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In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

nature.com

141–150 of 198 posts

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#141
post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, do you mean two weeks of only water? Do you do this for weight loss? Do you work out? I would be very afraid to mess-up my metabosm. How do you prevent that?

Long term or repeated fasting should actually decrease your body's metabolism rate; which is a good thing if you want to age slower. (I.e. think about species who have slow metabolisms, turtles, for one, who live very long lives). I do alternate day fasting (48 hour fasts, every other day) and realized I now need far fewer calories to get by than I used to. Obviously anecdotal but I feel great!

Wanting to lower metabolism rate, sounds to me like wanting to exist longer, not live longer.

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who's gone multiple days in a row without eating non-voluntarily, you're never going to convince me that fasting for extended periods is fun.

That is like judging sex after only having experienced rape, consent matters a lot in how enjoyable things are.

I've done both alternate day fasting and longer fasts (voluntarily) and I'm also in the same boat. It's not fun. If it didn't provide a health value to me, I wouldn't do it.

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#143
post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Plus ça change. I wouldn't have thought racism would become popular again, but here we are.

Or, well, victorian tiptoeing around language becoming popular again, to avoid saying the obvious: most rich people in our society are white...

And 63% of all people in the country are white. In 2000 that was 69%, in 1980 it was 80%.

In other words white people should still make up the clear majority of every single demographic, lacking any biases. In terms of wealth they should be disproportionately ahead because of the fact that migrants are very rarely rich. So e.g. imagine you had 80% white and then you add enough migrants to bring that down to 70%. The number of rich individuals, as a whole, will probably not change much, meaning it'd be about the same as when whites made up 80% of the population, yet now whites would only make up 70% of the population. So this creates a relative over representation among the wealthy without any sort of bias other than in the socioeconomic composition of migrants.

Where things get really bad though is fertility. In modern times wealth and fertility are sharply inversely correlated. This [1] is a graph of fertility in families ranging from those earning $200k+ per year to those earning This creates quite a difficult problem to solve. You can't solve poverty when people becoming wealthy means they stop reproducing in sufficient numbers while, at the same time, those who are at the very bottom of society are pumping out far more children than they could ever independently afford to support. It's like you take one step forward and two steps backwards. And while this is happening you also then start to see increasing social instability and divisions. No idea where all of this will play out but there's no doubt we live in one of the most interesting times in our species long existence.

[1] - https://www.statista.com/statistics/241530/birth-rate-by-fam...

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#144
post #73

It’s not worth reporting at all on such a small uncontrolled trial. There is no value in this other than providing funding for a larger trial. Discussing “why” this outcome occurred is ridiculous. Look at the numbers.

>It’s not worth reporting at all on such a small uncontrolled trial.

You can't categorically say so.

Even sample size of one can be significant if the effect size is large enough or the outcome is surprising (like reversal instead of slowdown).

Online forums suffer from "sample size meme" and "correlation is not causation" meme. People just drop them into discussion as a counterargument because that's all they know. Both of them can be proper counterarguments after you consider the context and other factors.

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So, this (lousy, but interesting) study is basically "fasting by using drugs." That sounds to me like a big deal, given that most people find fasting difficult (and unpleasant).

Fasting is easy and fun, you just have to work up to it. You can just go from zero to not eating for a week. Building up your tolerance to it takes a bit, like anything else, but when you do it improves mental acuity, gets you a general sense of well-being and energy too.

What is fasting anyway? Some people tell me they "fast" by drinking no alcohol. Others say they fast by only drinking water and not eating anything at all. Why does everyone have to use the word so differently..

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#146
post #145

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fasting is easy and fun, you just have to work up to it. You can just go from zero to not eating for a week. Building up your tolerance to it takes a bit, like anything else, but when you do it improves mental acuity, gets you a general sense of well-being and energy too.

What is fasting anyway? Some people tell me they "fast" by drinking no alcohol. Others say they fast by only drinking water and not eating anything at all. Why does everyone have to use the word so differently..

I have never heard someone refer to abstaining from alcohol as fasting.

Cleansing, or detoxing, yes. Fasting, no. The people around you are simply misusing the term.

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#147

1) DHEA is not a diabetes med. In fact it's a steroid (not really an anabolic one, though it is a precursor to anabolics) and illegal in the EU. It is a substance which is lowered in older people, so older people supplement with it. 2) Metformin is a diabetes med, and it's used by antiaging enthusiasts independently and along with growth hormone 3) Fasting creates larger growth hormone spikes, and improves sugar clea…

> DHEA is illegal in the EU.

I managed to buy some online. I think it was from a UK site, but I can't remember. Makes me spotty though, so i don't use it to often.

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have you experienced additional mental acuity/focus first hand? Fasting for 24-36 hours for me isn't bad. But days 2 to 3 when I do a 3 day fast I find it extremely difficult to concentrate/focus on anything difficult. By day 3 my energy is usually shot as well and I just don't want to do anything but watch tv. If anyone has advice beyond sugar I'd love to hear it.

Are you supplementing with electrolytes? You need magnesium citrate + salt + potassium. Without that I can't achieve fasts longer than 48 hours.

Can you recommend any good sources to find out more about this need for electrolytes while fasting? I have been unable to find articles or books that seemed credible to my uneducated eye.

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#149
post #97

1) DHEA is not a diabetes med. In fact it's a steroid (not really an anabolic one, though it is a precursor to anabolics) and illegal in the EU. It is a substance which is lowered in older people, so older people supplement with it. 2) Metformin is a diabetes med, and it's used by antiaging enthusiasts independently and along with growth hormone 3) Fasting creates larger growth hormone spikes, and improves sugar clea…

> antiaging enthusiasts Never heard of that crowd. What is it that they do? Try experimental treatments on themselves?

Yes. Hormone injections, "strange" diets, taking supplementation to extremes etc. As with any group there are people who follow it to varying degrees.

(I'm not an "antiaging enthusiast" other than eating healthy and regular exercise but I have done some reading on the subject)

Re: In a small trial, drugs seemed to rejuvenate the body’s ‘epigenetic clock’

#150

It just dawned on me that getting old and dying is most likely an evolutionary chicken and egg problem. If you didn't get old and die, evolution of your species would grind to a halt. Getting old and dying is required for evolution to transpire. I can't see any reason why it must be an absolute truth.

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