicine, which is the focus of my interest since my retirement in 2010.
Here are some highlights the way I saw it. As the topics were varied, I simply present a potpourri of snippets, all of which have some usefulness.
1. Opening remarks by Dr. Ronald Klatz and Dr. Robert Goldman:
Dr. Klatz pointed out that the A4M has been very active over the years in lobbying for making supplements more available to the public. In 1995 the A4M was defending melatonin as a harmless sleep aid and the FDA agreed to allow it to be freely sold in health food stores. In 1996 DHEA followed this trend. Because of pressure of the A4M on the FDA Co-Q10, an important cardio protective supplement became available in health food stores in 1998. In 1999 the A4M stated in a public statement that newer research has confirmed that insulin is involved in obesity and diabetes and is an important aging substance. Those who continue to have high fasting insulin levels, will age faster than the average population. But those who lose weight, and exercise will reduce fasting insulin and will no longer age prematurely. The reason for this is that inflammation is the cause of high blood pressure and of cardiovascular disease like heart attacks and strokes. Reduce or eliminate fasting insulin and you eliminate the risk for heart attacks and strokes. In 2004 the A4M announced that stem cells could be used as an important tool to treat various end stage diseases to allow people to live longer. Since then this has become a huge specialty area. There was also a separate pre-conference workshop on stem cells. In 2009 the A4M announced that vitamin D3 was effective beyond bone health. Every cell in the body contains vitamin D receptors. Originally the 400IU per day RDA dose was established to fight rickets. Now it is recognized that 4000 or 5000 IU of vitamin D3 are required every day for a multitude of normal body functions. People with the poorest lifestyles have the shortest life expectancy, 66.5 years in Native Americans of South Dakota; in contrast the longest life expectancy in the US is found in Asian American women in New Jersey with 91.8 years. It just so happens that in New Jersey most of the 26,000 A4M physicians are practicing, which may be one of the reasons for the impressive longevity figures. Dr. Katz suggested that we should recommend the following website to people: http://www.worldhealth.net/ This is the official medical news website of the A4M and deals with the latest health recommendations.
Dr. Goldman added to this that the anti-aging industry is growing rapidly (0$ in 1991; 250 billion $ in 2012; an estimated 345 billion $ in 2018).
He also emphasized that anti-aging can only be achieved, if blood tests are done early to detect any hormone or chemical abnormalities in the beginning stages before permanent organ damage sets in. Only with early detection can effective anti-aging treatments be initiated. Prevention is always better than waiting for an emergency to occur and then wanting to fix it, as it is commonly done in the conventional medical system.
Impressions From The 21st Annual World Congress On Anti-Aging Medicine (A4M) In Las Vegas
2. Hypertension diagnosis and treatment:
Dr. Mark Houston (Nashville, TN) talked about new and revolutionary concepts in treating and diagnosing hypertension (high blood pressure). Endothelial and vascular muscle dysfunction are now in the center of the researchers’ attention. The reason for blood pressure to get elevated is from a combination of inflammation, oxidative stress and autoimmune dysfunction of the vascular system. Decades before the blood pressure shoots up, there are vascular and heart abnormalities. 24 hour ambulatory blood pressure monitoring (24hour ABM) is the most reliable test for assessing blood pressure.
Among other things a micronutrient test was suggested as this way a lack of magnesium could be detected. Too little magnesium in the blood has to be treated with magnesium citrate supplements.
