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Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

theguardian.com

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Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#131

Post by tokenadult »

KVFinn wrote: post #44

From Aubrey De Grey: Short answer is it’s not all that big a deal in biomedical terms. It’s a great discovery in terms of understanding mitochondria, and it provides a new way to rejuvenate mito function, but it doesn’t tell us that rejuvenating mito function in isolation in an otherwise still-old animal is a good idea -- and there have for many years been other ways to rejuvenate mito function which have not led to…

Aubrey De Grey is younger than I am, but he looks old and haggard, much older than I look (and much older than my younger sister who is almost exactly his age looks). I don't know why people take anti-aging advice from Aubrey De Grey. His advice has meager uptake or support in reliable sources on human medicine.

AFTER EDIT: I see the first reaction to this comment was a silent downvote, which evokes my desire to learn. Now that we've established that you disagree with me, would it be all right for me to ask what facts I should consider to change my opinion that Aubrey De Grey's anti-aging advice is not correct? What positive rationale can you provide for taking his writings on his favorite topic seriously? What evidence can you provide that he is on to something that the National Institute of Aging[1] isn't researching adequately already without him?

[1] http://www.nia.nih.gov/

ONE MORE EDIT: Thanks for the replies. I think the most helpful to me was

As far as I know, Aubrey has not claimed to have invented any working anti-aging treatments so far

because I've been curious for a long time why Aubrey De Grey receives so much mention here on Hacker News whenever research on aging comes up, but so little mention in any of the extensive medical literature I read. So he is one guy with some interesting ideas (interesting to people here, at least) but perhaps just one guy among thousands working on anti-aging ideas. I wish anyone well who is devoting time and attention to reducing the harm of aging processes in human beings, but I try to cast my net searching for information more in the waters of medical reports than among people with a famous online presence as such. Thanks for the follow-up, and for letting me know what you really think about the unedited version of my comment, which still appears at the top here.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#132

Post by neilk »

baudehlo wrote: post #100
gaius wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's funny, I have a friend who is a full-time professional philosopher (teaches at a university) and you would not believe the amount of earnest essay writing there was in the philosophy community about Miley Cyrus's performance at the VMAs (something I've not actually seen myself). All sorts of theories about Freud and Hegel and this and that. Look Philos, I said to him, she got up on stage and did a little dance a…

The flip side to that argument is that right now life is short, and so I try and fit as many wonderful experiences into it as I can. If life were long I could put everything off until tomorrow. And that doesn't sound good to me.

Well, there are obvious limits to that argument. Even a hundred years ago, it was common to die in your 60s. Taking on a new career or new relationship at the age of 60 would be ridiculous. Today, it's still a bit unusual but not unheard of.

Given a longer life, I think we would come up with new ways to motivate ourselves, and new challenges. This isn't an insoluble problem, it's a business opportunity for Tony Robbins.

That said I'm not sure a human being could ever fully escape ennui, so maybe there is some upper limit. I don't think 80 years is even close though.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#133

Post by Filligree »

rquantz wrote: post #103
VLM wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cancer is a big treatment problem. Well here I am a tired old 95 year old cancer cell, too tired and sore to start reproducing madly and my hosts blood chemistry is too F'ed up anyway for me to grow, so I'll just sit here in my lung cell sized recliner and watch Fox News with my host... Ah I see now after some treatment I feel I'm in the body of a healthy 25 year old and I'm absolutely bursting with energy... lets ge…

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if this were an accurate metaphor, wouldn't cancer incidence decrease with age, rather than increase?

No. This research addresses just one cause of ageing; there are many others.

It's all of them together that causes increased cancer rates.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#134

Post by Filligree »

maratd wrote: post #63
_random_ wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your thought process is linear. Try to model the consequences. 20 yeas old people will be considered kids and that's it. Otherwise you should opt for euthanasia because 10 year olds have a hard time competing with you today.

This is a valid point, but if 20 year olds are now treated like children and the fertility window doesn't change, procreating becomes somewhat difficult. In fact, isn't that what's happening in all the countries where longevity has shot up and the fertility rate plummeted?

