From: ((Steven B. Harris))
Subject: Re: *Practical* Immortality: An how to do it?
Date: 20 May 1995
Newsgroups: sci.life-extension

In <D8sL7E.845@indirect.com> garyh@bud.indirect.com (Dr. Gary Holowicki)
writes:


>Be careful of ethoxoquin.  Most major pet food manufacturers in the US
>are eliminating it from their food, going with Vit. E & C for
>preservatives.  Causes all sorts of defects when taken in the large
>ammounts over time the pet diets have had experience with.  USFDA only
>approves it in a few spices for human consumption.  Use at your own
>>FORWARNED < risk.
>Sincerely, Gary


Yep, there's some tox refs in the 1990 paper I quote below.  Odd that
people here are talking about ethoxyquin and 2-MEA and restriction, when
I'm probably the only guy on earth to show that you can give mice
strange liver damage and kill them by giving them all that at once.
This life extension do it yourself crap is not to be fooled around with.

                                          Steve Harris, M.D.

From: ((Steven B. Harris))
Subject: Re: *Practical* Immortality: An how to do it?
Date: 20 May 1995
Newsgroups: sci.life-extension

In <3pi7l3$ati@highway.LeidenUniv.nl> you@somedomain (Angelo Schouten)
writes:

>In article <D8sL7E.845@indirect.com>, garyh@bud.indirect.com says...
>
>>Be careful of ethoxoquin.  Most major pet food manufacturers in the US
>>are eliminating it from their food, going with Vit. E & C for
>>preservatives.
>
>>Causes all sorts of defects when taken in the large
>>ammounts over time the pet diets have had experience with.
>
>>USFDA only
>>approves it in a few spices for human consumption.  Use at your own
>>>FORWARNED < risk.
>>Sincerely, Gary
>
>Gary, could you be a little more specific (literature) about the "causes
>of sorts of defects". Animal food may be "doped" with a lesser quality of
>Ethoxyquin. I am not taking it (nor mercaptoethanol for that matter)
>before I am *absolutely convinced* about safety, dossage and possible
>(dis/)advantages. My mother did not raise fools. Thanks in advance (and
>for the concern).
>
>Regards,
>
>
>Angelo Schouten ("I Die Harder than Bruce Willis")
>Leiden Institute of Chemistry
>Leiden University, The Netherlands
>
>*The E-mail address is no longer valid, it will take time to get
>a new one working*
>--------------------------------------------------
>For correspondence (normal mail/ postal delivery) please use:
>
>POBox 6229
>2702 AE Zoetermeer
>The Netherlands
>--------------------------------------------------
>
>
>BTW my profession is chemistry and physics. I am not a guru,
>reformshop-business dork or (semi-)religious freak trying to
>persuade you things to do in an atmosphere of vulnerability,
>secrecy, mysticism or the all-mighty for that matter. Just cool
>and pure rational reasoning that is all. My knowledge is based on
>my curiosity in scientific life-extension.



    Comment: you are a dork if you do this on the basis of "figuring it
out" from biochem, and without reviewing ALL the literature, which you
don't seem to have done.  See below:
-------------------------------------

Previous exchange here:



>Hmm... You are, well, brave. But, in all
>seriousness, why not buy a few lab rodents and try it on
>them first? I'm planning to buy some mice for such purposes
>after my next move.

Well: have taken 2MEA.HCl (200mg) with ascorbic acid for one month.

>2-ME also looks very interesting -- probably increases
>glutathione levels. But no studies w/sensible endpoints
>(like mortality) have been done, as far as I know. I did see
>a few studies looking for -- but not finding -- toxicity.
>
>Be careful.
>
>--
>Brian M. Delaney <b-delaney@uchicago.edu>


The 2-ME studies have come out with amazing endpoints-- actual max
life span extension without weight loss.  Not repeated by anyone,
yet, but it's the most promising antioxidant study I know of.
Too bad the stuff is so odiferous and vile-- the life extension
chemical from hell, and smells like brimstone. It probably does
increase glutathione levels, as does 2-MEA.  The problems with this
are: 1) the 2-MEA studies, both Harman's and mine, show no max lifespan
increase. I even used the stuff with ethoxyquin.  If you do all this
with restriction you get liver tumors (great).  So don't self
experiment with this junk; stick to vitamins.

The other thing about glutathione is that my studies with
L-2-oxothiazolidine-4 carboxylic acid (procysteine) lifespan
studies showed NADA.  It works better than NAC, but did nothing in a
long lived strain.  These studies are not published yet.


Harris SB; Weindruch R; Smith GS; Mickey MR; Walford RL. Dietary
restriction alone and in combination with oral
ethoxyquin/2-mercaptoethylamine in mice.
Journal of Gerontology, 1990 Sep, 45(5):B141-7.

From: ((Steven B. Harris))
Subject: Re: *Practical* Immortality: An how to do it?
Date: 20 May 1995
Newsgroups: sci.life-extension

Continued from previous cut-off message:


>2-merc. has not been studied much at all, oddly. I've heard
>anecdotes of radically extended life span achieved w/it,
>but, limiting myself to the very few published studies, I'd
>say it looks very promising, but not enough work's been
>done on it to know for sure.

See the classic paper: Hedrick, Mech Age Dev., 27:231, 1984.  There
is a good synopsis in the appendix of Walford's 120 Year Diet, p389.

>>Indeed, cysteamine, or MEA for short, was and is used as a
radioprotector. I became interested in compounds like that following the
Tchernobyl disaster and the apparent unwillingness of national
governments to inform (truly) or to protect their citizens.<<

Well, these things don't work very well, and are very unpleasant except
in the phosphated form.  There is a WR- compound of 2-MEA used for
kids with cystinosis.  The strandard US ARMY radioprotectant is a
slightly different compound called WR-2721.  It actually depletes
glutathione, however, by complexing with it in a dimer.  Also doesnt'
extend life span in long live rodents (another of my yet unpublished
studies)

   >>MEA *may* cause stomach ulcers (the SH complexes Cu in the stomach
lining?),<<

   Maybe.  Most interesting is that it causes ruptured aortas in animals
after long feeding (there is a tox review in my 1990 paper above, which
this fact got left out of for space).  This reference is Jayaraj,
A. P.: Dissecting aneurysm of aorta in rats fed with cysteamine.
Br J Exp Pathol, 64:548-552, 1983.   You will remember that aortic
dissection is a classic pathology sign in Cu deficient swine, but the
authors of the above paper didn't make the connection with their rats,
can you believe it?  I'm probably the only person who has.  Now you
know. But I'm using this to illustrate the danger of just pouring these
chemicals into yourself.  Don't.  Take it from me, an old hand at
keeping mice alive-- it's very hard to improve on mother nature.

You'll die harder than Bruce Willis all right-- you'll get liver cancer.


                                          Steve Harris, M.D.