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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

#41

Post by ehvatum »

waps wrote: post #39
gonehome wrote: post #4

Earlier 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.

Lifespan is a function of organism size (ironically measured in weight, mostly). The bigger an organism, the longer it's lifespan. Keeping in mind normal human lifespan would be about 30-35 years, you find that many animals of similar size have a natural lifespan within a factor 2 or so of a formula that also applies to humans. Normal whales, for instance, have a natural lifespan of about 70 years. That this formula…

Size alone has limited predictive power for lifespan. Consider the example of the naked mole-rat (30-35g, 31 yr) vs Norwegian rat (450g, 3 yr). Naked mole-rats dwell in environments shielded from predation, whereas no R. norvegicus in the wild could possibly hope to avoid attrition for 10 years, even if its ageing process allowed 20 years of healthspan, let alone 30.

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

#42

Post by thaumasiotes »

waps wrote: post #40
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.

You have to keep in mind that while technically you are correct, evolution has been running for at least 3 billion years. Fertility is the main thing it optimizes. To think you know the way this should work better than evolution is like betting you know adwords better than Google. In general it would be extremely safe to assume that human fertility is the best optimized part of the human genome and that in 1000 years…

> Fertility is the main thing [evolution] optimizes.

This is more hedged than it really needs to be. In an infinite-integral-across-time sense, fertility is the only thing evolution optimizes.

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

#43

Post by thaumasiotes »

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 don't get the logic. The division limit is a defense against cancer in the same way that equipping your home with a selfdestruct button is a defense against burglars. Getting cancer is better than preemptively dying because you might or might not have gotten cancer.

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

#44

Post by TerraHertz »

pinewurst wrote: post #8

This indeed is news! It's not the idea of telomere extension or telomerase, but a quick hit, temporary way of inducing that extension. Every other time I've seen this discussed, it involved some sort of modified virus or persistent agent.

Yes indeed. Black market treatment offers appearing in 5... 4... 3...

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

#45

Post by Omniusaspirer »

im3w1l wrote: post #28
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?

Presumably sequence your genome early on in life while you're still healthy, then somehow (nanobots?) go in later in life cell by cell detecting things that have changed and fixing them.

That's my uneducated but logical sounding assumption.

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

#46

Post by tormeh »

Omniusaspirer wrote: post #45
im3w1l wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So how can we repair the mutations?

Presumably sequence your genome early on in life while you're still healthy, then somehow (nanobots?) go in later in life cell by cell detecting things that have changed and fixing them. That's my uneducated but logical sounding assumption.

A manipulated virus will do fine. In fact, they've been doing a trial on something like this for years now with some american heart patients, except the genome us not their own. Defeating genetic heart disease by hot-swapping the genome is somewhere between obvious and mad and also exciting.

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

#47

Post by lamuerteflaca »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #43
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 don't get the logic. The division limit is a defense against cancer in the same way that equipping your home with a selfdestruct button is a defense against burglars. Getting cancer is better than preemptively dying because you might or might not have gotten cancer.

Getting cancer before you reproduce is not good for the species.

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

#48

Post by JoeAltmaier »

TerraHertz wrote: post #44
pinewurst wrote: post #8

This indeed is news! It's not the idea of telomere extension or telomerase, but a quick hit, temporary way of inducing that extension. Every other time I've seen this discussed, it involved some sort of modified virus or persistent agent.

Yes indeed. Black market treatment offers appearing in 5... 4... 3...

They're all over the internet already.

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

#49

Post by eob »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #43
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 don't get the logic. The division limit is a defense against cancer in the same way that equipping your home with a selfdestruct button is a defense against burglars. Getting cancer is better than preemptively dying because you might or might not have gotten cancer.

You're comparing things of different scales. Your body has many cells, but cancer in one can take down the whole system. It's more like a self destruct button on each AWS machine bacause they have a nasty habit of propagating a worm that spreads across the rest of the data center

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

#50

Post by thaumasiotes »

lamuerteflaca wrote: post #47
thaumasiotes wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get the logic. The division limit is a defense against cancer in the same way that equipping your home with a selfdestruct button is a defense against burglars. Getting cancer is better than preemptively dying because you might or might not have gotten cancer.

Getting cancer before you reproduce is not good for the species.

Huh? There's no relationship there. If you commit suicide to avoid getting cancer, it will be just as impossible to reproduce. If you've already reproduced at that point, that will still be true when you develop cancer.
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