Sounds like a good deal to me. I'll take longer life over more children any day of the year.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#135

Post by Filligree »

robbrown451 wrote: post #76
ChuckMcM wrote: post #4

I always wonder about this quote, “Whether that means we’ll all live to 150, I don’t know, but the important part is that we don’t spend the last 20 to 30 years of our lives in bad health.” Imagine a process that makes you feel like you are 25 right up until you body gives up at a physical age of 100 or something. Do you end up doing riskier things because you don't "feel" old? And if you did would you die sooner? It…

What confuses me is that they seem to be making the assumption that if they are able to give good health in the later years, that the person will die at the same age they would have. Which seems unlikely. Seems to me if they are in good health, they won't die (healthy people don't tend to). Eventually, though, they will be in bad health enough to die. In which case, it IS about longer life spans, since we'll still ha…

Well... in this particular case it really won't extend life, though. Not by much, quite possibly not at all; it could easily be somewhat of a carcinogen.

It'll make you feel better, and give you more energy, and that's about it. Think of it like a kind of amphetamine, only not (hopefully not) that bad for you.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#136

Post by Filligree »

Tycho wrote: post #82

It's interesting, even if we halted aging so that people could theoretically live forever, we would as a culture have to embrace a sort of 'death by probability.'

Not for long, I bet. We'd find ways to make backups.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#137

Post by kansface »

twobits wrote: post #67
_random_ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe most people are not capable of understanding the possibilities of a strong AI? It's not like we will just have a nice sounding personal assistant.

What can't one understand about "infinite 'free' labour"?

Certainly not infinite. There is and always will be a finite amount of computational power; considering thermodynamics alone, we can't continue to increase power usage exponentially or the surface of the earth will be uninhabitable in 200 years.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#138

Post by Filligree »

zmmmmm wrote: post #106
darsham wrote: post #32

This seems to be a pretty big deal, but the article gives off the impression that mithocondrial aging is the only reason that we age. In fact there are many other aging factors that have not been linked to mithocondrial aging (and have, agruably, no relationship). Some other factors I recall studying are - gradual DNA damage, which is quite inevitable - collagen degradation, which affects the eyes and all cartilagino…

Yes, it is confusing, since there is no wider context given in the article at all. The conventional story I hear about ageing is that telomeres in replicating cells become shorter until the DNA no longer replicates and the cell either dies or seriously malfunctions. As a significant proportion of the cells in your body move into this state you "age". So I'm struggling to relate this phenomena to the mitochondrial sto…

Independent. There are, oh, I think I once saw a lost of about fifteen major known causes of ageing.

Some are worse than others; this is one of the really serious ones, but not #1. Others of note are... - Intracellular debris - Intercellular debris - Gradual macroscopic degeneration from incomplete healing/scarring - Progressive DNA damage, with any number of consequences (e.g. cancer) - Asymptotic loss of some brain functions (e.g. learning)

I could go on. For evolutionary reasons all of these hit at roughly the same time, which means uploading remains the most promising approach for completely eliminating ageing.

Well, almost completely. Upload someone, and you eliminate degeneration below the firmware/software layer, but you still need to cope with a brain that didn't evolve to last for centuries.

Re: Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice

#139

Post by blazespin »

tokenadult wrote: post #131
KVFinn wrote: post #44

From Aubrey De Grey: Short answer is it’s not all that big a deal in biomedical terms. It’s a great discovery in terms of understanding mitochondria, and it provides a new way to rejuvenate mito function, but it doesn’t tell us that rejuvenating mito function in isolation in an otherwise still-old animal is a good idea -- and there have for many years been other ways to rejuvenate mito function which have not led to…

Aubrey De Grey is younger than I am, but he looks old and haggard, much older than I look (and much older than my younger sister who is almost exactly his age looks). I don't know why people take anti-aging advice from Aubrey De Grey. His advice has meager uptake or support in reliable sources on human medicine. AFTER EDIT: I see the first reaction to this comment was a silent downvote, which evokes my desire to lear…

Feedback? Sure. You're doing the "appeal to surface appearance" argument. Not sure, but I don't recall that argument from Critical Thinking 101.
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