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What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

joshmitteldorf.scienceblog.com

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Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#61

Post by danieltillett »

irremediable wrote: post #53
danieltillett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but either fortunately or unfortunately humans seem to be resembling lab animals more than wild animals.

Is your claim as true for people who care about their health? The kind of person who has the dedication to do intermittent fasting probably has the dedication to do a fair amount of exercise.

My response was a bit of a throwaway pointing out that humans and lab animinals have rather converged in our lifestyles. What is more of a problem is the observation that human ageing has slowed rather dramatically in an evolutionary short time. The concern is that we have evolved this slower ageing physiology via a few simple adaptions (the low hanging fruit) and these are not reflected in the animal models.

The fear is that when we use animal models the interventions we find in them will not apply to humans because we are already utilising these strategies naturally. For example, the level of Uric acid in humans is very high, so high that it tends to precipitate out in the extremities causing gout. One theory of why we have such high levels of Uric acid in our bloodstream is because it is protecting us from age related damage - it is one of the simple 'hacks' that we use to age slowly.

Getting to your question there is some concern that calorie restriction won't work in humans for the same reason - we are already using the same pathways activated by calorie restriction in lab animals.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#62

Post by collyw »

ekianjo wrote: post #40
Widdershin wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't agree with you more. We have a fundamental culture of constant growth. It is by definition unsustainable. My hope is that if we did manage to ward off death for a bit longer, we might transcend some of our flawed notions. Who knows? Maybe young humans are fools, and that's the problem.

>It is by definition unsustainable. Why ? What stops mankind to go in space in go grow further in other planets and systems in the future ? There's AMPLE space for growth everywhere, if anything.

Well the tech isn't there for starters. Not in the foreseeable future either. Meanwhile the population continues to grow, the seas are over-fished and getting fill of plastic, the earth gets hotter, the rainforests are being destroyed. Energy from oil isn't going to last forever.

Yes all is fine and dandy, once we set up colonies on the moon.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#63

Post by collyw »

Htsthbjig wrote: post #5

It is important to note that the fact "Starvation is also a way to live longer." is probably wrong as some scientist have noticed. The problem is that animals in laboratories are "coach potatoes". They don't do the exercise they naturally do in their habitat searching for food. They live overcrowded in small cages and overstressed. Most lab animals are already ill from their artificial habitat, they have diabetes and…

The ones with diabetes are usually bred that way in order to study the disease. A friend told me about a strain of rats that is literally so prone to obesity they will start eating themselves if no food is available.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#64

Post by ekianjo »

sanxiyn wrote: post #57
ekianjo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is by definition unsustainable. Why ? What stops mankind to go in space in go grow further in other planets and systems in the future ? There's AMPLE space for growth everywhere, if anything.

This is not true. No amount of space suffices for exponential growth. Hubble length is less than 10^24 km. Earth radius is more than 10^3 km. Therefore there's at most room for 10^21 growth in one dimension, 10^63 growth in three dimensions. 10^63 growth is less than 210 doublings. Doubling is less than 70 years of 1% growth per year. 210 * 70 is less than 20,000. Therefore, we can't grow more than 20,000 years, 1% g…

who talks about exponential growth ? Ongoing growth can be linear and has no need to be exponential. Nice strawman.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#65

Post by ekianjo »

collyw wrote: post #62
ekianjo wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>It is by definition unsustainable. Why ? What stops mankind to go in space in go grow further in other planets and systems in the future ? There's AMPLE space for growth everywhere, if anything.

Well the tech isn't there for starters. Not in the foreseeable future either. Meanwhile the population continues to grow, the seas are over-fished and getting fill of plastic, the earth gets hotter, the rainforests are being destroyed. Energy from oil isn't going to last forever. Yes all is fine and dandy, once we set up colonies on the moon.

> Meanwhile the population continues to grow

Population is very much expected and planned to grow up until 10 billions and then stagnate and decrease progressively. Not everyone on earth has tons of kids anymore, it's very much linked to the level of life. See Rosling's speech on the matter for a more detailed explanation.

The Earth does not get hotter by the way, we have like virtually no long term data on the temperature of the Earth and we should actually be VERY humble as to our ability to predict long term climate trends.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#66

Post by collyw »

irremediable wrote: post #53
danieltillett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but either fortunately or unfortunately humans seem to be resembling lab animals more than wild animals.

Is your claim as true for people who care about their health? The kind of person who has the dedication to do intermittent fasting probably has the dedication to do a fair amount of exercise.

I started intermittent fasting around a year ago, and usually I do do reasonable amount of exercise. I had a health review as part of my work three months after I started. I really wanted to stop, because the fasting was difficult (I was doing two days a week). While before I was fairly healthy, my blood pressure has always been a bit high, as with my cholesterol. After fasting they were both gone down to good levels.

Anyway I cut down to one day a week, which is far more manageable (I am pretty skinny, and I was struggling to keep my weight up). Now it feels good. I have a feeling it is to do with insulin sensitivity, as I no longer feel hunger pangs, and don't get the sleepy feeling after having a huge lunch.

So yes, I consider myself reasonably healthy, but even so I had blood pressure and cholesterol that were bordering between normal and high levels.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#67

Post by placebo »

ramanan wrote: post #34
Intermernet wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd like to be able to choose when I die.

and what number would you choose ? waitbutwhy had an interesting discussion on this a few weeks back: http://waitbutwhy.com/table/how-long-would-you-live-if-you-c...

Thanks for the link. I think this is a fascinating question.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#68

Post by ekianjo »

venomsnake wrote: post #49
ekianjo wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The effect continued past the large effects of hygiene, antibiotics and child vaccination. You may argue that the curve is clearly asymptotic, and that a maximum age genetic barrier is clearly visible. You can't argue, however, that there isn't real progress after antibiotics and hygiene. we are seeing a resurgence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, though, and we have no new lines of antibiotics to fight them.…

> we are seeing a resurgence of bacteria resistant to antibiotics, though, and we have no new lines of antibiotics to fight them. These advances may only be temporary. We don't develop such, due to the broken way our pharmacy research is done. It makes no sense for pharma companies to develop antibiotics due to low ROI and lifetime of the product. A better approach for this is government to fund researchers for areas…

> A better approach for this is government to fund researchers for areas that private sector has abandoned.

yeah, like Ebola research funding done by the government ? That was an efficient model.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#69

Post by alextgordon »

irremediable wrote: post #53
danieltillett wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is true, but either fortunately or unfortunately humans seem to be resembling lab animals more than wild animals.

Is your claim as true for people who care about their health? The kind of person who has the dedication to do intermittent fasting probably has the dedication to do a fair amount of exercise.

Exercise and living a sedentary life are not mutually exclusive. Pretty much everybody on HN has to remain still for most of the day -- however much exercise they do.

Re: What Is Aging? Most Scientists Still Get It Wrong

#70

Post by ekianjo »

This article gets so many things wrong I dont know where to start. The argument that "our bodies are useless after reproduction therefore aging makes us die when we are done" is so flawed in itself. If that was even remotely true, women would die much earlier than men since their bodies' reproductive age stops way earlier. So what is in nature's interest to have women live in their 80s versus men die in their 70s ? There is just no good "purpose" to justify those difference which are anyway way beyond the best times for reproductive ages for both genders.
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