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Old Spleens Suck (2021)

sarahconstantin.substack.com

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Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#11

Post by resoluteteeth »

ryeights wrote: post #10

I think it is obvious at this point that the human body is designed to self-destruct, causing death at old age, once a certain biological threshold is reached. Resistance to this idea comes not from a rational perspective, but a semi-religious belief that your own body would not betray you.

The programmed aging theory may be "obvious" but there is not really evidence to support it as of the present.

If true, it would likely be very easy to stop aging (there would likely be some mechanism in cells causing aging that could simply be switched off), but this has not been borne out by research so far, and this is despite the fact that much anti-aging researching assumes it to be true.

The preponderance of the evidence currently seems to support the theory that aging is caused by damage building up over a lifetime.

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#12

Post by ryeights »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #11
ryeights wrote: post #10

I think it is obvious at this point that the human body is designed to self-destruct, causing death at old age, once a certain biological threshold is reached. Resistance to this idea comes not from a rational perspective, but a semi-religious belief that your own body would not betray you.

The programmed aging theory may be "obvious" but there is not really evidence to support it as of the present. If true, it would likely be very easy to stop aging (there would likely be some mechanism in cells causing aging that could simply be switched off), but this has not been borne out by research so far, and this is despite the fact that much anti-aging researching assumes it to be true. The preponderance of th…

I don’t think it is at all necessarily true that there would be one mechanism for programmed aging that could be disabled by modern medicine. Rather, evolutionary pressures might cause many mechanisms to develop simultaneously to prevent aging of individuals too far beyond the point of reproductive viability.

If aging is caused by built-up damage, how would babies ever come to exist and live normal lifespans? The cell lines that produce new human embryos are millions of years old, yet each newly born human doesn’t face the problems of old age until they are 40+ years old.

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#13

Post by judge2020 »

ryeights wrote: post #10

I think it is obvious at this point that the human body is designed to self-destruct, causing death at old age, once a certain biological threshold is reached. Resistance to this idea comes not from a rational perspective, but a semi-religious belief that your own body would not betray you.

Perhaps it is designed to self-destruct, but we're pretty good at making up for deficiencies in our weakest links: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1040079/life-expectancy-...

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#15

Post by robbedpeter »

resoluteteeth wrote: post #11
ryeights wrote: post #10

I think it is obvious at this point that the human body is designed to self-destruct, causing death at old age, once a certain biological threshold is reached. Resistance to this idea comes not from a rational perspective, but a semi-religious belief that your own body would not betray you.

The programmed aging theory may be "obvious" but there is not really evidence to support it as of the present. If true, it would likely be very easy to stop aging (there would likely be some mechanism in cells causing aging that could simply be switched off), but this has not been borne out by research so far, and this is despite the fact that much anti-aging researching assumes it to be true. The preponderance of th…

One end of the spectrum of reasonable possibilities is that evolution selected for genes that cause and or favor death the older an organism gets, through implicit mechanisms like lack of regenerative capacity, such as heart tissue, or explicit mechanisms, of which I'm not aware of any. Are there any genes that explicitly produce a timing mechanism, and thereby create a built-in notion of aging?

To my knowledge, it's all implicit, resulting from wear and tear, the gradual degradation of DNA because of the nature of chemistry on the surface of the planet, and not because any gene or biological mechanism moves an organism through some programmatic notion of mortality.

This seems true to the extent that given molecular level control of an organism, current knowledge would be sufficient to maintain lifespan to an arbitrary degree. Barring sci-fi nanotechnology, genetics and anti-aging have to figure out more robust repair and damage prevention to extend lifespan.

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#16

Post by Tenoke »

ryeights wrote: post #10

I think it is obvious at this point that the human body is designed to self-destruct, causing death at old age, once a certain biological threshold is reached. Resistance to this idea comes not from a rational perspective, but a semi-religious belief that your own body would not betray you.

It's odd to claim that's obvious when there are alternative explanations - the body is simply not all that optimized for old age because it isn't as much of a priority for passing genes and if such a complex system isn't optimized for it things are bound to give out.

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#17

Post by m463 »

ryeights wrote: post #10

I think it is obvious at this point that the human body is designed to self-destruct, causing death at old age, once a certain biological threshold is reached. Resistance to this idea comes not from a rational perspective, but a semi-religious belief that your own body would not betray you.

I've wondered what kinds of things we're doing both good and bad to our bodies.

For example, with modern society food availability is high. For example we could eat kale every day. Starving is optional. yet I've read that fasting is the way to metabolize senescent cells, but maybe nobody does it anymore.

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#18

Post by cheschire »

ryeights wrote: post #10

I think it is obvious at this point that the human body is designed to self-destruct, causing death at old age, once a certain biological threshold is reached. Resistance to this idea comes not from a rational perspective, but a semi-religious belief that your own body would not betray you.

Why is that “obvious” and why is the “other” side the religious one and not your “design” assertion?

I’m not an expert on such subjects but it seems more closely related to the concepts of evolution to say natural selection does not show preference for abnormally long lived individuals because it is unknown or unimportant at time of procreation which traits lead towards lifetime longevity beyond short term hunter gatherer traits.

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#19

Post by pacaro »

IIRC a lot of our data about human splenectomy comes from World War II, where it was performed often enough that some long term followups were possible with sufficiently large n

Re: Old Spleens Suck (2021)

#20

Post by aklemm »

As an adolescent around 1990, I burst my spleen in the final minutes of a school ski trip. Nearly bled to death as the school staff transported me home and left me in my living room to be found later by my parents nearly unconscious.

Anyway, I got to the emergency room that evening and there was much debate whether to remove my spleen. They decided not to and instead kept me hospitalized for 10 days and then out of school for 3 more weeks after that waiting for it to heal on its own.

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