A Life Extending Aphrodisiac
Deprenyl, chemical name Selegiline Hydrochloride, is a drug administered to patients suffering from Parkinson's disease. It has been in use for some years and has been found to be safe in the dose of a 5mg tablets twice a day. Recently, those interested in Longevity and Life Extension have discovered that a dose of one of these tables twice a week will extend the quality and quantity of lifespan. It has been suggested that lifespan could increase to 115 to 120 years for people taking the drug. This is, of course an average figure, and maybe some won't benefit whilst others may benefit by an even longer period of extended good health.
At the time of writing, English people have the legal freedom to import prescription only medicines such as Deprenyl for their own use or for the use of someone within their household, without a prescription. However they are using the product without supervision, so they have no come back if anything goes wrong. HEW does not specifically recommend this course of action to its readers - if you plan on doing it, read up as much as you can on the subject, make sure you understand it before continuing. If you are satisfied, then you can get Deprenyl from In Home Health Services PO Box 3112 CH2800 Delemont Switzerland.
Here are two articles on this subject, the first from our own Longevity Report, no 16, which went out about 3 years ago, and the other was one I wrote for a US magazine. The first is somewhat heavy going, but I do urge all readers of HEW to try and read it:
Deprenyl, A New Life Extension Drug
Reprint from Longevity Report
Deprenyl is a drug which is currently widely used to treat Parkinson's disease. Recently it has been discovered that Deprenyl has the capability to extend the lifespan of treated rates beyond their maximum lifespan. If the drug has the same consequences in ageing humans as in ageing rats, this would create a precedent that human lifespan can be extended and the quality of life in old age can be improved.
Deprenyl and Ageing.
The neurotransmitter dopamine was detected in the central nervous system in 1957. There is an age related decline in the level of dopamine in the brain. This change in brain dopamine level is both statistically and also biologically highly significant. The dopamine content of the human caudate nucleus, for example, decreases by 13% per decade over the age of 45. The age related decline of dopamine in the brain now seems to be the first firmly established biochemical sign of the ageing process.
In 1971 it was demonstrated that the level of the brain enzyme monoamine oxidase progressively increases in the ageing brain, probably leading to the conditions which case dopamine breakdown. There are two types of monoamine oxidase (MAO) in the brain, monoamine oxidase A and B, MAO B-type activity increases selectively with advancing age. Cell loss is a general feature of the ageing brain. A drop in the number of neurons of 26% has been found in the hippocampus. A loss of neurons is always compensated for by an increase in glial cells and in accompanying increase in MAO B.
This unavoidable loss of neurons leads inescapably to increased MAO B and a decline in dopamine levels. The following ageing changes may be regarded as resulting from declining dopamine:
a. a significant increase in depression in the elderly.
b. an age dependent decline in male sexual vigour.
c. the frequent appearance of Parkinsonian symptoms in the latter decades of life.
Parkinson's Disease and Ageing.
Parkinson's disease seems to be a kind of selective, highly accelerated "premature ageing". Studies have revealed that Parkinson's disease symptoms appear if more than 70% of the dopamine content is lost. The age related decrease in the dopamine content of certain brain cells explains the usual appearance of Parkinson's disease in advanced age.
The reason that all elderly persons do not exhibit symptoms of Parkinson's disease is the individual variation in brain dopamine levels. Individuals with relatively high dopamine activity in early life maintain a higher level during later life and, despite an age-related decrease in the dopamine content of certain brain cells, the activity of the system remains above the critical threshold for Parkinsonian symptoms.
Longevity of Rats Treated with Deprenyl.
The effect of life-long Deprenyl treatment on lifespan in two year old male rats has been studied by Dr Joseph Knoll, the inventor of Deprenyl.
The so-called nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuron is the most rapidly ageing neuron in the brain. The complex auto-oxidation of high amounts of L-dopa and dopamine in the brain generates large quantities of toxic free radicals creating a permanent danger for the nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuron, which has to mobilise its natural defences to protect itself from damage.
