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Beginner's guide to longevity research

ldeming.com

31–40 of 89 posts

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#31
It would be interesting to see a lab focussed on reproducing these findings and then running all the various combinations to see how those incremental improvements stack. Seems like something we should get ahead of before people run into unknown consequences of trying their own combinations.

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#32
post #3

This is a pretty fantastic writeup, short and simple on each topic with loads of sources. For those looking for something actionable, you may want to head to the reddit board for intermittent fasting. It's a good way to lower your caloric intake and increase autophagy. People doing intermittent fasting often also eat a keto diet that is mentioned in the writing as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/ h…

I've lost about half my bodyweight, so I feel like my experience qualifies to me to offer my opinion that Keto's supposed anti-hunger effects are broscience crap.

Ephedrine or amphetamines, those work.

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#34
Really well written article! And a lot of things I've never heard of.

While keto is mentioned, I do think that another diet deserves a mention here: WFPB (whole food plant based).

In the book, How Not To Die, Dr Greger bring together the science that underpins this diet. Some one switching to this from a standard american diet can expect to add some healthy years to their lives, based on sci evidence.

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#35
I'll offer a contrarian view: longevity research, as in the current scope, is about as accurate and useful as Ray Kurzweil's predictions from the 90s.

Let's take caloric restriction, for instance, which is all the rage. Trouble is, all of the evidence we have is in mice or lesser animals, and the comparison is animals on caloric restriction against animals being force fed to the point of obesity. Let me repeat that: in research that shows caloric restriction increasing lifespan in animal models, they are not comparing to animals on a normal diet. So it's entirely plausible all this caloric restriction research findings is just confirmation of the fact that obesity shortens lifespans.

This isn't even touching on the point that correspondence between animal models and humans is abysmally bad. It's the best we have, but there's a very good reason drugs need to go through three stages of human testing after it's been proven successful in animals. With caloric restriction, we don't even have consistent positive results in monkeys, only in rodents.

Has any of this longevity stuff ever been tested in humans? Obviously not, since it would take many decades.

Some pointers for further reading:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S089158491...

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3765579/

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#37
post #3

This is a pretty fantastic writeup, short and simple on each topic with loads of sources. For those looking for something actionable, you may want to head to the reddit board for intermittent fasting. It's a good way to lower your caloric intake and increase autophagy. People doing intermittent fasting often also eat a keto diet that is mentioned in the writing as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/ h…

I've lost about half my bodyweight, so I feel like my experience qualifies to me to offer my opinion that Keto's supposed anti-hunger effects are broscience crap. Ephedrine or amphetamines, those work.

Omega-3 fats are known to control hunger. That is probably where the claim that a high fat diet like keto can regulate appetite.

https://www.livestrong.com/article/296534-omega-3-as-an-appe...

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#38
post #3

This is a pretty fantastic writeup, short and simple on each topic with loads of sources. For those looking for something actionable, you may want to head to the reddit board for intermittent fasting. It's a good way to lower your caloric intake and increase autophagy. People doing intermittent fasting often also eat a keto diet that is mentioned in the writing as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/ h…

I've lost about half my bodyweight, so I feel like my experience qualifies to me to offer my opinion that Keto's supposed anti-hunger effects are broscience crap. Ephedrine or amphetamines, those work.

I’ve never actually talked about this online before, but now I’m going to. I used to weigh over 560lbs, and I’ve lost 190 of that, with more going every week. I spent a lot of time on this, tried a lot of diets, tried medication, and ultimately considered surgery. In the end a ferocious commitment to eating less, eating better, and moving around more was what worked, and continues to work.

Years ago I went to a medically supervised weight loss program, twice, and met a loooot of people of all ages, all with serious weight problems. A few found success with surgery, and maybe half of those kept it off. Of the half that did, they knew going in that they were ready for the hard work, but they were so big they needed a boost to get moving.

The people who used drugs never kept it off. The the people who thought the magic was in some special way of eating never kept it off. The people who committed to lifelong lifestyle change kept it off, and it didn’t seem to matter if it was Keto, Atkins, Paleo, or any permutation of potentially healthy lifestyles. The active ingredient is not the plan, it is the desire to commit to the plan with all of your being... for years, forever.

For me at least, it was also a matter of growing the fuck up, really taking responsibility for my negative patterns of thought and behavior, and relentlessly working on them in a positive way. It’s hard, but I went from barely being able to walk, to jogging up stairs.

Everyone is a bit different, everyone has different issues with food and exercise, and everyone probably has to use a slightly different approach. Still, some constants for me were the need to ditch fast food completely, and soda is now a very rare treat. More than that however, I had to slowly alter my mental habits about food, and really pay attention to how I felt, especially after an unhealthy meal. I basically tried to form new habits to take the place of old destructive habits.

Anyway, enough babble from me, I just wanted to add my own perspective as someone doing the work to live, and live well.

Edit: I forgot to mention what actually made me post this in the first place, that I found intermittent fasting genuinely helpful. In particular I tend not to have cravings until after I’ve had my first real meal, so I just start a bit later, and have a defined cut-off. I have something with plenty of fiber in the morning, and then just lay off until lunch. More protein with each meal, less sugar, and plenty of fiber, and normal portions.

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#39
post #4

Very interesting research, but trying to derive actionable recommendations for humans seems a bit laughable at this point. Still seems tough to become immortal these days. Harvesting young blood, a rigid diet, castration and starving yourself occasionally - lots of effort your self-absorbed wealthy investor with a desire to live forever has to go through. But then again, Sam Altman recently praised China for having f…

Actionable things for humans at the moment appear to look like trying senolytic drug candidates in rational self-experimentation, with before/after tests of metrics linked to tissue stiffness, inflammation, kidney and heart function. Clearing senescent cells very clearly produces a degree of rejuvenation in mice, and can turn back progression of aging and specific age-related diseases via a sizable number of metrics.…

> trying senolytic drug candidates in rational self-experimentation

> senolytic drug candidates, dasatinib plus quercetin if you're fine with short burst of chemotherapeutics, or FOXO4-DRI

How does one go about self-experimentation? FOXO4-DRI is for sale on the internet, but one needs a doctor to read the mouse studies and formulate a treatment plan. The same goes for dasatinib plus quercetin. In the mouse models it needs to be administered monthly. Is there a country one can visit today that has access to these peptides and drugs and willing doctors to create a plan?

Re: Beginner's guide to longevity research

#40
post #3

This is a pretty fantastic writeup, short and simple on each topic with loads of sources. For those looking for something actionable, you may want to head to the reddit board for intermittent fasting. It's a good way to lower your caloric intake and increase autophagy. People doing intermittent fasting often also eat a keto diet that is mentioned in the writing as well. https://www.reddit.com/r/intermittentfasting/ h…

I've lost about half my bodyweight, so I feel like my experience qualifies to me to offer my opinion that Keto's supposed anti-hunger effects are broscience crap. Ephedrine or amphetamines, those work.

There's more than one way to lose weight. A lot of people in the keto subreddit have lost a lot of weight too. Anecdotal evidence doesn't prove that keto is broscience. There's plenty of studies on it, even in the very article this thread is based on there is one sourced as linked to longevity.

Also here's a good youtube video explaining it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dan8qtgQRi8

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