Science/Environment Bucky Balls

[Old Skool]

Could Bucky Balls increase life span?

C(60) fullerene is a naturally occurring molecule containing 60 carbon atoms arranged in a sphere. It is famously known as the buckyball, short for buckminsterfullerene, and discovered in 1985.

Since 1993, the molecule has been suspected to have multiple potential biological benefits. This list includes UV and radioprotection, antiviral, antioxidant, and anti-amyloid activities, allergic response and angiogenesis inhibitions, immune stimulating and antitumour effects, enhancing effect on neurite outgrowth, gene delivery, and even hair-growing activity.

In the current study researchers fed the molecule dissolved in olive oil to rats and compared outcomes to a control group of rats who got plain olive oil.

The main question they wanted to answer was whether chronic C60 administration had any toxicity, what they discovered actually surprised them.

“Here we show that oral administration of C60 dissolved in olive oil (0.8 mg/ml) at reiterated doses (1.7 mg/kg of body weight) to rats not only does not entail chronic toxicity,” they write “but it almost doubles their lifespan.”

“The estimated median lifespan (EML) for the C60-treated rats was 42 months while the EMLs for control rats and olive oil-treated rats were 22 and 26 months, respectively,” they write.

Using a toxicity model the researchers demonstrated that the effect on lifespan seems to be mediated by “attenuation of age-associated increases in oxidative stress”

They also demonstrated that the compound is fully absorbed via the GI tract and totally eliminated from the body in 10 hours.

“These results of importance in the fields of medicine and toxicology should open the way for the many possible -and waited for- biomedical applications of C60 including cancer therapy, neurodegenerative disorders, and ageing,” they conclude.

http://www.documentingreality.com/f...l-administration-doubles-rat-lifespan-102534/

Free pdf of the scientific paper in the link.

 

[evo]

I don't have any opinion about this particular thing but Buckminster Fuller was a pretty cool guy.

You gotta like him on the name alone.

 

[Old Skool]

He was a brilliant ideas man, no doubt.

"I live on Earth at present, and I don't know what I am. I know that I am not a category. I am not a thing—a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process—an integral function of the universe." - Buckminster Fuller

 

[Illinois Nazi]

Can't do any worse than the power band.

 

[FlyingBurittoBro]

Check Thursday

 

[cancat]

The third condiment? Apparently they taste like soot.

This article says they cause brain damage in fish and lung damage in mice.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4825-buckyballs-cause-brain-damage-in-fish.html

 

[Pie eyed]

The third condiment? Apparently they taste like soot.

This article says they cause brain damage in fish and lung damage in mice.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn4825-buckyballs-cause-brain-damage-in-fish.html

How do you tell if a fish has brain damage?

 

[FlyingBurittoBro]

How do you tell if a fish has brain damage?

They can only count to potato.

 

[hru33]

Bucky balls are very interesting molecules and sure can be very promising in medical research. The catch is that it isnt quite there yet. Many people actually starting drinking fulleren C60 based on info from that mice experiment but people still know very little of what it can do. Right now it is mostly used in metallurgy, as a coating, in lubricants etc. So mostly heavy industry (can check some applications here), but the research is still going.

 

[Snake_Baker]

This should be in the science thread.

It's too highbrow for this place.

 

[Pie eyed]

Crazy off season bump....and reply!