As the unavoidable natural ageing process of the nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuron is due to damage originating from dopamine metabolism it is necessary to develop drugs which provide protection against this damage. Deprenyl has been developed for this purpose. Deprenyl is a safe substance which when administered in very small doses for long periods, protects the nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuron from damage.
In Deprenyl treated rats the shortest living animal died at age 30 months, ie lived longer than the longest living animal of the placebo treated group. 50% of the treated rats died by their 45th month of age, thus they live nine months longer (32%) than those receiving placebo. 31 rats still alive at the end of the study completed four years! Deprenyl treatment extends the lifespan of male rats. The maximum lifespan must be below 3.5 years in male rats as no untreated animal ever reaches that age.
The longevity study in rats seems to support the proposal that the continuous administration of small doses of deprenyl (eg 10-15 mg/week) during the latter decades of life may slow down the ageing of the human nigrostriatal dopaminergic neuron. As a consequence of Deprenyl use, extension of lifespan, improvement in the quality of life in old age and a decrease in the occurrence of age-related diseases like Parkinson's disease, senile dementia, Alzheimer's disease and depression should be expected.
The Potential benefits of Using Deprenyl in the Elderly.
Deprenyl would seem to be the first choice as an anti- ageing drug for use in the elderly. As such a medication must, of necessity, be continued for decades the drug used must be safe in the long term. Modern Parkinsonian therapy has shown us that providing an abundant supply of dopamine to the brain, by oral administration of L-dopa, the precursor of dopamine which permeates the blood-brain barrier, or continuous stimulation of dopamine receptors by bromocryptine, have too many side effects. In addition their effectiveness decreases during long-term administration.
A drug which facilitates the action of dopamine, which remains efficient during many years of administration, and which is reasonably free from side effects has a potentially greater chance of being adopted as a special medicament for counteracting the consequences of age related decreases in brain dopamine concentration.
At the present time, Deprenyl is the only drug which is close to fulfilling these requirements. it has a very characteristic spectrum of activity, enhances dopamine action, and is considered safe.
The hypothesis that Deprenyl medication might be useful for counteracting impairment of dopamine dependent function is supported by observations made in Parkinson's disease patients. Evaluation of accumulated data reveals that the lifespan of Deprenyl treated Parkinson's patients is appreciably longer than that of those not so treated. This effect of Deprenyl is unique. None of the other anti Parkinsonian drugs, including L-dopa, influences the duration of the disease. Further, Deprenyl has proved to be a safe and effective antidepressant and is beneficial in the treatment of Alzheimer's disease.
References.
1. Knoll, J. Preliminary study of life extension in rats by long term Deprenyl treatment. Mount Sinai J. Med 55 (1988).
2. Knoll, J. The long lasting, true aphrodisiac effect of Deprenyl in sexually sluggish old male rats. Monoamine Oxidase and its Selective Inhibitors. Karger, Basel, 1983 pp 135-153
3. Knoll, J. The possible mechanism of action of Deprenyl in Parkinson's disease. J. Neural Transmission 43 (1978) 177.
4. D.S. Robinson. Relation of sex and ageing to monoamine oxidase activity of human brain, plasma and platelets. Arch Gen Psychiatry, 24 (1971) 536.
5. Knoll, J. Selective inhibition of B type monoamine oxidase in the brain - a drug strategy to improve the quality of life in senescence. Strategy in Drug Research ed J.A. Keverling Busiman,: Elsevier, Amsterdam, 1982, pp 107-135.
Deprenyl
the Life Extension Drug
that Also Extends Sex
Readers may be aware of a magazine published by Omni entitled Longevity. This is for all those who think that three score years and ten is an unfair limitation on lifespan, and seek to use science and technology to extend this, maybe even indefinitely. Topics range from vitamins, through exercise regimes, to cryonic suspension.
