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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

#91
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm strongly considering starting this. Any tips? (Feel free to email if you don't want to share publicly.)

First month is tough, getting gradually easier. Probably easier to have a few small snacks to make up your day, followed by a bulky low calorie meal in the evening (I used to go for a small chicken breast in a stir fry with minimal oil - protein feels more satisfying). Now I kind of enjoy it (one day a week). I occasionally stop, i.e. on holiday, and I do notice a bit of lethargy creeping in a time to time. Otherwise…

Thanks for the tips! Can you still work out on the fasting days or would that be ridiculous? Can you concentrate at work?

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

#92

This "hard-wired cease of regeneration/renew" is a nice high-level theory, while attempts to find a single cause (or a single gene) to stop or reverse the process, is, probably, waste of time. There is no single process to be stopped, leave alone reversed. Each major subsystem (if not each major cell type) probably has its own "enough markers". That's why there are so many different causes of "natural" death.

Well, it is possible that every subsystem has its own self-destruction procedures, but that would be such an inefficient way to design a system. And nature is usually a very efficient designer.

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

#93

This "hard-wired cease of regeneration/renew" is a nice high-level theory, while attempts to find a single cause (or a single gene) to stop or reverse the process, is, probably, waste of time. There is no single process to be stopped, leave alone reversed. Each major subsystem (if not each major cell type) probably has its own "enough markers". That's why there are so many different causes of "natural" death.

Well, it is possible that every subsystem has its own self-destruction procedures, but that would be such an inefficient way to design a system. And nature is usually a very efficient designer.

"And nature is usually a very efficient designer."

In what sense? For most senses of the word efficient, I think I'd disagree with that.

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

#94
Aging isn't just one thing. It's not just the telomeres, or the hormonal changes. There's also the accumulated DNA damage which leads to cancer. And there are the evolutionary compromises, which was mentioned briefly at the end. One notable example of this is how children learn some things faster than adults. The brain shuts down expression of certain genes after childhood, and it's known that drugs like valproate can reverse this effect. Why did evolution make this tradeoff? Because all that extra brain activity requires more sleep, and that would leave us with fewer working hours. That was a useful tradeoff a century ago, but maybe not for some people today.

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

#95

This "hard-wired cease of regeneration/renew" is a nice high-level theory, while attempts to find a single cause (or a single gene) to stop or reverse the process, is, probably, waste of time. There is no single process to be stopped, leave alone reversed. Each major subsystem (if not each major cell type) probably has its own "enough markers". That's why there are so many different causes of "natural" death.

Well, it is possible that every subsystem has its own self-destruction procedures, but that would be such an inefficient way to design a system. And nature is usually a very efficient designer.

It is not self-destruction, I think, it is rather "never evolved/selected for a long run". Everything "important" is supposed to happen in youth, at peak and then "doesn't matter".

It is rather "stopping investing in repair" rather than "intentional self-destruction". But I think there is no single "marker/indicator" for this.

So, they could keep regeneration of some specific kind of cells in a lab animal, by manipulating some hormone, but it doesn't affect the other parallel processes in different kinds of cells.

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

#96
The best explanation I found was on the book The Value of Tomorrow by Eduardo Giannetti, Brazilian philosopher and economist (in this chapter he had several consultants): If there is a trade-off between longer lifespan and reproductive capacity at a young age, there will also be a point of equilibrium.

Suppose there was no senescence, we all lived perfectly healthy and at peak capacity for the duration of our lives. We would still have limited lifespan in nature, because of diseases, natural predators, etc. There would be a life expectancy, since people would not live forever. Now suppose a mutation occurs that grants the individual a boost in body functions at a young age with a caveat: a gradual decline in body functions after a certain age. If this certain age is way past the life expectancy of the population, this mutation would give competitive advantage to its bearers, with no real downside, since nobody lives way past the life expectancy anyway. This mutation would spread throughout the entire population and aging would establish itself in this population.

The point of equilibrium in these trade-offs would be different for each population, since the environments and species are different, hence why hummingbirds, dogs, humans and turtles have wildly varying life expectancies.

Trying to stop aging would involve stopping or mitigating these mechanisms, which are deeply ingrained in our systems. The consequences of doing so are far from straightforward, both to the individual (if we could not stop side effects to have the cake and eat it too) and to the population as a whole.

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

#97

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.

I kinda take issue with the "infinite growth is unsustainable" notion. If 1 dollar = 1 natural resource then clearly, yes, growth is constrained. But it isn't. My example for this is clerical work. Banks (for example) used to employ vast rooms of clerks, who spent entire days performing simple, repetitive maths in double-entry ledgers to make sure the bank knew where all the money was. Now all of that is done by comp…

Ultimately, growth is limited by physical constraints, given our current understanding of physics. But it seems extremely premature to be worrying about this much unless you believe a singularity is right around the corner. And even then the idea of the singularity implies to me that we have no ability to predict what will happen - perhaps there are still enormous leaps to be made in physics that make our assumptions unfounded, or perhaps a greatly increased understanding of ourselves will eliminate our desire to continue to pursue growth indefinitely.

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

#98

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…

You mischaracterize calorie restriction with optimal nutrition by calling it starvation, and you mischaracterize the current research situation. The evidence for it to extend healthy, mean, and maximum life span in a wide range of species is very extensive: mice, flies, nematodes, etc, etc, etc. The primate evidence for life span extension is mixed at this time, partially because the two decades-long studies were poo…

Is it OK to try to establish a correlation between calorie intake and lifespan without taking into account variety in calorie spending, or a "life style"?

It seems that excess of calories have a big negative effect for an "idle/aged" lifestyle, and almost no effect for "hyper-active/young" lifestyle.

It seems also related to urban vs. rural populations.

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

#99

The best explanation I found was on the book The Value of Tomorrow by Eduardo Giannetti, Brazilian philosopher and economist (in this chapter he had several consultants): If there is a trade-off between longer lifespan and reproductive capacity at a young age, there will also be a point of equilibrium. Suppose there was no senescence, we all lived perfectly healthy and at peak capacity for the duration of our lives.…

Yup. And the trade off between reproduction and aging is extremely well documented in biology. In short, reproduction prioritizes the set over the element. Kinda Borg-ish but that's what we have so far.

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

#100

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…

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