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The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

nytimes.com

11–20 of 42 posts

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#11

Mildly amusing, but basically silly. There is a reason why everyone in the past failed, and that is because they didn't have sufficiently advanced biotechnology to (a) understand the causes of aging in terms of specific low-level cell and tissue damage, and (b) identify and build ways to repair those forms of damage. We've only had a way to progress towards therapies for aging with this model of development for somew…

I sense some wishful thinking in your comment.

Let me guess, you believe that "sufficiently advanced biotechnology" should appear just in time to reverse your own aging, correct?

I'd say, if you're 20 year old, and your ancestors typically lived past 80, then you probably have a chance. Perhaps in 60 years they will at least find a way to freeze you properly.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#12
post #7

I believe to know, what might make me live longer, my body often tells me: sleep more, eat less, avoid too much meat, fat and sugar, don’t drink etc. Many times, I catch myself thinking though: do I really wanna miss out on a great moment/feeling just to live a couple of years longer with a broken body and/or mind? I can enjoy now. Who knows if I can then.

Males in the USA have an 81% chance of living to age 65 [1]. I think it makes sense to take care of yourself. Of course, allow yourself the occasional indulgence. Your habits of your 20s and 30s could significantly impact your 40s and 50s. Taking care of yourself means enjoying more great moments later on too. Also, taking care of yourself can be in itself enjoyable. Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, mak…

Goddamn, only 81% to just 65? We're doomed.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#13
post #4

Mildly amusing, but basically silly. There is a reason why everyone in the past failed, and that is because they didn't have sufficiently advanced biotechnology to (a) understand the causes of aging in terms of specific low-level cell and tissue damage, and (b) identify and build ways to repair those forms of damage. We've only had a way to progress towards therapies for aging with this model of development for somew…

Suppose short of an eccentric bankrolling a jumpstart to institutionalizing a longevity research culture (for discussions sake, lets say Elon or the ghost of howard hughes) how do you imagine todays research culture would evolve into the necessary scale such longevity research would allegedly require?

An aging research community already exists that is ten times or more larger than would be needed to get to a comprehensive implementation of mouse rejuvenation after the SENS Research Foundation model in ten to twenty years. They are just largely not working on that. Amyloid removal is about the only area that does have a lot of attention focused on it.

The next few decades will be a slow process of proving that the SENS model works well, and that other models don't work well, when it comes to reversing age-related disease and producing rejuvenation in older individuals. There will be reluctant acceptance on the part of the mainstream, and development will largely shift to what works, slowly and late.

This can be seen in its infancy today in the rapid progression of work on senolytics. In just six years, clearance of senescent cells has already far outpaced the past few decades of work on calorie restriction mimetics, producing more impressive and reliable results in animal studies. Things that work are hard to ignore, so everyone now retrofits senescent cells into their models of aging and development - that didn't include them seven years ago - and continues to try to ignore the rest of the SENS to-do list. Senolytics development is becoming heavily funded, and is on its way to the clinic.

This process will reoccur every time the poorly funded bootstrapping side of the SENS research community manages to advance to the point of a technology demonstration, which happened in 2011 for cellular senescence. Expect this to happen for cross-link breaking sometime in the next few years, which will be just as impressive for cardiovascular aging as senescent cell clearance is for inflammatory/fibrotic conditions of aging.

One would hope that at some point, some people involving in this process make the realization that they could just implement the rest of SENS themselves, with the successful biotech company they are involved in. There are a number of existing companies/groups where this may well happen, if they grow sufficiently large.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#14
post #7

I believe to know, what might make me live longer, my body often tells me: sleep more, eat less, avoid too much meat, fat and sugar, don’t drink etc. Many times, I catch myself thinking though: do I really wanna miss out on a great moment/feeling just to live a couple of years longer with a broken body and/or mind? I can enjoy now. Who knows if I can then.

Males in the USA have an 81% chance of living to age 65 [1]. I think it makes sense to take care of yourself. Of course, allow yourself the occasional indulgence. Your habits of your 20s and 30s could significantly impact your 40s and 50s. Taking care of yourself means enjoying more great moments later on too. Also, taking care of yourself can be in itself enjoyable. Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, mak…

>Pick up a sport, or if you're not competitive, make going to the gym a social thing.

Gross. Just run or, preferably, swim for 40 minutes to some hardcore music[0]. Let the endorphin high melt the pain and carry you through!

>And eating healthy can certainly be tasty.

It can be tasty when you consider fruit. When you consider everything else, it's misery. We evolved to crave sugar and fat. Gg

But you have to deprecate mouth pleasure for a more durable basis of well-being, which is being healthier, and well-being is important because you want to live for as long as possible so you can someday witness the year of the Linux desktop!

[0]: https://youtu.be/Ihi_kJJj_8A

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#15
Make sure to read the article all the way to the end; I think it’s quite a powerful statement.

We’re too focussed on our individual choices, looking for elusive cures for aging; instead of fighting for things we know will help.

Reducing engine emmissions will make us live longer. Reducing pesticides will also make us live longer. Limiting work hours will make us healthier.

But instead, we pretend that our health is defined only by our individual life style decisions, and let the industry do whatever they want.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#16
post #7

I believe to know, what might make me live longer, my body often tells me: sleep more, eat less, avoid too much meat, fat and sugar, don’t drink etc. Many times, I catch myself thinking though: do I really wanna miss out on a great moment/feeling just to live a couple of years longer with a broken body and/or mind? I can enjoy now. Who knows if I can then.

Short term thinking is one way, rarely the best, at least if done regularly. You'd be dead long if nature didn't accumulate a set of non long term mechanisms and learning schemes.

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#17
Allow me to ask this related question: of our modern (if I may say so) societies, in our modern era; we see a lot of improvements and optimisations. But I rarely see ideas about the simple question of happiness.

It's as if we think happinnes comes by x or y (in here longer existence).

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#18

Allow me to ask this related question: of our modern (if I may say so) societies, in our modern era; we see a lot of improvements and optimisations. But I rarely see ideas about the simple question of happiness. It's as if we think happinnes comes by x or y (in here longer existence).

Well, what would a society that optimizes for happiness actually do differently?

Re: The Secret to a Longer Life? Don’t Ask These Dead Longevity Researchers

#19
post #5

It is easier to market something as the "cure" than to actually discover and validate a cure

Just like, in spite of the fact that cancer cannot be cured, it’s a lot easier to market research to “cure” it rather than “treat” it.

Of course cancer can be cured. What I wish we did is spend more on preventing cnacer, but the regulatory system basically makes this impossible.
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