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Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

scientificamerican.com

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Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#141

Post by teachingassist »

melling wrote: post #14
nscalf wrote: post #3

Last weeks article was 130. Clearly take this all with a grain of salt, and realize that bioengineering is having an explosion that will redefine everything we think about medicine and the human body.

Sure, it’s just a number. The point is that if we made the effort, there’s likely easy things we can do to extend life beyond 100. Studying Blue Zones, for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Zone We really haven’t made an effort to study aging. Why do some people live well into their 90’s and appear to be in good health? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dick_Van_Dyke

I was surprised that Wikipedia's description of Blue Zones seems to miss that they have minimal road traffic pollution.

Through traffic is physically constrained in each case - due to them being islands or peninsulas or mountain villages.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#142

Post by nradov »

bionhoward wrote: post #129
alextheparrot wrote: post #88

Has anyone actually read the paper? I have some pretty serious qualms with the topology traversal routes over the DOSI vs age manifold — they seem unfounded. This isn’t inherently problematic, but that seems like a core assumption - that the steepness and thus likelihood of falling off the DOSI associated cliff increases with age. The idea being once you fall off the cliff you die. I don’t think it is a bad hypothesi…

I disagree with the paper because it neglects the possibility of engineered approaches to reverse the mechanisms of ageing

That's like disagreeing with a paper on orbital mechanics because it neglects the possibility of inventing a warp drive. So far there is no clear engineering path for reversing the mechanisms of ageing; that remains in the science fiction realm.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#143

Post by grishka »

thebean11 wrote: post #125
grishka wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand this whole idea of "healthspan". Making people not age at all is the endgame for medicine as a science. Anything lesser would still be putting an enormous strain on healthcare systems to make dying people die a bit slower. And if you've solved aging, there's not such a thing as a lifespan any more because people would only be dying of accidents. It's definitely not going to work such that someone l…

Healthcare isn't really a limited resource though, there's nothing stopping the healthcare industry from just growing until it meets demand.

Oh I see, you're from the US. In most other countries, healthcare isn't much of an industry, but is funded by the government. Taxes are a limited resource. There isn't an infinite supply of people with relevant education either.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#144

Post by kyriakos »

marcodiego wrote: post #9
nscalf wrote: post #3

Last weeks article was 130. Clearly take this all with a grain of salt, and realize that bioengineering is having an explosion that will redefine everything we think about medicine and the human body.

I think the biggest step will come once we start transplanting organs from clones of ourselves. Apart from traumatic or infectious diseases, being able to replace most vital organs would extend our lives to the last remaining non-transplant-able organ.

Or transplant brain to clone body. As long as brain survives longer than the body

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#145

Post by Retric »

grishka wrote: post #113
narush wrote: post #29

Taking this with a grain of salt, of course, but cool! Worth pointing out the concept of "healthspan," which is pretty much like it sounds like: how long you stay healthy to do the things you want to do. Long lifespan seems worthwhile if it's accompanied by a long healthspan as well.

I don't understand this whole idea of "healthspan". Making people not age at all is the endgame for medicine as a science. Anything lesser would still be putting an enormous strain on healthcare systems to make dying people die a bit slower. And if you've solved aging, there's not such a thing as a lifespan any more because people would only be dying of accidents. It's definitely not going to work such that someone l…

It doesn’t actually work that way. Assuming a treatment that effectively slows aging by half...

Basically the odds of death don’t drop, you simply have 2 years vs 1 year at every stage of decline. Which means you end up with fewer people that are living to the equivalent of 70 as they had twice as many chances of dying before 70. And reaching the equivalent of 80 means surviving 20 years with the body of someone in their 70’s etc.

Thus the number of people living in nursing homes drops.

Another way of thinking about things, if you slow down physical aging to 1/10th, few people would live to reach a 650 year old retirement age unless you also reduce all other risks of death per year to 1/10th.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#146

Post by nradov »

rowanG077 wrote: post #139
hodgesrm wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed. Geriatric medicine has been a thing for millennia. [1] I worked at the UW Alzheimer's Disease Research Center in Seattle for several years in the 1980s. Research on aging was a major topic. The minimal progress on cures for Alzheimer's since that time should be sobering to anyone claiming that we can hack humans to extend lifespan significantly. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geriatrics

I don't feel there is any theoretical reason why humans could not live forever. Biology has already solved this problem in some organisms. Whether we are capable of solving it is a different question. But I think it's certain that it's possible for humans to become biologically immortal.

Well our cancer cells can become biologically immortal. The rest of our bodies, not so much.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#147

Post by thebean11 »

grishka wrote: post #143
thebean11 wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Healthcare isn't really a limited resource though, there's nothing stopping the healthcare industry from just growing until it meets demand.

Oh I see, you're from the US. In most other countries, healthcare isn't much of an industry, but is funded by the government. Taxes are a limited resource. There isn't an infinite supply of people with relevant education either.

Taxes can be increased to cover higher usage of benefits, and people can be trained. The same principles apply in the end. This doesn't happen over night so there's time to increase capacity.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#148

Post by courtf »

Not sure I see the point in extending our lives. All the problems we have with history being forgotten and humanity repeating the same mistakes won't go away, the cycle will just take 150 years instead of 100. It will take longer to evolve, longer to learn our lessons, but in the meantime the wealthy get a few more good decades riding high on the backs of the billions living in poverty around the world. Hurray for that I guess.

This sort of research is tailored to the infantile concerns of narcissists who believe their individual lives matter more than the health and longevity of the species and the planet. Is death really so scary? Is it so difficult to imagine that it might be important for our lives to end? Oh you poor, mistreated mortals, the heavens weep for you.

The only way life extension really makes sense to me is if we imagine that humans have reached the zenith of their evolution, which is just laughable. Just remember,the last laugh is on you ;)

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#149

Post by necheffa »

whiddershins wrote: post #52
zug_zug wrote: post #36

Seems cool, not sure if I want a bunch of 150 year olds voting (relatively, that would be like people born in 1870 voting today, 5 years after slavery ended).

This is dismissive of gained wisdom over time, and probably the most unapologetic generalization about a group I’ve read recently. My guess is having lots of older voters would make it so people stop falling for the same scams over and over, and are less prone to hysteria. If that were the case, governance should improve dramatically.

Your argument is fundamentally wrong in that it assumes age is a good approximation of wisdom.

Just because someone is N years old does not necessarily mean they have N years of experience from which to derive wisdom. They could very well have done nothing but meet the most basal needs to sustain life for N years, having nothing to contribute to a greater dialogue.

Re: Humans Could Live up to 150 Years, New Research Suggests

#150

Post by rowanG077 »

nradov wrote: post #146
rowanG077 wrote: post #139

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel there is any theoretical reason why humans could not live forever. Biology has already solved this problem in some organisms. Whether we are capable of solving it is a different question. But I think it's certain that it's possible for humans to become biologically immortal.

Well our cancer cells can become biologically immortal. The rest of our bodies, not so much.

Why can't the rest of our bodies become biologically immortal? Like I said it this seems completely obvious to me that this IS possible.
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