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Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

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Re: Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

#61

Post by rcoveson »

aydyn wrote: post #15
code51 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You see I'm also a human being such as you who values life and people. It's a bit harsh to comment about my world view sarcastically like that. I was just voicing something about the process: biology is a complex thing and longevity is not attacking things from a metabolic, complex-system viewpoint. As we see here, we are after single pills or single gene activations to carry us to a healthy state. I doubt infinite h…

Ignore that response, theyre just being a jerk. There are other mammals who live much longer than humans. Evolution optimized for continuation of the species, not longevity of the individual. So there is absolutely optimization room for increasing human lifespan.

> There are other mammals who live much longer than humans.

This didn't ring true to me so I did a bit of reading. AFAICT there's one[0] species of mammal that can live much longer than us. We're at least tied for second-longest lifespan of all mammals.

0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowhead_whale

Re: Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

#64

Post by scotty79 »

rcoveson wrote: post #61
aydyn wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ignore that response, theyre just being a jerk. There are other mammals who live much longer than humans. Evolution optimized for continuation of the species, not longevity of the individual. So there is absolutely optimization room for increasing human lifespan.

> There are other mammals who live much longer than humans. This didn't ring true to me so I did a bit of reading. AFAICT there's one[0] species of mammal that can live much longer than us. We're at least tied for second-longest lifespan of all mammals. 0. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowhead_whale

I think you should look at it in terms of lifetime calories burned per unit of body mass. Most mammals have very similar lifespan measured in this manner. With the exception of bats. Because they really needed to burn way more calories, so they figured it out how to do it without accumulating damage to their bodies that eventually leads to death at the same lousy rate that all other mammals can get away with.

Re: Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

#65

Post by scotty79 »

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #48
MattPalmer1086 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Who said anything about infinite cancer free lives? Some animals live longer than us. Many of them have lower cancer rates than us too. Seems like a good idea to investigate the possibility of having longer and healthier lives.

Those animals (e.g. tortoises, lobsters) with longer lives combined with less cancer have significantly lower metabolisms and a far less ... intense ... lifestyle. Higher cellular respiration introduces higher chances for mutation / inflammation / cell damage. Likewise, high rates of cellular reproduction do the same. Every incidence of that is a roll of the dice for cancer. Extend the lifetime, and you will for sure…

Bats have surprisingly long lifespans for their very intense lifestyles

Re: Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

#66

Post by viking123 »

bglazer wrote: post #54
viking123 wrote: post #53

I would really like to see the end of aging and by that I mean the end of age related disease, dying from ALS or Alzheimer's disease (which both are by and large age related diseases) is not nice. My mom has ALS and it is tough. I don't see much other hope in curing these diseases tbh, it feels like the research is going nowhere so I am somewhat excited about longevity research and glad that someone is pursuing it. I…

Alzheimer's just had two drugs approved by the FDA for treating the disease. They're certainly not a cure, they only slow the onset of symptoms by removing plaques from the brain. The underlying factors that cause the buildup of plaques still aren't well understood. That said, I would still put much more hope in the research into well-defined, specific diseases such as Alzheimer's than I would into aging or longevity…

But for ALS sadly there is like nothing, absolutely nothing meaningful. My country doesn't even allow assisted suicide so your option is basically to go to Switzerland or degenerate here and die when you cannot breath anymore.

I am by no means expert in this area, but there are some epigenetic aging clocks that are based on some machine learning models, and supposedly they somehow show your "true" biological age and predict death quite accurately. GrimAge, epiage etc. Sometimes I have wanted to take that test but haven't bothered.

Re: Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

#68

Post by aetherspawn »

luminen wrote: post #58
aetherspawn wrote: post #2

By 4% which may as well be experimental error, right? The mice could have very well just lived longer due to increased interest/handling/measurement of their welfare. This seems insignificant when compared with other selector genes such as H63D and C282Y, which could potentially double or halve subjects life span depending on environmental factors.

Doubling lifespan is definitely a bigger impact than 4%, but let's explore what the hypothetical "perfect application" of this study to a human life. A fairly average lifespan is 80 years, so a 4% increase would be about 3.2 years. If I were offered a "wonder drug" that would give me 1,168 more days with a loved one, I would take it. Obviously that is not how science like this works, but stacking small victories over…

Hm, would you go through the process of GM your (otherwise naturally conceived) kid on the chance that their lifespan would increase by 4%? For me personally, OK, 10% ... maybe, 20% definitely.

But what stigma and complications/risks could they live with for a 4% increase in lifespan? What if they find out in 30 years time that their GM means that they can't have kids with their partner or something because there is some biological incompatibility that wasn't anticipated and it just miscarriages. What if some country is Xenophobic to the idea and won't grant them residency or a passport because they are GM, or they are eventually targeted by some kind of anti-GM hate group? Would that 4% be worth it? Like everything it's a risk-reward value prop.

Re: Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

#69

Post by keepamovin »

michaelmrose wrote: post #47
keepamovin wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's interesting to consider in evolutionary terms: "what's the tradeoff?" Why is there the proportion of Methuselan species that there are? Why not more, or less? One simple take is old age is adaptive: the longer you live, the more chances to mate, the more offpsring, the more likely that your genes survive, perpetuating it. One simple counter take is old age is not adaptive: the longer you live, the more y…

Arguably longevity may not be very meaningfully beneficial if you have a slim chance of getting old in the first place. You also must consider human reproductive design where eggs aren't produced on demand.

Ah, that's a good one, yeah. So you need a lack of natural predators and stable environment. That's true about reproduction as well, so evolutionary fitness of longevity favors males, but not, necessarily females after menopause. Part of human longevity may also be to extend female fertility...if women want that!

Re: Naked Mole Rat’s Longevity Gene Gives Mice a Longer Life

#70

Post by Out_of_Characte »

aetherspawn wrote: post #68
luminen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doubling lifespan is definitely a bigger impact than 4%, but let's explore what the hypothetical "perfect application" of this study to a human life. A fairly average lifespan is 80 years, so a 4% increase would be about 3.2 years. If I were offered a "wonder drug" that would give me 1,168 more days with a loved one, I would take it. Obviously that is not how science like this works, but stacking small victories over…

Hm, would you go through the process of GM your (otherwise naturally conceived) kid on the chance that their lifespan would increase by 4%? For me personally, OK, 10% ... maybe, 20% definitely. But what stigma and complications/risks could they live with for a 4% increase in lifespan? What if they find out in 30 years time that their GM means that they can't have kids with their partner or something because there is…

Biologic incompatibility isn't as much of a concern. At least not with the modification in the article. Our genes encode a wide variety of proteins and enzymes that differ from person to person. Even people with significantly debilitating mutations havent had trouble conceiving. Even people with extra x or y chromosones do not have to worry about the matter. Though some men do have strange mutations like only being able to conceive girls with their partner.
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