Curing aging – feasibility and desirability

I feel like it's good in some ways, but bad in more ways. The planet is already on the brink of destruction, so having immortal humans who keep churning out kids will end up making Earth uninhabitable.

@mollydanger2210: I'm banning you for a week. Don't ignore my warnings. Also since you've been warned in the past this is your final warning.

Wanna engage in an uninvited theological discussion with me instead? lol

@gear4god: No.

I'd be down for it, or a least being able to live long enough to meet another human-like species

NAD Reverses Aging in Blood Vessels & Muscles in New Study

Harvard professor Dr. David Sinclair reports that NAD-boosting compound NMN reverses aging in blood vessels and restores muscle strength in a new study published March 22. Learn More: https://goo.gl/MPdJEH

@stan rodriguez: What about cryogenesis while we explore deep space?

I wouldn't want to live forever however I would want to live for a long long time like 1000-5000. The problem here however would be the growth of the population. I think a good idea would be to have people choose between eternal life or children, however some people might find this mean so I dunno. I personally have no use for children so for me the choice would be easy.

breakthrough (national geographic) already did an episode IIRC on this. Its definitely a possibility.

There have been some huge advances in cryopreservation over the last few years.

@gear4god: I'd want to be able to experience the trip too ya know.

But if cyro came with a minimal 1-3% risk of failure I'd be down for it.

@stan rodriguez: But the nearest stars are lightyears away. Proxima Centauri is 1.3 parsecs away, or 4.24003 light years. We're not warping spacetime or opening wormholes anytime soon. I don't think this will happen within my lifetime, to be honest.

@gear4god: I guess that will depend on the length of your life ?

@mortein: I don't want to live forever. There would be too much heartbreak for my heart (brain) to deal with.

Well, to be fair this thread is not about living forever. It's about developing technologies which would keep us healthy regardless of how long ago we were born. There will be a longevity side-effect, but we'll still be able to die, whenever we want, and on our own terms.

I like that idea. It's a gift almost no one has.

It's not a gift, we have to earn it. These technologies will not develop themselves.

@gear4god: I know but even without it and we're somehow able to manage to develop a rocket that can go at 10,000,000 kmh that trip is only gonna be a century and a half

Edit that was for one light year, so around 600 years or 40 something years for a craft going at 100,000,000 kmh which I don't think is out of the realm of possiblity espeically if we hit a technological singularity

i'd rather accept death as an unavoidable reality instead of running from it.

Even with anti-aging technologies death remains unavoidable, it's just that the risk of getting diseases and consequently the risk of death would not increase with every passing year, as it does now.

@mortein: In theory it is, seeing as natural causes is just dying from a disease that you get naturally at a high age. You get rid of those and PCD you're essentially immortal till the universe's end

What you say is true, not my point however. If you spend time looking for any way to prolong your life, whether it being anti-aging technologies or herbs etc. It obviously means you don't want to die and want to live as long as possible. Which means you're going to live the rest of your life afraid of dying. It's better to accept it then live your life in fear of it.

Any good medicine has the effect of prolonging life, and not just medicine, even things like hygiene or safety regulations. Are you against all those things?

You don't have to fear death to be pro-anti-aging medicines, you just have to like living. Hell not even that, you just have to like not being sick, wrinkly, frail, demented and dependent.

Yeah I wanna live forever, and I'm happy we're at a point in scientific advancement that people of my generation may be the first to live a couple extra hundred years. I read about how in 8 years scientists would be ready for human trials on a process that successfully reversed the ageing and appearance in mice, and since I'm only a teenager I can look forward to that while still being relatively young.

Dr. Aubrey de Grey, probably the most famous among the scientist who are developing anti-aging technologies, spends his spare time playing with mathematical problems. Recently he got lucky and solved some long standing open problem in math.

https://www.sciencealert.com/amateur-solves-decades-old-maths-problem-about-colours-that-can-never-touch-hadwiger-nelson-problem

Solves decades old math problems while taking a rest from his day job, saving the humanity. No need to hold his beer, he can do it while drinking.

Congratulations.

@mortein: This guy is cool. I think I saw him in a documentary sometime.

THIS

https://www.biotecnika.org/2018/04/antioxidant-mitoq-reinvigorates-aging-blood-vessels/

According to a new study, published in the American Heart Association journal Hypertension, older adults who take a mitochondrial-targeted antioxidant called MitoQ see age-related vascular changes reverse by the equivalent of 15 to 20 years within six weeks.

I actually already posted this almost 2 years ago, post #181

Articles about the development of rejuvenation therapies for dogs, project which has already started.

https://www.leafscience.org/new-harvard-startup-wants-to-reverse-aging-in-dogs-and-then-humans/

http://mobile.wnd.com/2018/05/first-fountain-of-youth-for-dogs-then-humans/

https://consumer.healthday.com/senior-citizen-information-31/longevity-982/can-fido-fetch-the-fountain-of-youth-733876.html

Jim Mellon advises to start investing in anti-aging biotech.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/patrickcox/2017/03/31/brit-billionaire-jim-mellon-says-biotech-is-the-best-investment-now/#492899f932d4

About telomere lengthening

https://www.inverse.com/article/45256-telomere-lengthening

About NAD+

https://blog.bulletproof.com/nadh/

http://time.com/5159879/is-an-anti-aging-pill-on-the-horizon/

https://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2018/05/19/scientists-are-working-slow-aging-process-and-delay-onset-disease/B8WxlFXy2ZSinLoeWgIrlL/story.html

https://www.leafscience.org/reversing-vascular-aging/

About senolytics which have showed to extend their lifespan by 20-35%.

