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Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

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11–20 of 104 posts

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#11
The most immediately effective thing parents (or anyone) could do for longevity is begin to see the ground of being itself as divine, and then join a religious community of other people who see the divine life in a similar sort of way. People who belong to these kind of transcendentally oriented communities enjoy longer lives....according to SCIENCE itself.

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#12
The NMN research didn't pan out in the end, just throwing that out here.

There is something involved in NMN, but taking it (or any of the precursors or metabolites) alone doesn't actually seem to reliably cause what they were looking for.

Most likely, it's something like the curcumin vs ground turmeric issue (curcumin doesn't work alone, it combines with another chemical found in turmeric to produce the active chemical, and none of the curcumin supplements work), or with glucoraphanin and myrosinase to produce sulforaphane (popularized by Dr Rhonda Patrick; sulforaphane is short lived, and you need to package them correctly to not self-react in a supplement while it's sitting there on a shelf, so the delivery mechanism is the hard part), or with the flavor of garlic, allicin, another short lived chemical produced by alliin and alliinase (which is why crushing garlic is important instead of slicing, and ground garlic and factory produced minced garlic will never have that magical flavor).

Also, as for Omega 3, watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-f-CFQxaUY4 Dr Rhonda Patrick interviews Dr Bill Harris; the main take away from this isn't that it works (we all know that already), it's what the dose range is: we're all underdosing.

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#15

The NMN research didn't pan out in the end, just throwing that out here. There is something involved in NMN, but taking it (or any of the precursors or metabolites) alone doesn't actually seem to reliably cause what they were looking for. Most likely, it's something like the curcumin vs ground turmeric issue (curcumin doesn't work alone, it combines with another chemical found in turmeric to produce the active chemic…

I’m interested to know more about how NMN/Metformin/Resveritrol didn’t pan out in humans as all the mice studies seemed quite promising.

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#16

The NMN research didn't pan out in the end, just throwing that out here. There is something involved in NMN, but taking it (or any of the precursors or metabolites) alone doesn't actually seem to reliably cause what they were looking for. Most likely, it's something like the curcumin vs ground turmeric issue (curcumin doesn't work alone, it combines with another chemical found in turmeric to produce the active chemic…

Have you got a reference for "NMN didn't pan out in the end?" I thought it Worked really well in mice and early human trials didn't find nasty side effects. It's too early to tell if it increases lifespan in humans as those experiments take a long time. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11357-020-00165-5 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S155041311...

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#17
Smother them with 4 year olds.

No, seriously:

>> A unique social experiment that brings together elderly people in a retirement community with a group of 4-year-olds. Could this encounter between young and old help transform the lives of the elderly?

https://thetvdb.com/series/the-old-peoples-home-for-4-year-o...

https://thetvdb.com/series/old-peoples-home-for-4-year-olds

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/old-people-s-home-for-4-year-o...

Multiple studies in both the UK and Australia demonstrate increased mobility, memory, communication, happiness, etc in older people when mixed in with young children.

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#18

The NMN research didn't pan out in the end, just throwing that out here. There is something involved in NMN, but taking it (or any of the precursors or metabolites) alone doesn't actually seem to reliably cause what they were looking for. Most likely, it's something like the curcumin vs ground turmeric issue (curcumin doesn't work alone, it combines with another chemical found in turmeric to produce the active chemic…

I’m interested to know more about how NMN/Metformin/Resveritrol didn’t pan out in humans as all the mice studies seemed quite promising.

Metformin did pan out, but the research seems to indicate One Meal A Day would have to be employed with it, as Metformin seems to interfere with autophagy. Lack of autophagy seems to be the biggest cause of the effects of old age, as the Western Diet pounds 3 meals a day, which means our insulin levels never drop to the autophagy activation level.

If you want that "one weird trick that doctors hate", OMAD alone is almost magical. I've been suggesting it to everyone I know just so they can do something easy and simple to get a few free years out of their fleshy meat body. Also, because of OMAD, I now spend less time prepping food, eating food, and other food-related tasks. Even if OMAD had no health effects (positive or negative), I'd keep doing it as it has freed up a surprisingly large amount of time.

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#19
I think David Sinclair's track record of actually producing meaningful improvements in human longevity is zero. The whole sirtuin thing got big funding from pharma and then totally failed. I would remain very sceptical of what he says, as he definitely talks up his own work as high as it can go and beyond.

Personally, I doubt these supplements make any difference. I also doubt that metformin makes a big difference (as well as being poorly tolerated in many people).

This is what comes to mind:

There is one universally beneficial thing and that is exercise. What exercise? Anything is better than nothing. But doing 150 minutes per week of Zone 2 is probably optimal. Also resistance training. Don't over do it.

Second thing: screening for things that kill you. Manage modifiable cardiovascular risk factors:

- check lipid profile including Lp(a) and ApoB, manage appropriately

- inflammation, although can be hard to improve, maybe dietary changes.

- hypertension

Also do all the screening for cancer: mammogram, faecal occult blood, pap smears.

Take a thorough family history, what did people die of and at what age. There can be clues from that about what needs attention. In the extreme case, there may be a strong family history of cancer indicating need for germline testing.

Other things: Pneumococcal vaccine, shingles vaccine, flu vaccine.

If the option exists, move closer to the equator (mortality is higher further from the equator, as is cancer incidence).

Other comments mention social activities, also very important.

Re: Ask HN: Longevity for your parents, what to do?

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m interested to know more about how NMN/Metformin/Resveritrol didn’t pan out in humans as all the mice studies seemed quite promising.

Metformin did pan out, but the research seems to indicate One Meal A Day would have to be employed with it, as Metformin seems to interfere with autophagy. Lack of autophagy seems to be the biggest cause of the effects of old age, as the Western Diet pounds 3 meals a day, which means our insulin levels never drop to the autophagy activation level. If you want that "one weird trick that doctors hate", OMAD alone is al…

No chance to convince my parents to do OMAD. But would like to try it myself. How big are your meals if I may ask? Actually would like to start going to gym again and gain weight/muscle mass, so would be really interesting to hear if that could work with OMAD.
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