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Published by The Vampire Network on the 25th of July 2017I, Vampire: Exploring Connections Between Vampires of Myth and Modern-Day Blood Vampires: Part III
I am the Vampire Lestat. I'm immortal more or less. The light of the sun, the sustained heat of an intense fire-these things might destroy me. But then again, they might not.
ANNE RICE, The Vampire Lestat
Part III: Immortality, Extended Life Span and Delayed Aging
While many Blood Vampires accept that they age slower than non-vampires, the resistance to the idea that their natural, i.e. genetically determined, life span may be considerably longer is wide-spread. This resistance stems primarily from lack of visible examples among modern day vampires. This apparent lack of examples, however, may be a result of, in part, the isolated existence of long-living Blood Vampires, but is likely primarily a result of the lifestyle most modern Blood Vampires lead.
Unlike their historical/mythical counterparts, most modern day Blood Vampires are active during the day and are often exposed to sunlight. In previous articles we discussed the overwhelmingly detrimental effects sunlight can have on Blood Vampires. In our empirical studies, even short periods of exposure (15-30 min) were much more harmful to Blood Vampires than to non-vampires resulting in very large increases in oxidative stress. Such increases in oxidative stress have been associated with DNA, cellular and tissue damage, which lead to premature aging (also demonstrated in our studies), among other negative effects. Furthermore, most today’s Blood Vampires are nearly constantly starving or consuming only enough blood to avoid the most serious of consequences of complete starvation. This keeps their bodies in a constant state of stress, which is associated with high levels of the hormone cortisol. Cortisol, in turn, stimulates release of other stress-related hormones including norepinephrine and adrenaline, which force an increase in blood pressure and heart rate, and thus oxygen consumption and basal metabolic rate, keeping the organism in a perpetual “fight or flight” mode, which is known to significantly reduce life span. In addition, elevated cortisol levels suppress the immune system.
In the meantime, more and more scientists are pushing to classify aging as a disease, a thing which can be stopped and ultimately cured. Advances in aging research support this movement. British biologist Aubrey de Grey goes as far as to argue that the first human who will live 1,000 years is already among us. While this claim is probably fantastical, our understanding of the aging process and interventions to slow it down have undergone major advancements within the last 100 years, and have been rapidly accelerated within the last 25 years. The average age of death in the most advanced civilizations of the world only 200 years ago was approx. 45, 25 years ago it was 63. Today it is 82.
In this time, seminal discoveries in human science and medicine have had tremendous impact on prolonging the human life span. One of the first major interventions was helping the immune system fight off various forms of infectious disease through the use of antibiotics and vaccines. Then followed learning how to reduce blood pressure (the increase in which accompanies human aging) and thereby decrease oxygen consumption in aging hearts. This too had a major impact on prolonging human life span. More recently, cellular immortality has been attributed to prolonged activity of telomerase, the enzyme which repairs ends of chromosomes and reducing oxidative damage to DNA, cells and tissues. Oxidative damage, a byproduct of cellular metabolism in all aerobic (oxygen-requiring) organisms, which accumulates with age, is now at the forefront of the war against aging. Most recently, scientists have started to demonstrate that blood derived from the young is capable of not only stopping but also reversing signs of aging, as outlined above.
Interestingly, these life prolonging interventions mimic the normal physiology of many Blood Vampires. Physiological adaptations of vampires to periods of starvation (blood) include marked reduction in heart rate, blood pressure and core body temperature. This decreases baseline metabolic rate. As stated earlier, low basal metabolic rate correlates directly with increased life span. As a result, and also due to higher expression of anti-oxidant defense systems of the body, baseline oxidative stress trends much lower in Blood Vampires. When well fed, Blood Vampires rarely contract infectious disease. In part this is because of elevated levels of sialic acid in their saliva. Sialic acid is a major regulator of the immune system. It is a significant component of salivary mucins, where it functions to “bate” pathogens to attach to the mucin molecules instead of their target cells, and thus, be washed away, out of the body (1). In recent tests, starvation and sunlight exposure are shown to dramatically decrease sialic acid levels in the saliva of Blood Vampires but not in non-vampires.
