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Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

fightaging.org

11–20 of 26 posts

Re: Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

#12
post #11

Prioritize ban for selling sugar, and you will see longevity jump with no effort of super-whooper-money-sawing-science.

It will help the averages by bringing up the bottom and middle, but I think anyone seriously going after SENS doesn't care about that as much as he cares about the outliers (ie himself) who presumably do all that stuff already.

Re: Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

#13
post #12
post #11

Prioritize ban for selling sugar, and you will see longevity jump with no effort of super-whooper-money-sawing-science.

It will help the averages by bringing up the bottom and middle, but I think anyone seriously going after SENS doesn't care about that as much as he cares about the outliers (ie himself) who presumably do all that stuff already.

We usually come to life-saving diet decisions in our 30-s or 40-s. Imagine the society where people are not eating junk for the first half of their life. Can any SENS do it?

Then go to state department of health and see the stats, where we can dig the eye-opening data, e.g. all the science of last 50 years added only 4 monthes of longevity for those who are already at their sixties. Do you beleive any SANS is addressing the right problem? I personally do not.

Re: Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

#15
post #13
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It will help the averages by bringing up the bottom and middle, but I think anyone seriously going after SENS doesn't care about that as much as he cares about the outliers (ie himself) who presumably do all that stuff already.

We usually come to life-saving diet decisions in our 30-s or 40-s. Imagine the society where people are not eating junk for the first half of their life. Can any SENS do it? Then go to state department of health and see the stats, where we can dig the eye-opening data, e.g. all the science of last 50 years added only 4 monthes of longevity for those who are already at their sixties. Do you beleive any SANS is address…

Diets and exercises are good for damage prevention, when proven, sure. However, they are not damage repair toolkit or maintenance tool for the human body, nor could we replace our hearts, organs, and other damaged parts on demand, like a car mechanics. No matter how well you eat, it is inevitable that our parts will get worn out or starts malfunctioning in old age as a result of cumulative damage.

(Yes, we do have artificial hearts, organs transplants, and so on but they have drawbacks until we improve them...)

Re: Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

#16
post #11

Prioritize ban for selling sugar, and you will see longevity jump with no effort of super-whooper-money-sawing-science.

You need to learn the concept of the limiting factor. Drop sugar a bit, longevity goes up. Drop it a lot, longevity doesn't go above the maximum of eighty-ish. Hey, what's up, it looked so promising? Well, you solved the worst problem, but now there's all the other problems.

That's essentially what SENS is: having categorized all the problems that cause age related death, it's possible to attack them all at once. Or more accurately, attack the damage they cause, switching from either a "don't cause damage" (what you're advocating here) or a "cope with damage" (conventional geriatrics) model to a "periodically, repair the damage" one.

Re: Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

#17
Some interesting material on Aubrey de Grey, the former Computer Scientist, now Biogerontologist behind SENS

[1] TED 2007 - A Roadmap to end aging

[2] TedMed 2009

[3] Documentary: Would you like to live forever

[4] Book: Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime

I also wonder if he is on calorie restriction [5], i think it's quite possible

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8iYpxRXlboQ

[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hgLRhxvRlKg

[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YNTMrarUBE

[4] http://www.amazon.com/Ending-Aging-Rejuvenation-Breakthrough...

[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction

Re: Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

#19

Some interesting material on Aubrey de Grey, the former Computer Scientist, now Biogerontologist behind SENS [1] TED 2007 - A Roadmap to end aging [2] TedMed 2009 [3] Documentary: Would you like to live forever [4] Book: Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime I also wonder if he is on calorie restriction [5], i think it's quite possible [1] https://www.youtube.com/…

> I also wonder if he is on calorie restriction [5], i think it's quite possible

He was at least a decade or so ago. I remember it as a factoid in a piece Discover magazine did about him and his research.

Re: Why Prioritize SENS Research for Human Longevity?

#20
There's a super-fundamental discovery about ageing--and a possible "cure" to ageing--that longevity researchers seem to be WAY TOO cautious in discussing and pursuing.

These are telomeres.

Telomeres are a DNA pattern that sets a hard limit on the number of times a cell will divide (and thus repair itself). When the limit is reached, cells stop dividing (then accumulate damage and age). The limit for humans is something like 70 cellular divisions if I remember right.

If you can find a way to lengthen or reset telomeres, you'd have cellular immortality.

The first time I heard about it ten years ago, it blew my mind. To me, this is the biologist's equivalent of a proof that P=NP would be to a computer scientist. I expected enormous interest and research into this, and billions of dollars poured into it, but I'm amazed that it hasn't happened and most people still have never heard of telomeres.

Why isn't there an Apollo-mission-let's-devote-the-resources-of-the-whole-country effort into this? I think it comes down to fear of researching or financing anything with the word "immortality" in it. You'd sound like a crackpot even though the science is sound.

A brief intro on telomeres: http://www.news-medical.net/health/Telomere-What-are-Telomer...

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