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Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

bbc.com

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Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> organism wants to destroy itself Organisms don't want anything. They're a complex cascade of chemical processes. You're correct in that programmed death is a factor in aging. (It's most dramatic in octopuses: removing a physical gland causes them not to brood. Unfortunately, octopuses being aggressive cannibals, this also causes them to devour their young [1].) But if it were 100% programmed death, the problem woul…

> But if it were 100% programmed death, the problem would be easy: change the code. The problem is finding the code in the first place. To my programmer mind, biology feels like it must be comprised of layers of emergent behavior. We're not very good at understanding these right now. It might well be that the code you're talking about is not in the DNA, but rather it emerges somewhere where we aren't looking. > A lot…

Maybe developers should spend more time in bio tech, rather than ad tech.

Imagine if we spent 30% of our effort to improve humanity.

Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> organism wants to destroy itself Organisms don't want anything. They're a complex cascade of chemical processes. You're correct in that programmed death is a factor in aging. (It's most dramatic in octopuses: removing a physical gland causes them not to brood. Unfortunately, octopuses being aggressive cannibals, this also causes them to devour their young [1].) But if it were 100% programmed death, the problem woul…

This runs counter to most physiology textbook introductions which tend toward making statements like, "The body's main goal is maintaining homeostasis," and from there framing the rest of the bodily processes as various feedback mechanisms which normally align to achieve homeostasis. Sometimes these processes are at odds with each other, and only their combined effect is homeostatic, but pedagogically the nuance of t…

> This runs counter to most physiology textbook

Which part?

Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#23
post #15
post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There’s no proof of decline and death being “intentional” (as much as nature has intentions). At this point it’s just as likely that our bodies just tend to naturally poison us with glycated connective tissue, transthyretin, various peptides and what have you.

The proof that it's intentional is that Yamanaka factors work. They reset any cell, no matter the age or the specialization, to a perfectly young stem cell. Another proof is that heterochronic parabiosis works. Transplanting an old organ into a young body rejuvenates the organ as well. High concentrations of exosomes taken from young blood also have a rejuvenating effect.

> proof that it's intentional is that Yamanaka factors work

Not really. Multicellular life is messy. Neglect and bad intent, so far as nature can have intention, are difficult to distinguish.

Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#24
post #5

As an anti-aging intervention, this is useless because it still doesn't uncover the master organism development regulator, and it doesn't actually "fix" aging, it doesn't make the organism believe that it's younger. The aging process still happens and the organism still dies of the passage of time . It might be useful as a lead to that master regulator, though. Or it might be not.

Steps to biological immortality would look exactly like these.

Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#25
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> organism wants to destroy itself Organisms don't want anything. They're a complex cascade of chemical processes. You're correct in that programmed death is a factor in aging. (It's most dramatic in octopuses: removing a physical gland causes them not to brood. Unfortunately, octopuses being aggressive cannibals, this also causes them to devour their young [1].) But if it were 100% programmed death, the problem woul…

> But if it were 100% programmed death, the problem would be easy: change the code. The problem is finding the code in the first place. To my programmer mind, biology feels like it must be comprised of layers of emergent behavior. We're not very good at understanding these right now. It might well be that the code you're talking about is not in the DNA, but rather it emerges somewhere where we aren't looking. > A lot…

I should have said "simple" instead of "easy." It isn't easy. But if it's all in our genes, that's a finite search space. In reality, the search space is indeterminetedly bounded, possibly unbounded. It's hard not because it's elusive, but because it's complex.

Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#27
post #11

> However, he said there were still problems, including the lack of evidence in patients and the cost of making such drugs and "it is unthinkable to treat every 50-year-old for the rest of their life". On the "lack of evidence in patients" ... does "testing" this in humans mean decades long trials? Given that the effects in their animal model was 25%, it seems like measuring if there was such an increase in humans (a…

Assuming the drug adds another 20 years of quality life, the impact on social program financing would be very good. As is, the average person spends, roughly ~56% of human life being net-productive (20 learning, 45 working, 15 retired). Add 20 healthy years, and most folks will keep working, which would raise the share of productive years to ~65%. If the treatment is expensive, then only net-productive individuals would be able to afford it, meaning we would gain the benefit of contributors contributing for longer, without net-recipients receiving for longer.

This would also allow folks another 20 years of planning/saving for retirement, which could greatly improve the quality of those years for the average retiree, but probably won't.

The biggest social impact of this drug, I think, would be its affect of the wealth gap. Another 20 years of compounding market returns would buoy the net worth of the 30% who make up the "upper class". An ever-increasing number of people would be able to achieve financial "escape velocity" by building nest-eggs which can sustain them indefinitely via 3% withdrawals, allowing them to retire "early" (i.e. before the new "standard" retirement age of 80). Folks who speed-run their careers and retire in their 40s-50s could enjoy 50 or 60 years of retirement! Inheritances would rise dramatically, but come later in life. This would also result in a backlash, of course. Envy is the oldest and most powerful organizing "principle", and politicians will happily use this new prosperity to generate enmity for their own purposes, just as they always have.

My main concern would be the dysgenic impact of such a thing. If it becomes generally available, it will no doubt encourage thinking folks delay having children even more, while also granting another decade of fertility to the "oops another baby" cohort. It seems clear that this would significantly accelerate our decline toward idiocracy.

Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#29
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But if it were 100% programmed death, the problem would be easy: change the code. The problem is finding the code in the first place. To my programmer mind, biology feels like it must be comprised of layers of emergent behavior. We're not very good at understanding these right now. It might well be that the code you're talking about is not in the DNA, but rather it emerges somewhere where we aren't looking. > A lot…

Maybe developers should spend more time in bio tech, rather than ad tech. Imagine if we spent 30% of our effort to improve humanity.

If want to take a stab at me personally, I'm helping build the fediverse. Ads are cancer. I don't want to be anywhere near them.

Re: Anti-ageing 'supermodel granny' drug extends life in mice by 25%

#30
post #11

> However, he said there were still problems, including the lack of evidence in patients and the cost of making such drugs and "it is unthinkable to treat every 50-year-old for the rest of their life". On the "lack of evidence in patients" ... does "testing" this in humans mean decades long trials? Given that the effects in their animal model was 25%, it seems like measuring if there was such an increase in humans (a…

Assuming the drug adds another 20 years of quality life, the impact on social program financing would be very good. As is, the average person spends, roughly ~56% of human life being net-productive (20 learning, 45 working, 15 retired). Add 20 healthy years, and most folks will keep working, which would raise the share of productive years to ~65%. If the treatment is expensive, then only net-productive individuals wo…

> If the treatment is expensive, then only net-productive individuals would be able to afford it, meaning we would gain the benefit of contributors contributing for longer, without net-recipients receiving for longer.

Because rich people are "net-productive" and poor people are "net-recipients"?

This is wrong on so many levels. And even today rich people live on average longer. Can't see the benefit myself.

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