SOUP lecture on Aging

At the monthly SOUP meeting on Sept 01 held at Holy Family Nursing Home I gave a short lecture on Aging. There are 2 ways to estimate the aging process-Chronologically were the ordinary clock is used, and biologically were human biomarkers are used. Research on finding the best biomarkers has become the top priority for the National Institute of aging branch of NIH- for 3 reasons- a) identifying risk factors, b) predicting your remaining life expectancy and c) to determine the functional age of an individual by comparing it to the chronological age especially for those who have embarked on a life extension program to see if the program is working.
Biomarkers fall into 2 classes:1. Those you can do yourself- here i gave 4 examples: elasticity using skin fold test , reaction time -sliding ruler, static balance by standing on one foot with your eyes closed, and visual accomodation by placing a printed page in front and noting how close you can move it to your face before the print becomes blurred.
2. Those your doctor can do or order-Here I briefly discussed 10 different tests- Vital capacity, V02 Max, systolic blood pressure, creatine clearance for kidneys function , glucose tolerance, blood cholesterol, visual accomodation, hearing threshold, auto-antibodies especially for DNA, and finally the blood level of DHEA hormone. Vital Capacity and the concentration of hormone DHEA were best tests for predicting your remaining life expectancy. Mosty of the other tests were measures of potential risk factors
I showed some of my own biomarkers which were done in 1997 by the Life Extension Foundation in Fort Lauderdale Florida - my winter retreat home
After the talk several members fielded a variety of questions fielded extending the 20 minute presentation to over 45 minutes.
An overhead transparency projector aided the presentation. Unfortunately I still have not perfected my keynote software of my iBook for delivering my lectures, hopefully this technique will be perfected in time for my next presentation.