In terms of treatment it was interesting to note that diuretics and beta-blockers are no longer recommended, because of serious side effects. Instead of these medications the treatment of choice now are calcium channel blockers (Diltiazem etc.) and angiotensin II receptor blockers (Losartan etc.):
3. Testosterone therapy in men:
This was the topic of Dr. Abraham Morgentaler, a professor of urology at Harvard Medical School. He asked whether it is a panacea, a scourge or the next big thing in medicine. He went through various literature citations that showed that there is no relationship between testosterone or DHT (de-hydro-testosterone) and prostate cancer. In a New England Journal of Medicine publication Dr. Morgentaler has shown by doing extensive prostate biopsies on men with or without prostate cancer that testosterone treatment did not cause prostate cancer or make prostate cancer worse. He found that testosterone treatment invariably made men feel better, and they had more energy using testosterone. They also lived longer. He also debunked a recent JAMA publication from November 2013 that stated testosterone replacement would have led to increased heart attacks. He explained that he called the editor after calculating the raw data and coming to the conclusion that the authors had miscalculated and misrepresented the data, as the risks of heart attacks in men using testosterone were actually half of what the controls without testosterone replacement showed. However, the editor elected to keep the false data in the publication, which has caused confusion with the public and with the medical profession. Here is another rebuttal by Dr. Trutt who came to the same conclusion. Fact is and this is in agreement with many other medical publications in the US, Europe and around the world that testosterone replacement (with bioidentical testosterone) in a testosterone deficient man will cut the risk for heart attacks and strokes into half of what it would be if he did not replace with testosterone. However, only bioidentical testosterone will show this heart and brain saving effect, as there is a key/lock mechanism between bioidentical testosterone and the testosterone receptors of heart and brain cells and the testosterone receptors in the arterial walls.
4. Keynote speaker:
Suzanne Somers was the keynote speaker on the first day of the conference in a talk entitled “Our time has come”. Her books have greatly contributed to the popularity of the anti-aging movement in North America and around the world. She described how important it was for her to take charge of the health care in her own case and to explore alternatives to treat her breast cancer in the past. She allowed a lumpectomy, but she refused chemotherapy which conventional medicine wanted to force on her. Instead she changed her lifestyle completely as summarized in her books, particularly in “Breakthrough”. She also became one of the pioneers in the US to get the newly FDA approved mesenchymal stem cell/fat cell transplant done on the affected breast to restore the pre-surgical appearance. She made a plea to those who can afford it to bank their stem cells, which was later reiterated by Dr. Terry Grossman, MD whose lecture I did not review here. I noted this key sentence in Suzanne Somers’ speech towards the end: “I work prophylactically to take care of my health”. How often have I wished in the past that every one of my patients would have this attitude!
5. Hormone testing and nutrition:
Jim LaValle, an adjunct professor in the College of Pharmacy, University of Cincinnati has more than 27 years of clinical experience in the field of natural therapeutics and functional medicine. He mentioned that many people are toxic from a leaky gut due to faulty nutrition, which in turn will lead to heart disease and kidney disease. Once a patient has heart failure, a leaky gut will make the heart failure worse. Leaky gut leads to multiple autoantibodies, which causes various autoimmune diseases. Another area he concentrated on in his talk is the fact that neuroplasticity in the brain can restore people’s brain after brain injuries or when autoimmune diseases have attacked the brain. Through lifestyle changes stem cells in the support tissue of the brain, called glia cells, can develop into neural progenitor cells, immature newborn granulocyte cells and eventually into mature nerve cells. In other words the same sequence that occurs in the embryo with brain maturation can also occur in adults. Researchers are only learning now how to approach this difficult subject. He pointed out that there has to be a balance between the gut, the brain and the immune system. As the gut is also an immune organ (Peyer’s patches) where Th1, Th2 and Th17 lymphocytes are produced, it is important to manage your gut through probiotics and through intake of organic foods to get away from anything that disbalances the gut/immune system/brain interaction. At the end he briefly touched on two important facts: zinc is a trace element that is important for prevention of a leaky gut as it keeps the cell bridges of the lining of the gut intact. However, when zinc levels are done on patients in the hospital setting, he found that patients are often deficient for zinc, but they are responding very rapidly to zinc supplementation. Stress, which causes high cortisol levels leads to lowered endurance, autoantibodies and allergies. By checking other hormones, which need to be in balance with cortisol the caregiver can recognize what is wrong with a patient and help restore the hormone balance with bioidentical hormones. This will also take care of the leaky gut, the autoimmune diseases and improve asthma in a person who has allergies.
