McMaster researchers may have found a way to restore metabolism to youth levels • Hacker News Board

Re: McMaster researchers may have found a way to restore metabolism to youth levels

#121

Post by accolade » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 1:01 PM UTC

ryanobjc wrote: post #115

freshhawk wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I actually find it surprising here given the large number of people here sympathetic to the transhuman/singularity/quantified-self/life-hacker type ideals. Does it not occur to them that findings like this, combined with a good diet and exercise, are the most likely candidates for actually living longer and staying healthy further into your old age? I don't care what lazy people will "get away with", I want these adv…

What's healthy? I switched my diet to substantially up my saturated fats, increased my red meat intake by 4x and ended up losing weight, improving my lipids, and blood pressure and a lot more. Basically, what I'm saying is, by ignoring ALL the advice of medical professionals and the USDA/etc was I able to change my life and establish a new, sustainable (as in for me to keep doing it), diet. So, tell me again about wh…

A good diet is highly subjective and individual. You should know this. My parents are strictly vegan and although they are in their mid 60s, they're physically more fit and active than most people 30 years younger.

Re: McMaster researchers may have found a way to restore metabolism to youth levels

#122

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 2:10 PM UTC

ryanobjc wrote: post #113

twobits wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TL;DR: Capitalism solves everything. /sarcasm. Some day humanity will realize that the freedom to say and pursue a different opinion, is not the same as "competition". The freedom to a diff opinion, and pursuing it, is good. Cooperation and sharing, is good. Competition, is bad. It focuses on "wining" and not on solutions and improvement. PS: Yeah, I know, I live in a wrong, fucking, century :-(

Bah to your sarcastic pessimism. Doesn't help you, doesn't help the world. Here, read this and upgrade your thinking on the subject of failings of capitalism and why they are so: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/07/30/meditations-on-moloch/

Could we please not pretend the failings of capitalism are entirely coordination problems and/or eldritch abominations? I mean, come on, your average capitalist society is actually very well-coordinated when it comes to the interests of big banks or agribusiness.

Re: McMaster researchers may have found a way to restore metabolism to youth levels

#123

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 2:14 PM UTC

freshhawk wrote: post #79

tempestn wrote: post #37

I don't really understand the comments here, and especially on the article itself, deriding this research because "people should just get off their butts and exercise" or similar. I'm sure the researchers wouldn't dispute the benefits of exercise. But if there really is a safe, effective way to improve the metabolism and make it easier to keep off fat, why exactly is that a bad thing? (Naturally the research is far t…

I actually find it surprising here given the large number of people here sympathetic to the transhuman/singularity/quantified-self/life-hacker type ideals. Does it not occur to them that findings like this, combined with a good diet and exercise, are the most likely candidates for actually living longer and staying healthy further into your old age? I don't care what lazy people will "get away with", I want these adv…

Cognitive dissonance and beliefs-as-attire are a nasty thing to fall victim to. Yes, diet and exercise are the most effective longevity interventions we can possibly take on an individual scale. Unfortunately, that doesn't mean every self-proclaimed "transhumanist" or whatever will actually take the most effective action for their own health and longevity when it conflicts with long-built-up bad habits.

Re: McMaster researchers may have found a way to restore metabolism to youth levels

#124

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 2:19 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #7

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #2

Seems like we are trying to engineer a solution that is fundamentally a behavioral issue rather than mechanical. I do realize though that assuming we can reign in consumption socially is a non-starter at the same time though I think enabling high levels of consumption is the opposite of what we should be doing. That said, anything we can do to reverse aging I am all for, I just hope our consumption patterns can becom…

> That said, anything we can do to reverse aging I am all for, I just hope our consumption patterns can become less extreme. I disagree; aging and death are natural processes that could wreak havoc economically if significantly altered. Right now, the young have the ability to progress in the economy because older people eventually leave the workforce through retirement or death. People need to be able to die natural…

>Right now, the young have the ability to progress in the economy because older people eventually leave the workforce through retirement or death.

You're kidding, right? This is some kind of bad joke in which longevity is blamed for the shitty labor market faced by Millenials?

>Though the more likely proposition would be that the wealthy who could afford the treatments would never die, and the rest of the population would. That's an even worse scenario in my opinion.

Yes, that's why we should smash capitalism.

Re: McMaster researchers may have found a way to restore metabolism to youth levels

#125

Post by eli_gottlieb » Sun, Dec 14, 2014, 2:22 PM UTC

exelius wrote: post #33

noobermin wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking that hypothesis, do you suppose that the lengthening of the life expectancy of developed countries has had a negative impact on said countries? Or do you think about life prolongation is a good thing up to a point?

It's a good thing up to a point, but we're seeing the negative sides of it too. Namely, we as a society expend a lot of resources on prolonging our lives (in the form of health care costs). We're probably about as far as we can go on life expectancy using cheap/preventative methods like antibiotics and diet/lifestyle changes. So any additional growth in life expectancy will probably be exponentially more expensive (a…

>Namely, we as a society expend a lot of resources on prolonging our lives (in the form of health care costs). We're probably about as far as we can go on life expectancy using cheap/preventative methods like antibiotics and diet/lifestyle changes.

Quite the opposite in the US and Europe, actually: most health-care money is spent in the last few months of life, when disease is severe and medical care is intensive. Much of this could be avoided, to a benefit in both currency and quality-years-of-life, if we employed a lot more preventative and lifestyle-focused medical interventions rather than racing desperately to save someone with heart problems at 63 or a stroke at 88 that could have been prevented by jogging more at 24.

Japan is an examine of where this approach has been tried and succeeded, with the result that they have one of the longest expected lifespans in the world.