142: What Laron Syndrome Reveals About Longevity

We have another exciting topic today. It is a fascinating ancestral story of Laron’s syndrome, Sephardic Jews, the Spanish Inquisition, a village in Ecuador, and a possible secret to longevity and avoiding cancer. Hint: IGF-1 plays a vital role in all of this. But how?

We will be giving you some more information on Laron Syndrome, in addition to that which we shared in the podcast that we did on the same topic about two years ago, in order for you to gain a simple and practical understanding of some of the interplays of hormones and biochemistry.

A genetic condition

Laron Syndrome is a genetic condition for which you have to be homozygous. The symptom is being small. That condition could be historically related to populations in the world like the Pygmies. 

Growth hormone

We all have growth hormones that get sent out from the pituitary gland throughout our whole body. Laron Syndrome is a condition in which people have a genetically-altered growth hormone receptor on the liver. Ordinarily, growth hormone gets produced and sent into the bloodstream during periods of intense workouts, and sleep.

A receptor that stops growth hormone from getting produced

Normally, when the growth hormone gets to the liver, it triggers the production of insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) and glucose. People with homozygous (meaning on both chromosomes) Laron Syndrome have a receptor on the liver that stops the growth hormone from getting produced. 

IGF-1

Growth hormone is instrumental to our survival. At higher levels, IGF-1 is responsible for hyperplasia, which makes things grow, and neoplasia, which is cancer. 

The history of where Laron Syndrome came from

Laron Syndrome came from the Semitic people, who are Middle-Eastern Jewish people. Ecuador was probably the most biochemical and genetic site of exploration of Laron Syndrome, ever.

When the Semitic people left the Middle East, a group went to Spain and Portugal called the Iberian Peninsula.

Ecuador

A group of the Jews carrying the gene for Laron Syndrome went to Ecuador, and they lived there, up in the mountains, for four hundred years. 

The conclusion

The conclusion that came from that research was that if you have either low IGF numbers or no IGF, you will not be able to grow, but there will also be no growth factors for cancer. 

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Article: Ecuadorean Villagers May Hold Secret to Longevity

Article: Laron Syndrome: How 100 Villagers In Ecuador Could Hold The Key To Preventing Cancer And Diabetes

Books mentioned:

Tom Ziegfried’s Cancer is a Metabolic Disease

Travis Cristofferson’s Tripping over the Truth