I suspect that telomeres are just one component in a system that maintains an organism's biological stability, and that simply lengthening them without reference to the rest of the system will just get you a young, cancer-ridden body.
Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
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Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#12Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the idea that aging may be an evolved anti-cancer mechanism is interesting. Death of individuals is itself probably a selective advantage for the species. Though I suppose shorter lifespans are also more commonly seen in species that reproduce sexually so that preference for continued biological variance is probably also a factor.
Well why don't we just stay hyper fertile till we drop dead? That would be very positive evolutionarily! Truth be told evolution is a chaotic imperfect process that does all kinds of glitchy seemingly suboptimal things so aging is not perfect and divine because it's evolution. Sorry Candide, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
Most animals don't survive past their reproductive years. Humans and some whales do, but that's it.
Some evolutionary biologists suggest that animals that share wisdom or share childbearing duties with their offspring evolved to survive past fertility because doing so increases the competitiveness of their shared genes.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#13Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the idea that aging may be an evolved anti-cancer mechanism is interesting. Death of individuals is itself probably a selective advantage for the species. Though I suppose shorter lifespans are also more commonly seen in species that reproduce sexually so that preference for continued biological variance is probably also a factor.
Well why don't we just stay hyper fertile till we drop dead? That would be very positive evolutionarily! Truth be told evolution is a chaotic imperfect process that does all kinds of glitchy seemingly suboptimal things so aging is not perfect and divine because it's evolution. Sorry Candide, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
That's actually a very interesting question. Evolution means that out of all states that stem from the current one, the optimal one tends to endure, so the "best of all possible worlds" is indeed a pretty good way of phrasing it, if a little vague.
Staying fertile till we drop dead would be sub-optimal because germline stem cells (the "factories" that produce sperm and eggs) accumulate mutations as we age. Those mutations are useful as one of many mechanisms of evolution, but they must only occur in reasonable amounts, as they also increase the probability of nonviable offspring.
In short, protecting genetic information while still allowing evolution is a hard problem. This problem is not solved in exactly the same way by different organisms, and occurs on different time-scales.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#14This isn't _really_ news. It's been known for a while that cells can be made "immortal" by repairing telomeres [0]. In fact, for stem cells and cancer cells to keep their immortal properties they use various mechanisms to repair telomeres [1]. The major issue is that the more times a cell divides, the greater the likelihood that it will develop cancer. Some theories postulate that the Hayflick division limit on cells…
I think the idea that aging may be an evolved anti-cancer mechanism is interesting. Death of individuals is itself probably a selective advantage for the species. Though I suppose shorter lifespans are also more commonly seen in species that reproduce sexually so that preference for continued biological variance is probably also a factor.
Keep in mind that evolution works primarily at a subspecies level, so any mutations which benefited that lineage at the expense of the species as a whole would tend to be favored.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#15I suspect that telomeres are just one component in a system that maintains an organism's biological stability, and that simply lengthening them without reference to the rest of the system will just get you a young, cancer-ridden body.
Yes, sometimes the problem is that a cell refuses to die. SENS has come up with a list of 7 general problems (it's increasingly unlikely to be any more) that collectively form the problem of "aging" and need to collectively be addressed to cure aging. Death-resistant cells is just one of the 7. http://sens.org/research/introduction-to-sens-research
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#16If they find a way to stop aging when I'm already 75, I'm gonna be pissed. (And if they then cure death, I'm gonna be pissed forever.)
It is not stopping aging, it is reversing it. You get old because your cells divide just repairing and maintaining the body. Each time one cell divides itself, the copies get a little shorter telomere. When the telomere is in bad condition, your cells divide slower or even not divide itself. When this happens your tissues do not repair fast enough, and everything gets a worse condition, your skin, your hair, your bra…
People will continue dying, but young in their 100s, or in their 20s like today
Not for long. Years from now living without a backup of yourself will be as abhorrent as currently operating a database with no backup.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#17Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well why don't we just stay hyper fertile till we drop dead? That would be very positive evolutionarily! Truth be told evolution is a chaotic imperfect process that does all kinds of glitchy seemingly suboptimal things so aging is not perfect and divine because it's evolution. Sorry Candide, we do not live in the best of all possible worlds.
Most animals don't survive past their reproductive years. Humans and some whales do, but that's it. Some evolutionary biologists suggest that animals that share wisdom or share childbearing duties with their offspring evolved to survive past fertility because doing so increases the competitiveness of their shared genes.
Well arguably we haven't evolved to survive past reproductive years - life expectancy past 40 is only about 150 years old. That's much too short of a time for evolutionary effects to have an impact.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#18If they find a way to stop aging when I'm already 75, I'm gonna be pissed. (And if they then cure death, I'm gonna be pissed forever.)
> If they find a way to stop aging when I'm already 75, I'm gonna be pissed. (And if they then cure death, I'm gonna be pissed forever.)
You'd then have all the time in the world for them to find improvements.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#19Earlier quoted context omitted.
It is not stopping aging, it is reversing it. You get old because your cells divide just repairing and maintaining the body. Each time one cell divides itself, the copies get a little shorter telomere. When the telomere is in bad condition, your cells divide slower or even not divide itself. When this happens your tissues do not repair fast enough, and everything gets a worse condition, your skin, your hair, your bra…
People will continue dying, but young in their 100s, or in their 20s like today Not for long. Years from now living without a backup of yourself will be as abhorrent as currently operating a database with no backup.
I don't want a backup; I want RAID. The existence of a copy of a person does not preserve the continuity of the original.
Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds
#20This isn't _really_ news. It's been known for a while that cells can be made "immortal" by repairing telomeres [0]. In fact, for stem cells and cancer cells to keep their immortal properties they use various mechanisms to repair telomeres [1]. The major issue is that the more times a cell divides, the greater the likelihood that it will develop cancer. Some theories postulate that the Hayflick division limit on cells…
It has been know, but has it been done before?