That sentence is interesting: "They are certainly the longest-lived mammals on the planet. Indeed, they may be the longest-lived complex animals of any sort."

That sentence is interesting: "They are certainly the longest-lived mammals on the planet. Indeed, they may be the longest-lived complex animals of any sort." I wish I had the money to follow up on that. Of the long-lived vertebrate species (I mean the ones that can live in excess of 200 years) most seem to be at least occasionally exposed to high pressures in the deep sea (off hand, the only exception I can think of is land-based turtles, who also live a long time yet, as far as I know, never face deep sea pressures). At this point there is a substantial literature suggesting health benefits, to humans, from hyperbaric oxygen therapy. Certainly, HBO seems to be an effective treatment for insulin resistance. This raises the question, is it the pressure, or the oxygen, or both, that creates the health benefit? I can imagine arguments in both directions. Possibly the pure oxygen creates oxidative stress which then brings forth a response, as Wikipedia writes here (on a page about calorie restriction): "Although aging can be conceptualized as the accumulation of damage, the more recent determination that free radicals participate in intracellular signaling has made the categorical equation of their effects with "damage" more problematic than was commonly appreciated in years past. It was previously proposed on a hypothetical basis that free radicals may induce an endogenous response culminating in more effective adaptations which protect against exogenous radicals (and possibly other toxic compounds).[49] Recent experimental evidence strongly suggests that this is indeed the case, and that such induction of endogenous free radical production extends life span of a model organism and mitohormetically exerts life extending and health promoting effects. Sublethal mitochondrial stress with an attendant stoichiometric augmentation of reactive oxygen species may precipitate many of the beneficial alterations in cellular physiology produced by caloric restriction." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calorie_restriction But pressure can lead to the increase of a wide range of chemical reactions, and probably increases the activity of various enzymes. This is the angle that I think has not seen much research, and which I wish I had money to dive into myself. For instance, does resveratrol become more efficient when under pressure? Or when in a pure oxygen environment?