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What particular anti-aging effects do you regard? Are not improvements in mitochondrial health practical indicators of anti-aging as improvements in skin elasti

What particular anti-aging effects do you regard? Are not improvements in mitochondrial health practical indicators of anti-aging as improvements in skin elasticity or bone strength?

amluto 7y ago
Skin elasticity is directly useful. Stronger bones are probably less likely to break, although this isn’t quite a given. Improved mitochondria are improved mitochondria and are not at all guaranteed to be beneficial.
- will_brown 7y ago
  Improved mitochondria function means improved energy conversion (in other words greater ATP with less calories)...that seems pretty useful all by itself. Improving ATP efficiency is huge... i agree with you it may not mean stronger bones and more elastic skin...but we do know aging (less elastic skin and weaker bones) is related to the bodies breakdown in ATP supply/demand/conversion. I just don’t think you can gloss over mitochondria inprovement as no benefit...it’s literally an improvement in energy (more energy with less calories), it’s a benefit unto itself.
  - dannykwells 7y ago
    No, you are extrapolating that based off your understanding. Improved mitochondria might...mean nothing. In cancer, we see all the time the ability to get a cell we know is important into a tumor does not, necessarily, associate with clinical benefit. The same goes here. The ability to improve one small piece of biology does not mean, necessarily, that you will see a larger, emergent effect. Biology is much more complicated than that.
    - will_brown 7y ago
      >No, you are extrapolating that based off your understanding. Improved mitochondria might...mean nothing. No...there are numerous studies on the proven benefits of improved mitochondrial function/capacity. One of the benefits is cellular anti-aging.
      - amluto 7y ago
        Citation needed. Also, you’re assuming that “cellular anti-aging” is good for your health. You could be right, but you could be wrong.
  - amluto 7y ago
    > it’s literally an improvement in energy (more energy with less calories), it’s a benefit unto itself. It's entirely plausible that, in the modern world, this is actually a negative. Also, for all anyone knows, just "improving" mitochondria might also hurt due to increased production of free radicals and other strongly oxidizing species by those improved mitochondria.
fabian2k 7y ago
They didn't actually measure mitochondrial health, they measured acylcarnitine levels. Those levels indicate that certain metabolic pathways happening in the mitochondria are working better. This is still very far from any practical effect on the whole organism. Biomarkers can also be misleading, you're not measuring the actual process you're interested in directly, you're measuring a particular aspect that you think is strongly correlated with what you're actually interested in.
- strainer 7y ago
  Is the article wrong in stating "UA stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis". Did the measurements of acylcarnitine levels not actually show this? Have any other substances been found to affect acylcarnitine levels or stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis ?
  - gbrown 7y ago
    That's orthogonal to the point you're responding to - the point is that while this is a promising avenue for research, it does not provide evidence of a meaningful effect on the actual outcome of interest: aging/longevity. The point of a biomarker is that we think/hope/hypothesize that we can use it as a surrogate for the thing we're actually interested in, so that we have something measurable on shorter timescales. Unfortunately, this assumption is often incorrect, and we won't actually know for years.
    - strainer 7y ago
      I'm questioning the idea that this particular biomarker - doesn't actually mark what the report claims it marks (mitochondrial bio-genesis). How do we often test for diabetes.. cancers.. many many clinical conditions? Biomarkers. So they are not practically unreliable in general. What do you know about the particular biomarker employed in the study to say that it is unreliable ?
      - gbrown 7y ago
        1. Each biomarker has to be validated independently. 2. There's a huge difference between something used for testing, and something used for intervention. Grey hair is a pretty OK test for aging, but clearly dying it isn't going to arrest the aging process. Long term degenerative conditions are some of the most difficult problems for such validation, due to time, cost, and the complexity of risk in real populations. I don't know anything about how well the current study actually links to mitochondrial biogenesis, but I know that we don't have satisfactory interventional biomarkers for a process as complex as aging. By all means continue researching this, but I think it's eminently sensible to be skeptical at this point.

