Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

theguardian.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 243 posts

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

#221

Post by VLM »

acgourley wrote: post #190
VLM wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn't this treatment system create an immense selection pressure against irrational belief? So kids born to families who think its an affront to god would not have the social / cultural / monetary resources to even begin to compete with kids born to more rational families? Not that I'm saying a selection pressure against irrational belief would be a negative or a problem, I'm just saying it would be strongly selec…

Only if people who take this anti-aging have more offspring. It's quite possible the opposite would be true.. "oh there is no rush, maybe next decade"

I was thinking more in terms of reproductive success of kids who have enormous very old and presumably wise family members to act as mentors and advisors.

I had a grandfather who rose to pretty high levels in the Army and executive level in a major national railroad, he could provide some advice about management. A G-Grandfather who was a good enough CPA to never end up unemployed in the great depression, he presumably could teach me a thing or two about accounting. A grandpa-in-law who was a successful combat medic, after treating combat injuries normal lifestyle trauma would make him handy to have around (edited to add, patching up blown off limbs made him a peace activist type in his later years, another good reason to keep him around). One of my grandma was one of those flapper / womens suffrage / womens lib radical types and she'd be a good influence on my daughter. If we extend life over 200 years, I have a Harvard lit prof in my ancestry who would be a handy tutor for my kids, and a civil war era land surveyor who could probably teach even me a thing or two about wilderness hiking and survival, etc.

If you do enough genealogy, everyone's got enough "cool" in their ancestry, that if those ancestors were still alive, kids lifestyle would be radically improved compared to folks with dead ancestors.

Of course human nature being what it is, the 10% of cool would come with 90% of hatred, bigotry, ignorance, blah blah, so you'd have to take it all with a grain of salt. (edited to add, and learning the critical thinking skills to take it all with a grain of salt, would overall be one of the most valuable skills...)

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

#222

Post by CWuestefeld »

roadster72 wrote: post #122

>researchers confident that side-effects will be minimal due to the fact the compound is naturally occurring. There are a lot of naturally occurring poisons too. I'm curious, how does the substance being naturally occurring have anything to do with the side-effects?

That's great. So my mom doesn't have to put it on her list of things to avoid because they "contain chemicals".

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

#223

Post by contextual »

tokenadult wrote: post #105

The article reports, "Turner said a 'magic pill' that reverses ageing is several years away, partially due to the cost of the compound, which would be about $50,000 a day for a human." That suggests several things. The clinical trials will be small in the beginning, and thus the small-n studies will not have much statistical power. There will be some kind of patent scramble related to any patentable technology that c…

No one should be holding their breath in anticipation. Billions of dollars in research funds worldwide are wasted on "splashy findings" based on fraud and bad science[1]. In fact, most published research findings are likely false[2] :

[1] http://articles.latimes.com/2013/oct/27/business/la-fi-hiltz...

[2] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1182327/

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

#224

Post by sp332 »

31reasons wrote: post #169
Vardhan wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is that the goal of life? Incessant scientific progress?

Yup. There may be thousands of earth like planets in our galaxy alone. Shouldn't we explore them some time in future ?

Wouldn't it make more sense to live well wherever we are? I'm not saying we have to settle for Earth, but the focus should be on how people are living and not how many planets get checked off.

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

#225

Post by brodney »

Tepix wrote: post #215
31reasons wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. There may be thousands of earth like planets in our galaxy alone. Shouldn't we explore them some time in future ?

With 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, we're talking millions (or more), not thousands.

Making eradicating aging even more important.

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

#226

Post by PeterisP »

fragsworth wrote: post #8

> "with scientists set to look at how the theory of age reversal can be used to treat diseases such as cancer, dementia and diabetes." Alzheimer's medications can generally improve cognition. Age-reversal medications might work even better if used at an early age. I always see articles, media, and papers focusing on how something new can be used to treat some existing disease. But what I'm always thinking is "can I u…

The medical estabilishment is hung up on 'above all, do no harm'. This means that if you don't have a disease, you generally don't 'deserve' a cure, since any cure or procedure tends to have some risk element in it, and if you don't have a disease then the risk is considered unacceptable.

There are a bunch of substances that likely do improve things for healthy adults, but they won't get allowed to be marketed as such before they are proven safe&effective; and they won't get proven safe&effective because you can't do proper clinical trials to measure the effects on healthy people because of the possible downsides, etc. You can make and market 'dietary supplements' to the extent that they provably don't do anything significantly different and more effective than dietary choices; if it works really well, then it's a drug with a whole different regulation.

You can make, test, verify and sell a medicine to improve cognitive function in people with a specific mental deficiency. You aren't really allowed (legally and ethically) to do proper medical tests on how some drug does/doesn't improve the same cognitive function in healthy adults and market & distribute it to them.

You can make, test, verify and sell a medicine to fix erectile dysfunction. You aren't really allowed (legally and ethically) to do proper medical tests if some powerful drug changes sex to be more enjoyable for healthy adults, although it's quite likely that such drugs do exist.

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

#227

Post by 31reasons »

sp332 wrote: post #224
31reasons wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yup. There may be thousands of earth like planets in our galaxy alone. Shouldn't we explore them some time in future ?

Wouldn't it make more sense to live well wherever we are? I'm not saying we have to settle for Earth, but the focus should be on how people are living and not how many planets get checked off.

Living longer means signification rise in population on earth and given the unsustainable state of our planet, it makes more sense to look for other similar planets for habitation. And if we invent faster than light travel in future it will be natural for people to leave earth in the spirit of exploration just like Europeans did to find the New World.

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

#229

Post by zzzeek »

ChrisNorstrom wrote: post #98
VLM wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, you've outed "Chris" as the male form of the name "Chris" as there are certain female reproductive system issues where once you're outta eggs thats all folks. Dudes are fertile to a ripe old age. So at 75 you need a wife 1/3 your age. The cultural issues could be pretty huge if women are only fertile for a small fraction of their life and dudes are fertile for X times as long as women. Or maybe it becomes a cul…

Good point. But I'm sure that's a problem that will be solved by that time. Not sure if this is 100% true but "It had been widely accepted that a woman was born with a limited number of eggs [...] But, in 2012 this dogma was challenged in a paper that found proliferative germ cells that sustain oocyte and follicle production in the postnatal mammalian ovary. This means that women do not have a limited number of eggs.…

that's an ongoing debate but does not change the fact that women hit menopause in their mid 40's right now.

disclaimer: my wife and I have spent about $100K over the past 6 years trying to get pregnant, including several IVFs and a failed donor cycle (that's where you write a check for $30000 and flush it down the toilet).

Post reply on HN