MALAGA, Spain, April 12, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Groundbreaking research touting the benefits of telomerase activation has been published in Aging Cell, the # 1 journal in geriatrics and gerontology.

The study, "The Telomerase Activator TA-65 (http://www.tasciences.com) elongates short telomeres and increases healthspan of adult/old mice without increasing cancer incidence" describes TA-65's mechanism of action and organismal response.

Over the past year, several recent papers have been published showing telomerase activation having profound effects on health span without any increase in tumorigenesis or other negative side effects. Published in Rejuvenation Research in Sept 2010, a peer reviewed paper titled "A Natural Product Telomerase Activator as Part of a Health Maintenance Program" demonstrated that TA-65 transiently activates telomerase, lengthens short telomeres, and rescues and restores the aging immune system in humans.

In November 2010, Harvard Medical School published a sensational article where they reversed aging in mammals for the first time ever! They demonstrated that Telomerase Activation (TA) caused rejuvenation of cells in the brain, spleen, and reproductive organs. Mice that were the equivalent to 80 year old humans had their biological age reversed to that of young adults. In a more recent study, the same Harvard researchers announced that they believe telomere shortening to be the root cause of aging. They describe how shortened telomeres lead to P53 activation and eventual mitochondrial degradation which signals cell aging.

Now, Maria Blasco, the head of the National Cancer Research Center in Spain, and her colleagues show that TA-65, a naturally occurring molecule derived from the Astragalus plant, activates the telomerase enzyme, lengthens critically short telomeres, rescues cells in various organ systems, and improves healthspan. None of which was seen in the control group.

The Blasco study states, "TA-65 dietary supplementation in female mice leads to an improvement of certain health-span indicators including glucose tolerance, osteoporosis and skin fitness, without significantly increasing global cancer incidence."

According to Noel Thomas Patton, founder of TA Sciences, "This study proves the efficacy and legitimacy of TA-65. For the first time in medical history there is something which has the potential to effectively lessen and possibly eliminate the crippling effects of aging decline and degradation caused by insufficient telomerase and short telomeres."

Please see below the abstract from Aging Cell.

Abstract

Here, we show that a small-molecule activator of telomerase (TA-65) purified from the root of Astragalus membranaceus is capable of increasing average telomere length and decreasing the percentage of critically short telomeres and of DNA damage in haploinsufficient mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs) that harbor critically short telomeres and a single copy of the telomerase RNA Terc gene (G3 Terc+/-MEFs). Importantly, TA-65 does not cause telomere elongation or rescues DNA damage in similarly treated telomerase-deficient G3 Terc-/- littermate MEFs. These results indicate that TA-65 treatment results in telomerase-dependent elongation of short telomeres and rescue of associated DNA damage, thus demonstrating that TA-65 mechanism of action is through the telomerase pathway. In addition, we demonstrate that TA-65 is capable of increasing mTERT levels in some mouse tissues and elongating critically short telomeres when supplemented as part of a standard diet in mice. Finally, TA-65 dietary supplementation in female mice leads to an improvement of certain health-span indicators including glucose tolerance, osteoporosis and skin fitness, without significantly increasing global cancer incidence.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1474-9726.2011.00700.x/abst...

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