What particular anti-aging effects do you regard? Are not improvements in mitochondrial health practical indicators of anti-aging as improvements in skin elasticity or bone strength?

amluto 7y ago

Skin elasticity is directly useful. Stronger bones are probably less likely to break, although this isn’t quite a given. Improved mitochondria are improved mitochondria and are not at all guaranteed to be beneficial.

will_brown 7y ago
Improved mitochondria function means improved energy conversion (in other words greater ATP with less calories)...that seems pretty useful all by itself. Improving ATP efficiency is huge... i agree with you it may not mean stronger bones and more elastic skin...but we do know aging (less elastic skin and weaker bones) is related to the bodies breakdown in ATP supply/demand/conversion. I just don’t think you can gloss over mitochondria inprovement as no benefit...it’s literally an improvement in energy (more energy with less calories), it’s a benefit unto itself.
- dannykwells 7y ago
  No, you are extrapolating that based off your understanding. Improved mitochondria might...mean nothing. In cancer, we see all the time the ability to get a cell we know is important into a tumor does not, necessarily, associate with clinical benefit. The same goes here. The ability to improve one small piece of biology does not mean, necessarily, that you will see a larger, emergent effect. Biology is much more complicated than that.
  - will_brown 7y ago
    >No, you are extrapolating that based off your understanding. Improved mitochondria might...mean nothing. No...there are numerous studies on the proven benefits of improved mitochondrial function/capacity. One of the benefits is cellular anti-aging.
    - amluto 7y ago
      Citation needed. Also, you’re assuming that “cellular anti-aging” is good for your health. You could be right, but you could be wrong.
- amluto 7y ago
  > it’s literally an improvement in energy (more energy with less calories), it’s a benefit unto itself. It's entirely plausible that, in the modern world, this is actually a negative. Also, for all anyone knows, just "improving" mitochondria might also hurt due to increased production of free radicals and other strongly oxidizing species by those improved mitochondria.

fabian2k 7y ago

They didn't actually measure mitochondrial health, they measured acylcarnitine levels. Those levels indicate that certain metabolic pathways happening in the mitochondria are working better. This is still very far from any practical effect on the whole organism. Biomarkers can also be misleading, you're not measuring the actual process you're interested in directly, you're measuring a particular aspect that you think is strongly correlated with what you're actually interested in.

strainer 7y ago
Is the article wrong in stating "UA stimulates mitochondrial biogenesis". Did the measurements of acylcarnitine levels not actually show this? Have any other substances been found to affect acylcarnitine levels or stimulate mitochondrial biogenesis ?
- gbrown 7y ago
  That's orthogonal to the point you're responding to - the point is that while this is a promising avenue for research, it does not provide evidence of a meaningful effect on the actual outcome of interest: aging/longevity. The point of a biomarker is that we think/hope/hypothesize that we can use it as a surrogate for the thing we're actually interested in, so that we have something measurable on shorter timescales. Unfortunately, this assumption is often incorrect, and we won't actually know for years.
  - strainer 7y ago
    I'm questioning the idea that this particular biomarker - doesn't actually mark what the report claims it marks (mitochondrial bio-genesis). How do we often test for diabetes.. cancers.. many many clinical conditions? Biomarkers. So they are not practically unreliable in general. What do you know about the particular biomarker employed in the study to say that it is unreliable ?
    - gbrown 7y ago
      1. Each biomarker has to be validated independently. 2. There's a huge difference between something used for testing, and something used for intervention. Grey hair is a pretty OK test for aging, but clearly dying it isn't going to arrest the aging process. Long term degenerative conditions are some of the most difficult problems for such validation, due to time, cost, and the complexity of risk in real populations. I don't know anything about how well the current study actually links to mitochondrial biogenesis, but I know that we don't have satisfactory interventional biomarkers for a process as complex as aging. By all means continue researching this, but I think it's eminently sensible to be skeptical at this point.