4 ms·

I think the biggest bit of positive news in this fascinating study is mentioned just in passing...that the treated mice "developed Cancer later". In a lot of A

I think the biggest bit of positive news in this fascinating study is mentioned just in passing...that the treated mice "developed Cancer later". In a lot of Aging related research tinkering, very often there are steep costs to improving life-spans - increased rates of Cancer. See anytime you mess with the reason a Cell lives or dies due to ageing, you are risking higher Cancer rates. The fact that this treatment both improves life-spans and "delays cancer" is indeed very promising. Now hopefully the transmission pathways hold true in Humans...

JulianMorrison 11y ago
Ageing seems to have several orthogonal causes[1]. So it's a mistake to see each discovery like this in isolation as a candidate cure for ageing. A real cure is likely to need a series of distinct cleanup processes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negl...
nonbel 11y ago
People also report ~2x differences in tumor death rates due to weird stuff like cage row though: "a strong correlation between cage row and RE (reticulo-endothelial tumor) death rates, which varied from 17% (bottom row) to 32% (top row) (table 2)." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6935460 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6935460 Doesn't look like they controlled for that in the current paper. Who knows? In the extended figures they report a huge variation in median lifespan between different labs (like 33%, corresponding to what would be differences of 25-30 years for humans). It could have something to do with closeness to the door, air circulation, etc that people aren't thinking about. Maybe rodents gain some health benefit from being nearer the ground. Less stress when they look out the window?

4 ms·

I think the biggest bit of positive news in this fascinating study is mentioned just in passing...that the treated mice "developed Cancer later". In a lot of A

by suprgeek 11y ago

JulianMorrison 11y ago
Ageing seems to have several orthogonal causes[1]. So it's a mistake to see each discovery like this in isolation as a candidate cure for ageing. A real cure is likely to need a series of distinct cleanup processes. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negligible_Senescence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategies_for_Engineered_Negl...
nonbel 11y ago
People also report ~2x differences in tumor death rates due to weird stuff like cage row though: "a strong correlation between cage row and RE (reticulo-endothelial tumor) death rates, which varied from 17% (bottom row) to 32% (top row) (table 2)." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6935460 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6935460 Doesn't look like they controlled for that in the current paper. Who knows? In the extended figures they report a huge variation in median lifespan between different labs (like 33%, corresponding to what would be differences of 25-30 years for humans). It could have something to do with closeness to the door, air circulation, etc that people aren't thinking about. Maybe rodents gain some health benefit from being nearer the ground. Less stress when they look out the window?