How Two Russian Scientists Transformed Global Understanding of Aging and Cancer

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🔬 How Two Russian Scientists Transformed Global Understanding of Aging and Cancer. A Deep Dive into the Hidden Legacy Behind Modern Geroscience. 🌟 A Father–Son Legacy That Rewrote Aging Science  For years, biogerontologist Mikhail Blagosklonny has argued that aging isn’t a slow breakdown of biological systems—it’s biology stuck in overdrive. But as new scholarship reveals, this groundbreaking viewpoint can be traced back to the pioneering work of another scientist: his own father, Vladimir Dilman.  In a reflective article published in Aging, researcher Aleksei G. Golubev explores how Dilman’s neuroendocrine theories anticipated many of today’s central ideas in geroscience, ultimately influencing Blagosklonny’s globally influential Hyperfunction Theory.  Golubev emphasizes an important point: today’s “modern” theories often rise from forgotten Soviet-era research that never received proper recognition due to language barriers, limited indexing, and Cold War isolation. #AgingResearch #CancerBiology #Geroscience #mTOR #HyperfunctionTheory #VladimirDilman #MikhailBlagosklonny  #MetabolicSyndrome #Metformin #Rapamycin #Neuroendocrinology #ScientificHistory #SovietScience #Biogerontology

Transcript

00:00Today, on Tuesday, December 9th, how two Russian scientists transformed global understanding of

00:05aging and cancer. A deep dive into the hidden legacy behind modern geroscience.

00:11In a powerful new essay, researchers are shedding light on how two Russian scientists working

00:15decades apart but connected by shared intellectual roots help reshape the world's understanding of

00:20aging, disease, and cancer biology. Their ideas, once overlooked, are now recognized as foundational

00:27pillars of modern aging science. A father-son legacy that rewrote aging science.

00:33For years, biogerontologist Mikhail Blagosklani has argued that aging isn't a slow breakdown of

00:38biological systems its biology stuck in overdrive. But as new scholarship reveals, this groundbreaking

00:44viewpoint can be traced back to the pioneering work of another scientist, his own father, Vladimir

00:50Dillman. In a reflective article published in Aging, researcher Alexei G. Golubev explores how

00:55Dillman's neuroendocrine theories anticipated many of today's central ideas in geroscience,

01:00ultimately influencing Blagosklani's globally influential hyperfunction theory.

01:05Golubev emphasizes an important point, today's modern theories often rise from forgotten Soviet

01:10era research that never received proper recognition due to language barriers, limited indexing,

01:15and Cold War isolation.

01:17Aging, not decline but dangerous overactivity.

01:20For decades, the traditional view of aging has been simple, systems weaken, damage accumulates,

01:26functions fail, and the body declines.

01:29Dillman and Blagosklani turned this idea upside down.

01:32Dillman's Elevation Theory

01:33When the Brain Overdrives the Body

01:35Dillman argued that aging begins when the hypothalamus the brain's hormonal control center loses

01:40sensitivity to feedback signals.

01:43To compensate, the body elevates hormones and metabolites, pushing the system into chronic

01:48metabolic overactivity.

01:50This overdrive, he believed, fuels age-related disorders, cancer risk, and metabolic diseases.

01:57Blagosklani's Hyperfunction Theory

01:58Growth Pathways That Won't Switch Off

02:01Decades later, Blagosklani expanded this idea on a molecular level.

02:06His hyperfunction theory argues that pathways like MTO are designed to drive growth in youth

02:11continue working excessively in adulthood.

02:12The result

02:14Cells and tissues begin to overfunction, causing

02:17Hypertension

02:19Organ Enlargement

02:21Fibrosis

02:22Increased Cancer Risk

02:24Goliabef notes that Blagosklani essentially identified MTOR as a molecular hypothalamus as

02:30central regulator whose overactivity drives aging, echoing Dillman's earlier logic.

02:34Both scientists redefined aging as too much of a good thing, rather than system failure.

02:40Rediscovering the Overlooked Foundations of Modern Geroscience

02:43Goliabef highlights that many now-mainstream ideas such as metabolic syndromes linked to cancer,

02:49insulin resistance, the concept of metabolic immunodepression, and the potential anti-aging

02:54effects of biguanide drugs like metformin were studied in Dillman's Soviet laboratory long

02:58before they appeared in Western scientific discourse.

03:01When later discoveries revealed that biguanides and rapamycin act by influencing MTOR signaling,

03:06it connected Dillman's early work to Blagosklani's modern framework closing as scientific

03:11loop decades in the making.

03:13Yet much of this research remains underscited simply because it was published in Russian

03:17at a time when digital archives and global indexing did not exist.

03:21Goliabef warns that forgetting such contributions risks causing the scientific world to recycle

03:25ideas without acknowledging their origins or learning from early insights.

03:30Reference

03:30Alexei Goliabef, on the intergenerational transfer of ideas in aging and cancer research,

03:36from the hypothalamus according to V.M.

03:39Dillman to the MTOR protein complex according to MV.

03:43Blagosklani, aging, November 19, 2025.

03:47Thanks for watching and following.

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