31–39 of 39 posts
1. Human stem cells will reproduce indefinitely without aging in a controlled environment.
2. Some turtles live 200 years, do they have a different DNA aging and cancer management program?
3. I thought aging was due to the polymerase having run out of buffer telomere junk data, cuts into the in-use data DNA files that are responsible for managing the refreshing of your body. src http://www.hhmi.org/biointeractive/cancer/animations.html
Thank you for linking to this interesting discussion on Reddit. Their discussion lacks a few key points. First, inflammation is an important cause of cellular (and DNA) damage. The standard weapon used by your innate immune system is super-oxide, a free radical! Avoiding chronic infections is likely to be an important key to longevity, especially for those prone to inflammation. Second, while "aging" is a natural mec…
Any discussion on cancer is very incomplete without an acknowledgement that pre-civilization cancer was much more rare, and in some hunter-gatherer societies almost unknown. Good Calories Bad Calories has a good discussion of this and other health issues in some remote areas. Some members of those societies lived into old age, and some members of our society get cancer at young ages. Along these lines, I would be ver…
One of the things he mentions is to not stress. How do you do this? I'm not a worry wart or anything, but sometimes it seems like I can't help my body's natural response to certain situations.
Serious research into it is pretty young, but things like regular exercise can help control the process a bit more. We're starting to find compounds that can reduce cortisol response as well (eg. a couple of cups of black tea a day seems to noticeably reduce it.) As research progresses, we should see more advancement.
In the meantime, most of the 'good for you' stuff tends to reduce the problem. Eat well, exercise, get enough sleep, and so forth. They all work to minimize your body's response to stress. Avoiding stressful situations is ideal, but they aren't the root of the problem as much as cortisol is.
Any discussion on cancer is very incomplete without an acknowledgement that pre-civilization cancer was much more rare, and in some hunter-gatherer societies almost unknown. Good Calories Bad Calories has a good discussion of this and other health issues in some remote areas. Some members of those societies lived into old age, and some members of our society get cancer at young ages. Along these lines, I would be ver…
In pre-civilization, how would they have known that someone had cancer?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
In pre-civilization, how would they have known that someone had cancer?
A better question (and maybe the one you are asking) is how would we know if someone outside of civilisation actually had cancer. You have to draw on various sources of evidence. It is possible to see evidence of health issues in skeletons, the most obvious example pertinent to this discussion might be something like bone cancer. The most convincing evidence on the issue is observational. It comes from people from ci…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A better question (and maybe the one you are asking) is how would we know if someone outside of civilisation actually had cancer. You have to draw on various sources of evidence. It is possible to see evidence of health issues in skeletons, the most obvious example pertinent to this discussion might be something like bone cancer. The most convincing evidence on the issue is observational. It comes from people from ci…
That's really interesting, thanks for sharing that. I always assumed that before modern medicine identified cancer, people thought that they were dying of other diseases & what not when in reality they had cancer. Is there any way that scientists can figure out if people from centuries ago died from cancer (excluding bone cancer)?
Personally I am convinced that cancer is just one of many degenerative health issues. If you follow that line of reasoning, than the frequency of degenerative issues in skeletal remains are likely related to the frequency of cancer and any other degenerative health issue. As one example, if you simply see caries (cavities) in the remains of the teeth, that would also mean cancer was more likely to occur. (very healthy indigenous cultures have almost no cavities). Obviously this is very loose logic, and certain groups are more likely to have certain issues that are more or less likely to show up in skeletal remains, but I believe the general principle is sound.
Any discussion on cancer is very incomplete without an acknowledgement that pre-civilization cancer was much more rare, and in some hunter-gatherer societies almost unknown. Good Calories Bad Calories has a good discussion of this and other health issues in some remote areas. Some members of those societies lived into old age, and some members of our society get cancer at young ages. Along these lines, I would be ver…
In pre-civilization, how would they have known that someone had cancer?