But now I draw readers' attention to issue 3,1, December 1990, page 42. Entitled An Anti Aging Aphrodisiac is describes the use of the anti-Parkinsonism drug Deprenyl as a life extender. The reason for the title is that a side effect of its life extending properties, the drug also boosts sex drive.
Many vitamin regimes "square the curve". That is to say they keep you healthier longer, but you still die at roughly the same age as everyone else dies. Regimes to extend maximum lifespan are few and far between, and until recently the only one known was Dr Roy Walford's "undernutrition without mal-nutrition" diet, designed to keep people 10% below their "ideal" weight. Described as "the most brutal diet ever devised" by one newspaper columnist, Dr Walford's diet when tested on animals resulted in a human equivalent age of 130 years, and reproductive capacity in females was equivalent to a human giving birth at 70 years.
But over the past few years, the immortalist press has been buzzing with news of the properties of Deprenyl, (selegiline hydrochloride), invented by Hungarian Dr Joseph Knoll. He claims that two tablets a week will enable him to reach an age of 115 years or more, as a result of his experiments. He is a well respected pharmacologist, a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, has published over 400 papers, and is an honourary member of the British Royal Academy of Sciences.
In an experiment with old rats, Knoll discovered that it turned sexual duds into studs. The group of 66 rats had only two failures in the test. The control group showed no increase of sexual activity when kept in identical conditions, but without Deprenyl.
Most of the staff at Deprenyl Research Ltd., a Canadian company which distributes the drug in that country, take the drug for its life extension properties. The company has also recently spun off a new venture that plans to market dog food laced with Deprenyl - to extend the life of pets. The writer has shares in these companies and expects them to be a very profitable investment. They are available on NASDQ.
Dr Knoll survived harrowing experiences at the hands of Germany's National Socialists during the war, and when he was liberated from Dachau in 1945 he weighed 81 pounds. He was just one of two that survived from a group of 65 people. He believes that the brain is the clue to survival, and survival fascinates him. He first proposed using Deprenyl in 1981, but did not start taking it himself until 1988, after he had finished a two year study with rats. His wife started two years later, and they plan to take two 5mg tablets a week for the rest of their lives.
There are people against the indiscriminate use of Deprenyl until its ability to extend maximum lifespan safely can be proven. But for those alive today, the results will be useless. Because they will have perished by the time they are known. Deprenyl's safety in Parkinson's disease patients is established, and at a much higher dosage than the life extension one. Therefore many people think the risk/reward ratio of taking Deprenyl is in their favour. However a recent warning published in Cryonics magazine said that Deprenyl should not be taken in conjunction with Prozac, an anti-depressant, until reports of reactions between the two drugs had been established.
Deprenyl is a prescription only medicine, therefore one has to find a physician willing to prescribe it. However many Americans buy it in from abroad, and there are companies in Mexico, Switzerland and the United Kingdom that supply it to overseas clients by mail order. There is controversy over whether this is legal. In some countries it is perfectly legal, but doubts hang over whether Americans have this freedom.
The FDA sometimes says it is legal in the USA, and sometimes they say it isn't and confiscate imports. Supporters of life extension are involved in legal and political wrangles with the FDA to clarify the situation. With names like "Citizens for an Extended Lifespan" these groups are a growing political lobby. Diehards in the FDA want to stamp out life extension, and even want to prohibit sales of ordinary vitamins for life enhancement. The Life Extension Foundation in Florida have issued a cartoon linking the FDA with the Gestapo, trampling on the US constitution in their bid to maintain the three score years and ten. Even sober periodicals such as The Wall Street Journal have carried articles arguing that the FDA's policies are endangering the health and wellbeing of U.S. citizens.
The bottom line of all this is, that if you do find a source of Deprenyl and take it for its aphrodisiac properties, then it is at your own risk. Therefore read as much as you can and make your own judgement. Nanny state and nanny FDA aren't there to hold your hand.