From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med,misc.fitness,
	misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Gary Null's new book
Date: 24 Apr 1999 08:23:20 GMT

In <37211488.2841F1FC@notfnol.net> Xtina <hazmat@notfnol.net> writes:
>
>"Steven B. Harris" wrote:
>>
>> Xtina wrote:>
>>
>> Gary Null:
>> >>He's a New York restauranteur and radio talk show host (and is so
>> >>honestly described in a 1980 book on nutrition by him I happen to
>> >>own). Since then, however, he's gotten a couple of matchbook cover
>> >>mailorder degrees, and has started to think he knows more than all
>> >>the scientists in The Establishment.
>>
>> > Yeah, well he still has gotten his mice to live longer than
>> > you have gotten your mice to live.
>>
>>     The hell he has.
>
>Whooo -great comeback. Showed me.


   In the course of doing research on antioxidants I've gotten lab mice
out to 48 months (4 years) and these results are published in the
Journal of Gerontology.  This is not a world record, but isn't bad (I
believe the record is 54 months for one lone mouse-- held by Jackson
labs).  Did I miss Null's paper?

From: sbharris@ix.netcom.com(Steven B. Harris)
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative,sci.med.nutrition,sci.med,misc.fitness,
	misc.health.alternative
Subject: Re: Gary Null's new book
Date: 25 Apr 1999 07:12:28 GMT

In <eeeFApDL5.7zq@netcom.com> eee@netcom.com (Mark Thorson) writes:

>Are there any special rules to this game?  If I wanted
>to enter, would I need to use a specific strain of mice,
>or would any mouse do?  I would think just about every
>peddlar of nutritional supplements would want to get
>into this competition.


   Yes, if life span was modifiable by supplementation.  Alas, mean
life span is modestly increased if you're lucky, and maximum life span
almost never (without caloric restriction).

   You don't have to use a specific strain of mouse, but obviously you
want to use the longest lived lab mouse strain you can.  The main
important thing is that the "mouse" be the species Mus musculus (common
house mouse-- now bred as a lab mouse in many strains).  Life span is
species specific, and there are common rodents (in fact, the MOST
common rodents in North America) commonly known as "mice" which are not
genus Mus but genus Peromyscus (deer mice).  And various species of
these.  None of which can interbreed with each other, or with lab mice.
And which have life spans twice as long.

From: ((Steven B. Harris))
Subject: Re: *Practical* Immortality: An how to do it?
Date: 22 May 1995
Newsgroups: sci.life-extension

In <3pmhk3$gtr@newsbf02.news.aol.com> macvspc@aol.com (MAC VS PC)
writes:

>with all due respect dr. harris. i think you miss the point. those long
>lived strains of mice you experiment with were not created by that muther
>nature but by inquisitive men in lab coats. some pioneers do indeed get
>arrows in the back but some also will make it to california, find gold
>and hey maybe even win an oscar.


   Normal lab strains are inbred (about as much as they can be!) and not
very tough.  Long lived strains, which use F1 hybrids of normal lab
strains, are identical, but now have the kind of hybrid vigor you see in
field mice.  They aren't supermice, just normal mice.  They are a much
better model for you and me than normal inbred lab mice, without being
completely genetically heterogenus, which makes life span studies much
more difficult.

                                        Steve Harris, M.D.