In addition, caloric restriction has been shown to enhance longevity and promote healthy aging in a great number of studies. In fact, calorie restriction has endured 80 years of research to stand out as the most robust dietary intervention shown to extend average and maximum lifespan and delay the onset of age-related pathologies across species. Just 25% calorie restriction intervention in a cohort of 76 adult monkeys was associated with significant improvements in morbidity and mortality. In a human study, which mimicked this restriction, CALERIE (20-30% restriction), measured metabolic parameters, including resting metabolic rate after 12 months match results in the monkeys which correlated with decreased incidence of age-related illness and increased life span (2). As indicated earlier, resting metabolic rate is tightly coupled to life span across species, so that the lower the resting metabolic rate, the longer the life span of the animal.
Some mechanism for these results have been identified, among them increased NAD+, AMPK and mTOR activation (2). All of these are indicators of metabolic activity. NAD+ (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) is particularly interesting. NAD+ levels decline sharply with aging, which has been associated with neurodegeneration and cardiovascular disease (3). Interestingly, NAD+ levels are also significantly decreased in obesity, but increase with caloric restriction (3). A company called Elysium sells NAD+ as a dietary supplement which promises to increase longevity and ward off age-related illness. In our empirical studies, circulating NAD+ levels were significantly increased in Blood Vampires vs. non vampires of the same age.
Diets of many Blood Vampires are often streamlined and calorie-restricted due to major GI disturbances, only some of which are resolved with intake of blood. Studies in humans suggest that both mechanisms, ingestion of blood from young human or animal donors and caloric restriction, may be responsible for delayed aging, lower incidence of age-related illness and longevity in some modern day vampires and their mythical counterparts.
Absolute immortality attributed to vampires as a consequence of their being “un-dead”, at least as far as physical incarnations go, is probably a myth derived from lack of understanding of the process of death and decomposition and, on occasion, confusion of living vampires with the dead. We hypothesize that there are several possibilities to explain why this mistake might have been committed in greater numbers among vampires. The first of these is related to their classical appearance, pallor and apparent notably lower body temperature, which decreases with distance from blood consumption to degrees that trend far below those encountered in non-vampires. This is accompanied by an equally significant and measurable decrease in heart rate (and contractility, i.e. the strength of the heart beat) and blood pressure, which can drop to rates which are nearly undetectable. Thus, in times of severe starvation (absence of blood consumption), it is likely that a Blood Vampire heart rate and contractility could become so low that the physician or the mortician, unable to feel the resulting weak pulse, and in conjunction with the overall appearance of the body (cold, pale, apparent absence of breathing) and in the absence of more sophisticated equipment, would pronounce the individual dead. It is even possible that the vampire’s oxygen requirement is at the time already so low, that he/she could survive being buried alive, unlike a non vampire, who, in the same predicament, would likely to suffocate to death sooner.
Another altered state possibly linked to vampirism was first discussed by a nineteenth century physician, Dr. Herbert Mayo. He believed a condition he termed "death-trance" might be connected to vampirism. He described “death-trance” as involuntary catalepsy or suspended animation, in which the person would appear to be dead. Furthermore, he postulated that this state would spread from one person to another so that "there is no reason why death-trance should not, in certain seasons and places, be epidemic” (4). During periods of severe starvation, Blood Vampires have been known to slip from extreme lethargy into deep sleep. Altered neurotransmission, with increased GABA levels may be at least partially responsible.
References
- Wang B,Brand-Miller J. The role and potential of sialic acid in human nutrition. Eur J Clin Nutr. 2003;57:1351-69.
- Balasubramanian P,Howell PR, Anderson RM. Aging and Caloric Restriction Research: A Biological Perspective With TranslationalPotential. 2017 Jun 19. pii: S2352-3964(17)30250-5.
- Van de Ven RAH,Santos D, Haigis MC. Mitochondrial Sirtuins and Molecular Mechanisms of Aging. Trends Mol Med. 2017;23:320-331.
- Summers, Montague, The Vampire: His Kith and Kin (University Books, New Hyde Park, N.Y., 1960) Section reprinted from Dr. Mayo's On the Truths Contained in Popular Superstitions; pg. 178 in Summers.
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