X-Message-Number: 17321
From: 
Date: Sun, 19 Aug 2001 10:52:04 EDT
Subject: O2 is Bad

--part1_d7.b0b03fe.28b12c94_boundary
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII"
Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit

>> More O2 = telomere shortening = O2 is bad?
> Let me find another interpretation:
> In a petri dish, there is cell food and no regulating growth factor. More 
> O2 
> imply the possibility to process more food and so have more energy. That 
> energy is used first for reproduction purpose so here are more cell 
> 

  Yvan: we keep track of cell divisions. We write the "population doubling 
number" (PD) on every sample tube and every dish. O2 concentrations above the 
level that the cell can handle cause more shortening per division. High O2 
also causes more cell death, and if you leave the cells in 40% O2 for a month 
many cell types will die out completely. (If high O2 was good for you, 
wouldn't Michael Jackson be the picture of health? And remember what happens 
to scuba divers who use pure O2.)

>Now think of the cell in an organ: More O2 give more possibilities to 
produce 
energy 

 Only if O2 were the limiting factor, which it is not, unless you're in the 
Himalayas. Look for the bottlenecks in metabolism in the mitochondrial 
membrane, like CoQ10 and acetyl-L-carnitine.

>and so the cell will get leaner because food supply will not expand in 
the same way. 

  The food supply is the sugar in the blood, which is regulated and will keep 
supplying the cells with whatever they need (unless you're an American raised 
on Twinkies, in which case it's irrelevant because you'll be 
insulin-resistant anyway.) I look at cells every day, and the high O2 cells 
are not leaner. (Even teh dead ones aren't lean, exactly, they're just sort 
of spherical. And floating instead of attached.)

>There are growth regulators, so the energy can't go simply in 
reproductive tasks. It may be wasted or if the cell has a good repair system, 
it may be invested in it without diverting any supply from other activities. 
More energy imply too more protein synthesis and particularly more peroxyde 
scavengers such SOD (Super Oxyde Dismutase) The cell would then end up with 
less H2O2 the true vilain.

  Catalase is the anti-H2O2 enzyme. Superoxide dismutase works on superoxide 
radicals. (And EUK-134 has the activity of both enzymes, just to keep up my 
record of mentioning EUK-134 in every post.) Overexpressing superoxide 
dismutase and catalase by genetic engineering works as a life-extension 
method in C. elegans (almost as well as EUK-134) ... but you have to 
overexpress them relative to O2 concentration, and there is every reason to 
believe this isn't caused by high O2. 
  It is true that some bacteria hate O2 more than we do, and possibly there 
is some application of high O2 as an adjunct anti-infection treatment.
  BTW, there most certainly are growth factors in our culture dishes. The 
cells are fed on various concentrations of cow or fetal calf serum. (Now look 
what you've made me say; I'll have to fight my way past violent PETA mobs to 
get to work Monday.) We also add additional hormones of different kinds to 
different cells. 
  So: O2 is bad, and it will soon be banned along with everything else 
required for human life. 


P.S. Also remember, as Wesley points out, anyone posting from an AOL address 
(or from a college where most of the students major in Herbiculture, right 
Wesley?) is stupid, so don't take my word for anything. 

--part1_d7.b0b03fe.28b12c94_boundary

 Content-Type: text/html; charset="US-ASCII"

[ AUTOMATICALLY SKIPPING HTML ENCODING! ] 

Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=17321