I relish the rare opportunity I've been
given to live the life of the mind but I
know I need my body and that it will not
last forever as we age when we make
autism cells tiny errors gripped and
hilarities this process seems inevitable
but stem cell researchers disagree
one of them is dr. Vincent Jian Papa he
believes our body's own natural reserves
of stem cells can stem the tide of decay
the origin of the aging process really
starts in our stem cells because that is
the reservoir of the regenerative power
and the ability to have our body cells
renewed and repaired as we age the stem
cells we have in our adult bodies are
not all powerful like embryonic stem
cells they are specialized to replenish
specific tissues we need to maintain
ourselves like blood bone skin and
muscle as we age however this repair
system begins to break down
what we've learned recently is there is
a clock if you will inside the cells
that actually changes or if you will
tics as each year it goes by and as that
happens certain genes get turned off and
other genes get turned on our DNA is not
frozen over our lifetime our environment
and the choices we make influence and
change our genetic profile so if we live
in a healthy environment that genetic
clock is slower if we live in an
unhealthy or stressful environment the
genetic clock accelerates
we can think of the DNA inside one of
our body's stem cells like a newspaper
so this morning I picked up this
newspaper in my driveway and I have a
nice clean newspaper but I might drop
that newspaper in the street and it
might wrinkle or get dirty as the day
goes on I might spill some coffee on
this newspaper
it might even rain this afternoon
the key thing here is I'm not going to
be able to get another copy of this
newspaper but as we age what happens in
those young cells is the letters on that
DNA start to get damaged from normal
aging from the environment and that
newspaper or if you will that cell
becomes less efficient we really can't
read the information and that cell then
can't make accurate copies of itself
which then rapidly accelerates the aging
process but vincent believes this aging
process can be reversed his research
team at the cell health institute claims
that has already begun rolling back the
cellular clock on our body's natural
supply of stem cells what we're really
doing is using the proteins from younger
cells from another person to reprogram
older cells looking from from a
different person what we've seen already
in our early studies is that those
senescent genes that produce
inflammatory compounds and things that
are directly rated to cancer I've
actually been reversed they've been
turned off so that's been a very good
sign that most likely in the long run
this will certainly be a safe therapy in
the next few years
