This is why for years here on Hacker News I have been more than a little skeptical about university press releases announcing that this or that group of researc

This is why for years here on Hacker News I have been more than a little skeptical about university press releases announcing that this or that group of researchers has discovered a new breakthrough for curing this or that human disease. It is wonderful that medical researchers continue to do basic research better to understand physiology, genetics, and biochemistry. And it is especially wonderful that researchers doing basic research sometimes think about translational research to apply to basic science findings to clinical medicine. But that takes a lot of time and careful work. Here on Hacker News, we all like to be excited by possible breakthroughs that will help us or our loved ones to enjoy longer, healthier lives. But an announcement of a laboratory result in cultured cell lines or in mice or some other preliminary model is a LONG way from a demonstration of safety and effectiveness for a new treatment of a human disease. Let's keep funding and celebrating basic research, and let's keep advancing the frontier in clinical trials on human patients, but let's reality-check every step of the way to make sure that proposed new treatments really do good, and really do more good than harm. For perspective on this, it's important to note that age-adjusted all-cause mortality has been steadily going DOWN all over the world. Life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising throughout both the developed countries and the still developing countries of the world.[1] Right now, the number-one thing we can do to reduce our own risk of disability or death is to take action on known individual preventive measures that raise likelihood of good health and to set up institutional incentives for doctors and other practitioners to use best-practice means of preventing and treating disease. Steady incremental improvements of many kinds are increasing healthy human lifespan all over the world at all ages.[2] [1] "The Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf http://www.demographic-challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2... [2] http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...