NGF DELIVERED IN SILICON CHIP PROTECTS BRAIN FROM ALZHEIMER’S

NGF DELIVERED IN SILICON CHIP PROTECTS BRAIN FROM ALZHEIMER’S. Paper in the nanotech journal Small.

Recent human studies have rehabilitated the anti-aging reputations of of human growth hormone and testosterone replacement therapies. In fact, several recently published studies indicate that testosterone replacement therapy (TRT) reduces prostate cancer rates, which directly contradicts the long held conventional argument against TRT.

New research from Technion and Bar-Ilan in Israel suggests that properly delivered Nerve Growth Factor (NGF) also helps prevent one of the worst age-related diseases, Alzheimer’s disease (AD). One role of NGF is to protect and foster growth of neurons (nerves), the signalling cells responsible for many critical biological functions. The study utilized a silicon chip to slowly deliver NGF to mouse brains, highlighting the importance of “delivery.” Simply injecting NGF would not provide the same benefit because neuropeptides break down, leaving nerve cells unprotected.

This is a fascinating and important study because it provides more evidence that replacement therapies that restore youthful levels of biologically active molecules can restore youthful function. Fortunately, there are other innovative ways to deliver molecules continually, making previously impossible replacement therapies practical and inexpensive.

Novel synthesized molecules that are not naturally found in our bodies also have huge anti-aging and age reversal potential, but it seems to me that we ought to be aggressively exploiting the benefits of restoring youthful levels of our own naturally-occurring signalling molecules to older people who want more robust disease-free functionality. We need, incidentally, a better term than “replacement therapies.”