6. Aging and the short telomere connection:
William Andrews, PhD has worked in the biotech industry for 28 years and had obtained his Ph.D. in Molecular and Population Genetics at the University of Georgia in 1981. In the last 15 years he has focused on finding ways to extend the human lifespan by interfering with telomere shortening in human cells. He shared some interesting facts with the audience: reproductive cells do not age and their telomeres stay long. He said that in order to age gracefully it helps to know the length of your body’s telomeres. He recommended using the HT Q-Fish telomere test, which is a genetic test that gives an average of the telomere status of your body. This test will determine the %-age of short telomeres in the body, which is what is most informative about your biological age and your average life expectancy. There are several methods that are useful to know, which lengthen your telomeres: exercise, omega-3 fatty acid supplements, vitamin D3 in higher doses and not smoking are all known to lengthen your telomeres. Astragalus, a Chinese herb and extracts (expensive!) derived from this plant have also been shown to increase the length of telomeres. Other factors that help to preserve the length of your telomeres are reducing stress (yoga, meditation, enjoyable music), weight loss through a ketogenic diet, reduction of depression (rebalancing brain hormones), reducing pessimism, and being happy. Did you know that lobsters are blessed with ubiquitous telomerase expression? As a result they turn over 100 years. Humans are not so lucky, but we have access to simple steps that are protecting our telomeres! Dr. Andrews’ company has searched for telomere elongating substances. Through testing of 39 families of chemicals that are stimulating telomerase to elongate telomeres, he found a few that work. However, the main first step should be to concentrate on restoring the diet of our distant ancestors that gave us our genetic make-up. He stated that the Western diet is the worst contributing factor for telomere shortening. The macro and micronutrient difference between our ancestral diet and the modern diets have caused diseases like high blood pressure, heart attacks, stokes, obesity, diabetes, insulin resistance, dementia and cancer. Our modern diets (particularly the high carb/low fat diets) have increased oxidative stress in our bodies from increased reactive oxygen. This reduces our antioxidant reserves. It leads to malfunctioning of the endothelial lining. Other contributory factors are the overfeeding with omega-6 fatty acids from processed foods and cooking oils(such as corn oil and soybean oil and others.). These food infractions lead to a relative lack of the key vitamins A, D, E and K2 that are important to maintain cell function.
7. Telomeres, Aging and Disease:
This title was the talk by Dr. Mark Rosenberg, who has been involved with drug research since 1991. This lecture reinforced what Dr. Andrews has said. However, he added a few aspects that are important to mention: “aging promotes aging”; in an aging person there are more circulating free radicals that undermine your health. So it is important, particularly for an older person to take anti-oxidant supplements to stop free radicals from aging you even faster. Dr. Rosenberg has done a lot of research with cancer cells. He noted that the circulation in a cancer or in metastases from cancer is very poor, which is the reason why chemotherapy often does not reach the cancer cells. He also found in the literature and in his own clinical experience that patients with low LDL cholesterol have increased cancer susceptibility. He mentioned that this was a new paradigm. I have recently discussed this in detail in a previous blog. Briefly, LDL cholesterol is the transport form of cholesterol going from the liver to vital organs like the heart or brain. When LDL is oxidized by free radicals from eating too much sugar and starchy foods that are metabolized into sugar, cells are starved of nutrients and oxygen. This sets the stage for cancer cells to develop, which have a metabolic advantage of being able to produce energy by glycolysis rather than by the aerobic metabolic pathway. Smoking and alcohol consumption shorten telomeres and this makes the person more prone to developing cancer. On the other hand telomerase treatments have been shown to NOT cause cancer, which was a false belief in the past. At this point it is lifestyle changes that are needed to reduce the using up (aging) of telomeres. Resveratrol, vitamin D3, and astragalus all seem to contribute to lengthening of telomeres. The next few years will likely bring more news about this.
Conclusion:
I have only been able to give a few highlights of the 21st Anti-aging Congress in Las Vegas. Another highlight was an appearance of Travis Stork, MD from the ER-doctor show on television. He gave a very down-to-earth presentation making 4 points: 1) healthy living starts in the kitchen, 2) “I need you to start working out”, 3) Mind and body are connected (stress can ruin your health) and 4) Get enough sleep (40% do not get enough sleep), because all of your hormone glands are recovering overnight. He concluded by saying: “Make health your hobby!” Another happening later in the conference was the appearance of California’s 38th Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger. He received the highest honor of the A4M, the 2013 INFINITI AWARD for his leadership role of funding and supporting stem cell research in California.
Each A4M conference seems to have something new to offer every year. There were many other things that I learnt, but in my mind the topics I summarized above stood out from the rest.