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Age Reduction Breakthrough?

joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com

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Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#141

Post by ben_w »

maxander wrote: post #63

Since it seems like the upshot of all of this is that Katcher is claiming to have discovered a set of signalling molecules which, when injected, rejuvenate tissue and presumably lengthen life, it runs into one of the most fundamental objections that can be leveled at theory of aging (or cure thereof): of the billions of humans that have existed, how is it that none of them have possessed a mutation which (in this cas…

It has happened, and there are multiple documented cases. At least, the effect has happened — I don’t understand biology well enough to know if any have the cause described in the article.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brooke_Greenberg

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#142

Post by omarhaneef »

ken wrote: post #123
eganist wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At risk of sounding absolutely insane: There's probably no way to prove that this hasn't happened. Anyone who realizes they're not aging normally would likely have taken on a new identity elsewhere for fear of: 1. being burned at the stake 2. being trialed in repeated experiments 3. being deified, and then subsequently being burned at the stake. --- I realize my comment sounds like a joke, but I'm entirely serious. I…

Probably, yes. I turn 40 this month, and was recently told by someone who just met me that I look 25. What exactly am I supposed to do differently now?

This is kind of obvious, but since you are asking: you have to quit your job, quit your hobbies, delete your social media accounts, go out into the desert and spend 15 years seeking the true meaning of life.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#143

Post by ativzzz »

sirtaj wrote: post #88
spacephysics wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Economically, and historically, the more wealthy tend to try out the expensive, new technologies, then as market forces play out, such technologies become cheaper, to where most average workers can afford them (see genome sequencing costs decline over the past 15 years.) We need wealthy people to try out the expensive new advances. Just because someone is wealthy doesn’t necessarily mean they’re apart of the “evil bi…

Didn't the price of insulin in the US nearly triple in 10 years? The market is not always particularly efficient.

One of the counterpoints is that it's not the same insulin, it's constantly new and improved insulin that functions better than the insulin we had 10 years ago, but of course each improvement comes with a price increase.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#144

Post by himinlomax »

op03 wrote: post #8
peter_l_downs wrote: post #4

As someone entirely outside this field, can someone with more inside knowledge give any insight into where this lies on the crank/hoax spectrum? A biorxv paper and a well-written blogpost don't really point either way.

It's not targeting you. It targeted at dumbasses with cash who are scared of dying.

Is it being a dumbass to buy some hope of not dying/aging when you already have enough money to buy anything else you could wish? Seems pretty rational to me.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#145

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

jfk13 wrote: post #127
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stated more charitably, it is targeted towards potential investors that see the potential in something that could improve the lives of millions and eventually billions of people.

If people are going to invest in significantly extending the lives of billions of people, are they also going to invest in drastically limiting human procreation? It seems pretty clear there are too many of us already...

I used to believe the same thing. We hear constantly how the world is overpopulated, and that made me think that things like poverty alleviation weren't worth it. Then I read a book called Factfulness: Ten Reasons We're Wrong About the World. In it, they discuss various cognitive distortions that leave most people with a warped view of reality.

The truth is that almost all people living above global poverty levels are reproducing at or below the rates needed to keep the population level. When people are confident that their children will live, they tend to just have one or two children. With this in mind, if we want to avoid overpopulation, it should actually be poverty that we want to alleviate, not longevity.

I highly recommend that book, by the way.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#147

Post by [deleted] »

jfk13 wrote: post #127
TheAdamAndChe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stated more charitably, it is targeted towards potential investors that see the potential in something that could improve the lives of millions and eventually billions of people.

If people are going to invest in significantly extending the lives of billions of people, are they also going to invest in drastically limiting human procreation? It seems pretty clear there are too many of us already...

[deleted]

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#148

Post by yodon »

eganist wrote: post #70
maxander wrote: post #63

Since it seems like the upshot of all of this is that Katcher is claiming to have discovered a set of signalling molecules which, when injected, rejuvenate tissue and presumably lengthen life, it runs into one of the most fundamental objections that can be leveled at theory of aging (or cure thereof): of the billions of humans that have existed, how is it that none of them have possessed a mutation which (in this cas…

At risk of sounding absolutely insane: There's probably no way to prove that this hasn't happened. Anyone who realizes they're not aging normally would likely have taken on a new identity elsewhere for fear of: 1. being burned at the stake 2. being trialed in repeated experiments 3. being deified, and then subsequently being burned at the stake. --- I realize my comment sounds like a joke, but I'm entirely serious. I…

> If you or I found out we're not aging normally and look e.g. 25 by the time we reach 40, or 30 by the time we reach 45, would either of us remain in our current lives?

I was routinely told I looked 25 at the age of 45, and can assure you I felt no need to start accumulating secret identities.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#149

Post by hackinthebochs »

nardi wrote: post #131
hackinthebochs wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To put it simply, a population with aging is more fit than a population without. The speed at which beneficial mutations in a population reach saturation in the gene pool is a function of the number of generations that have gone by. So we can expect some downward selective pressure on lifespan.

I'm not an evolutionary biologist, but why wouldn't the selection pressure be related to the speed at which offspring are produced, and not the age of the parent? And why wouldn't a parent that lives a long time and thus produces more offspring be evolutionarily fit?

There are a lot of factors involved in having viable offspring. For example, you need enough resources to sufficiently feed and nurture the children you already have. So having more offspring than some ideal amount for the environment can be detrimental. But parents also compete with their offspring for resources. Aging and dying is eventually the best thing a parent can do for their children.

Re: Age Reduction Breakthrough?

#150

Post by erpellan »

dwaltrip wrote: post #64
strofcon wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a pretty mentally unhealthy way to live, mostly.

There are some animals that don't "age" like we do. These animals can live indefinitely, until they are eaten or die in some accidental way. Aging is a set of complex bio-physical-chemical processes. We have actually made a lot of progress in recent decades understanding how this happens. There is no fundamental reason we won't be able to better understand these processes and then mitigate them heavily, if not entire…

I'm terrified. Imagine the current crop of elderly rich mostly white men in positions of political power. Now imagine they're never going to die or retire. Sounds pretty dystopian to me.
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