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2018/05/dutch-scientists-test-anti-ageing-molecule-180520121659236.html

A new strategy for stimulating autophagy

https://phys.org/news/2018-05-cellular-recycling.html

Escargot Gene Knockdown Extends Life in Flies

https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2018/05/escargot-gene-knockdown-extends-life-in-flies/

We could reverse aging by removing wrinkles inside our cells

https://medicalxpress.com/news/2018-05-reverse-aging-wrinkles-cells.html

Japan OKs first clinical study of iPS cell-based heart treatment

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2018/05/16/national/science-health/japan-oks-first-clinical-study-ips-cell-based-heart-treatment/#.Ww5sDCC-ncs

https://www.technologyreview.com/the-download/611634/these-anti-aging-pills-may-actually-work/

It's been a while since I posted here.

So here's something interesting

Altos Labs has launched today with the aim of unraveling the deep biology of cellular rejuvenation programming, with $3 billion fully committed from renowned company builders and investors, reportedly including billionaires such as Amazon founder Jeff Bezos and Yuri Milner

https://www.thepharmaletter.com/article/altos-labs-launches-with-3b-financing-and-hal-barron-as-ceo

Which company has a better chance of reaching their goal?

Old age is a concern because it is disabling, but it will never take away that after a certain life time we get bored to death.

immortality is flawed. Life is about doing what you can in the time you have, not trying to extend it.

That's such a strange argument I often hear being brought against the idea of curing aging.

Firstly, the idea that we would get bored is just your conjecture, secondly being bored at the age of 250 seems better than having Alzheimer's at the age of 85, and thirdly why would anyone assume that gradual decay, suffering and death would be the best way to solve the problem of boredom?

Sure, it's possible that we might get bored, and if we do we'll solve that problem.

Things that should not be confused: age and aging as well as aging and degenerative disease.

People of the same age can have very different aging. I believe that aging is more in the head than in the body. We see people with very diminished bodies remaining incredibly active, dynamic, joyful and communicative and others, in good physical health, completely dejected by the withdrawal from work, withdrawn, sad and depressed.

We must strengthen the fight against degenerative diseases because they create a very unfair inequality in the face of natural ageing.

Anti-aging marketing is a scam. Nothing can decrease the age because for that it would be necessary to slow down the time. Cosmetic surgery, rejuvenating balms, spa treatments and others, miracle diets only recreate the illusion of rediscovered youth. Who doesn't know how to distinguish a cougar from a middle-aged woman? (I'm sorry ladies, I can't find an equivalent expression for the masculine, and yet...)

IMO aging must first be fought in the head. It is only after having learned to age serenely that one can consider aging more slowly. It seems paradoxical but I believe it is not.

lol what???

@sylviaanimenerd

What??? what???, it's not chinese I guess.

Like anyone of you would get it if they discovered it. It will only be for the super rich.

It would be interesting to apply planned obsolescence to humans. The richer you get, the older you get and the sooner you die. An original way to organize the redistribution of wealth.

That's not very likely, as aging is extremely expensive for the society.

We spend on average 10 times more money on our health during the last year of our life, than in all the previous years combined. Then there are pensions, for the last few decades of their lives, people are just consuming wealth and are rarely capable of creating it. Then young people are less productive because they have to take care of the elderly people. As long as we are aging we have to constantly produce children, who are also only consuming wealth without creating it for decades.

Any country which fails to make rejuvenation technologies available to most people will be economically completely noncompetitive.

Also I'm not sure why do people assume the rich and powerful would rather have ever changing population of degrading humans under themselves, rather than a stable population of healthy humans, who's health and existence depends on regular rejuvenation therapies developed and provided at least in part by the big pharma?

If anything we will be incentivized to take these therapies, and the level of control the rich and powerful will have over us once these therapies are developed is the problem we should start working on today.

For starters, if we don't want billionaires like Bezos, Thiel, Sergei, Buterin, Milner, Mellon and others monopolizing this field, we should start voting for politicians who prioritize the development of rejuvenation technologies with public resources and for public good.

Obviously I'm not talking about the chronological aging, I'm talking about the biological aging, the accumulation of molecular and cellular damage as a side effect of our metabolism, which causes diseases and disabilities of old age.

For 40 years, half of my salary was taken away to fund my health insurance and my retirement insurance. For a few decades, God willing, I'm going to consume my wealth and that's my freedom and my right.

I don't necessarily want to live longer, at least once you get to your 90s or 100, but I would love to have better quality of life up to that point.

Sure, the point is that the society will no longer need to have such a system in place for old people, if old people are as healthy as young people.

Old age medical costs and pension costs, as well as maybe the socialized expenditures on children are likely to be far greater than the cost of these therapies, and the governments would benefit by offering you the affordable access to these therapies in exchange for all those other things.

So imagine if you were 99 years old, but you look and feel like a healthy 25 year old. You've just returned from your first Moon vacation, it sucked but all your friends are jealous so you're satisfied. You are sitting in your chair, having some news downloaded to your brain, something about the third Mars colony being built, waste of time and money if you were to be asked, as your android servant approaches you with a glass of wine, and reminds you that your 100th birthday is coming next week.

The android states that he's aware of your reluctance to live beyond that age, and asks you if you would like for him to arrange the gentle assisted suicide for your birthday. What do you respond?

@mortein: Not sure I can make that decision until I'm there in a real situation. However, I will say that a lot of that sounds like a nightmare to me--minus the part about feeling 25.

.

Not sure what's the nightmare part, traveling, drinking wine, having android servant?

But I can respect this answer.

I also don't know if I want to live for thousands or even for a hundred years, but I do know I want to have the choice to live to a 100 once I'm 99, rather than to have that option removed from me by my progressively declining health.