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Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

nytimes.com

21–30 of 54 posts

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#21
post #4

How long would effects like this last? I mean, let's say a bunch of children donated blood for the cause, and we used it to replace the blood of a senior citizen. I don't know how to phrase this properly, but how long does the blood maintain the youthful qualities? Do you constantly need new blood coming in from a young donor? Do you receive it once and you're good for a week? A year?

Current thinking I've been privy to is that the factors in question are short-lived.

In any case, this will never turn into cross-generation blood transplants on a regular basis. The present system of medical regulation is heavily biased towards demonstrating mechanisms. If you can't explain your mechanism you are not getting approved by the FDA, or at least not until such time as everyone else in the world is already doing it and the bureaucrats are made to look bad - see the last decade of stem cell transplants for the way in which that happens.

So the attempts at therapies that result from this will likely be delivery of proteins or interference with proteins to put a thumb on the scales of metabolic machinery. At which point it lasts for the period of time in which you are getting regular injections.

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#24
post #3
post #2

This has been well-known in the vampire community for centuries. [edit] More seriously, wow time to start talking about the ethics of immortality.

Please don't post substanceless one-liners here. The second one sounds more serious, but "wow time to start talking about the ethics of immortality" doesn't engage with anything in this article; it's simply an immediate leap to something generic and obvious. That is not what HN discussions need.

Please don't post substanceless one-liners here.

i.e. don't make jokes.

I've wondered about this because I've done the same thing and gotten downvoted. There's nothing about not making jokes in the guidelines. Personally I like a little humor mixed with my HN.

Is there some unspoken guideline that HN is supposed to be humorless?

And on a semi-serious note, isn't mildly interesting that one of the most common cultural myths (vampires) may have some scientific validity?

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#25

You have to be very careful when you say "reverses aging." That is a very different thing from "reverses a couple of measurable aspects associated with aging." In the former case you are making an assertion that will immediately lead you to having to define the cause and mechanisms of aging and defend your point that it is, as a process, reversed - and the definition of aging is a contentious topic at the present tim…

Aging is more than just accumulated dammage, menopause is a clear counter example to this idea. However, dammage does accumulate so like most complex systems there are no simple answers.

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#26
It's long been known that replacing the blood of an elderly person with that of a youth will make the codger feel like a million bucks. It really does work and, if I were a wealthy old guy, I would definitely have a stable of donors on hand and get weekly treatments.

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#27
post #24
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post substanceless one-liners here. The second one sounds more serious, but "wow time to start talking about the ethics of immortality" doesn't engage with anything in this article; it's simply an immediate leap to something generic and obvious. That is not what HN discussions need.

Please don't post substanceless one-liners here. i.e. don't make jokes. I've wondered about this because I've done the same thing and gotten downvoted. There's nothing about not making jokes in the guidelines. Personally I like a little humor mixed with my HN. Is there some unspoken guideline that HN is supposed to be humorless? And on a semi-serious note, isn't mildly interesting that one of the most common cultural…

scott_s made an insightful comment about this recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289.

HN isn't against humor per se. Personally, when I read Reddit, I'm in awe of how good the best jokes are. The problem is that you can't have everything; with a culture of humor comes a flood of lame humor. HN's tradeoff is to optimize for signal-noise ratio, so that stuff tends to get hammered.

There are other places to get lots of internet humor. HN is never going to be one of those, not because people don't like to laugh, but because the signal/noise problem is hard.

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#28
post #27
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't post substanceless one-liners here. i.e. don't make jokes. I've wondered about this because I've done the same thing and gotten downvoted. There's nothing about not making jokes in the guidelines. Personally I like a little humor mixed with my HN. Is there some unspoken guideline that HN is supposed to be humorless? And on a semi-serious note, isn't mildly interesting that one of the most common cultural…

scott_s made an insightful comment about this recently: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7609289 . HN isn't against humor per se. Personally, when I read Reddit, I'm in awe of how good the best jokes are. The problem is that you can't have everything; with a culture of humor comes a flood of lame humor. HN's tradeoff is to optimize for signal-noise ratio, so that stuff tends to get hammered. There are other place…

I do occasionally up vote posts that I find funny. I just down vote several times that. The real issue is HN has an older audience which does not find obvious one liners interesting.

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#29
post #25

You have to be very careful when you say "reverses aging." That is a very different thing from "reverses a couple of measurable aspects associated with aging." In the former case you are making an assertion that will immediately lead you to having to define the cause and mechanisms of aging and defend your point that it is, as a process, reversed - and the definition of aging is a contentious topic at the present tim…

Aging is more than just accumulated dammage, menopause is a clear counter example to this idea. However, dammage does accumulate so like most complex systems there are no simple answers.

Menopause is not a clear counter example. For all intents and purposes it is a symptom of biological aging and thus the result of "accumulated damage" (assuming that is indeed the overarching mechanism).

Re: Studies: Blood from young mice reverses aging in old mice

#30
post #25

You have to be very careful when you say "reverses aging." That is a very different thing from "reverses a couple of measurable aspects associated with aging." In the former case you are making an assertion that will immediately lead you to having to define the cause and mechanisms of aging and defend your point that it is, as a process, reversed - and the definition of aging is a contentious topic at the present tim…

Aging is more than just accumulated dammage, menopause is a clear counter example to this idea. However, dammage does accumulate so like most complex systems there are no simple answers.

Isn't menopoause caused by running out of eggs? Actually this is the same mechanism as reported in this story - a lack of stem cells. The interesting thing about this is the stem cells can be reactivated.
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