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Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

med.stanford.edu

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Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#21

Post by Florin_Andrei »

pierrec wrote: post #13
narrator wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

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 muta…

> In short, protecting genetic information while still allowing evolution is a hard problem.

In some ways, it seems like this is all that life on Earth is about. A planet-size computer running for billions of years to try and come up with a good solution to this problem.

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#22

Post by Florin_Andrei »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #19
ypeterholmes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> The existence of a copy of a person does not preserve the continuity of the original.

Amazing how many people forget this simple fact.

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#23

Post by eurleif »

pierrec wrote: post #13
narrator wrote: post #7

Earlier 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.

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 muta…

>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.

"Best of all possible worlds" suggests a global maximum to me. Evolution can get stuck in local maxima.

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#24

Post by Florin_Andrei »

jzila wrote: post #3

This 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'm guessing if you get really close to the limit predicted by the actuarial tables, then it's not that big of a gamble to play with the telomeres. If something goes wrong, what's the worst that could happen - you could die? Well, you'll probably do that soon anyway.

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#25

Post by nostromo »

TTPrograms wrote: post #17
nostromo wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're misreading the statistics a bit. The biggest gains in life expectancy have been at birth. There have been old people for a lot longer than the last 150 years.

Even Aristotle knew about menopause. And Plato lived to be 80.

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#26

Post by csixty4 »

JoshTriplett wrote: post #19
ypeterholmes wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Hmmm...Redundant Array of Inexpensive Daves...I feel inspired to write a short story...

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#27

Post by JoshTriplett »

adamio wrote: post #5
nicwolff wrote: post #2

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.)

At least then you have an excuse to not work, being 25 perpetually for most people could simply mean an eternity of work

There's an old joke (and programming exercise) about how long Methuselah would collect Social Security...

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#28

Post by im3w1l »

jzila wrote: post #3

This 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…

So how can we repair the mutations?

Re: Telomere extension turns back aging clock in cultured human cells, study finds

#30

Post by hughes »

ypeterholmes wrote: post #16
Htsthbjig wrote: post #10

Earlier 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.

The very possibility of a "backup" implies a dualism that makes me uncomfortable.
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