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Context: Metformin is a simple, very safe, and very common diabetic drug that appears to improve all-cause mortality and have some positive health effects in th

by ve55 6y ago

Context: Metformin is a simple, very safe, and very common diabetic drug that appears to improve all-cause mortality and have some positive health effects in the average person, even if minor (such as improving blood glucose levels and insulin resistance), thereby slightly lengthening human lifespan and improving the process of aging. For this reason it has been touted as an anti-aging drug by many, and is taken by many non-diabetics for this purpose. However, there have been more studies surfacing recently that show that it can make exercise less beneficial, of which the link in OP is a piece of evidence in favor of this. For those interested in other interesting substances in this area, I suggest looking into Acarbose and Rapamycin, but there's many others that seem pretty cool, even if highly speculative. Also adding after reading a child comment to this, Peter Attia is one of the many great people worth following in this area, with a very high-quality information-dense podcast.

tomp 6y ago
There's more to exercise than just mitochondrial adaptation... Presumably by inhibiting that, yet still demanding some adaptation from your body (by taxing it with strenuous exercise), you're promoting other adaptations? It might be beneficial somehow. Also, AFAIK more active mitochondria might not be a good thing (more reactive oxygen species damaging your cells, more chances of mitochondria mutating maybe causing cancer). Anyways, I'm not a professional, just a hobbyist follower of anti-aging community. For what it's worth, Peter Attia, an anti-aging doctor whom I follow, recently said he stopped taking metformin after having taken it for years.
nikolay 6y ago
Good for me as I don't exercise. I'm not sure why people believe that exercise is beneficial for life span - it is as much beneficial as it is detrimental. I see those people jogging for "health" right next to car exhausts and I keep scratching my head. If you look at the longest lifespans, you won't see any athletes at the top. In fact, you will see a lot of scientists who mostly live sedentary lives, but most of them do walk regularly, that's a fact, although not really an exercise. Aerobic exercise is the single biggest source of ROS', which is part of its benefit - it can kill pathogens, it can occasionally have a hormetic effect. Outside of sex, I don't see a any proof that jogging will make me live a longer, happier life (especially when you subtract the time spent jogging). Most of the benefits of exercise can be accomplished via diet and lifestyle changes. Maybe some flexibility exercises like callanetics are worth the effort though, which can be accomplish with simple yoga.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  > Outside of sex, I don't see a any proof that jogging will make me live a longer, happier life (especially when you subtract the time spent jogging). Still a valid use case for cardio training IMHO.
  - nikolay 6y ago
    Yeah, but at least it's real fun, unlike jogging. :D
- BubRoss 6y ago
  Seems like a lot of rationalizing.
- hombre_fatal 6y ago
  Life span is a red herring. It's like listening to a smoker point out their grandma lived til 95 while smoking, so how bad could it be? She just couldn't walk up the stairs without gasping for breath her final 30 years. There's a lot more to life than life span -- literally all of it. The curse of the human brain is that we easily rationalize and dismiss things like complex systems that don't have an obvious 1:1 daily payoff like exercise. You know exercise is good yet since you don't personally perceive its day to day impact on you, then it must be useless. Even though it might improve your lifelong mood 10%, prevent that hypothetical cancer from metastasizing in 10 years, make you 10% less irritable, make your dick perform for 10 years longer than it's going to now, be the lynch pin in all sorts of beneficial branches that life can take even on molecular levels that you will never be able to truly perceive. This is basically the state of the art of our understanding of exercise -- it's the only panacea we know of. Seems mighty convenient to convince yourself that something that's hard and requires willpower and that almost everyone fails at is in fact unnecessary after all. I would be a little more defensive against such obvious sweet self-deceptions.
- deleted 6y ago
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emit_time 6y ago
> Peter Attia is one of the many great people worth following in this area, with a very high-quality information-dense podcast. One of my favorite podcasts, and I had listened to every episode until recently. (no longer driving during the pandemic, and that’s when I used to listen to podcasts) The information density is awesome, it really makes me think trying to keep up with it, and over time I start to understand a bit more.

by ve55 6y ago

tomp 6y ago

There's more to exercise than just mitochondrial adaptation... Presumably by inhibiting that, yet still demanding some adaptation from your body (by taxing it with strenuous exercise), you're promoting other adaptations? It might be beneficial somehow. Also, AFAIK more active mitochondria might not be a good thing (more reactive oxygen species damaging your cells, more chances of mitochondria mutating maybe causing cancer). Anyways, I'm not a professional, just a hobbyist follower of anti-aging community. For what it's worth, Peter Attia, an anti-aging doctor whom I follow, recently said he stopped taking metformin after having taken it for years.

nikolay 6y ago

Good for me as I don't exercise. I'm not sure why people believe that exercise is beneficial for life span - it is as much beneficial as it is detrimental. I see those people jogging for "health" right next to car exhausts and I keep scratching my head. If you look at the longest lifespans, you won't see any athletes at the top. In fact, you will see a lot of scientists who mostly live sedentary lives, but most of them do walk regularly, that's a fact, although not really an exercise. Aerobic exercise is the single biggest source of ROS', which is part of its benefit - it can kill pathogens, it can occasionally have a hormetic effect. Outside of sex, I don't see a any proof that jogging will make me live a longer, happier life (especially when you subtract the time spent jogging). Most of the benefits of exercise can be accomplished via diet and lifestyle changes. Maybe some flexibility exercises like callanetics are worth the effort though, which can be accomplish with simple yoga.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
> Outside of sex, I don't see a any proof that jogging will make me live a longer, happier life (especially when you subtract the time spent jogging). Still a valid use case for cardio training IMHO.
- nikolay 6y ago
  Yeah, but at least it's real fun, unlike jogging. :D
BubRoss 6y ago
Seems like a lot of rationalizing.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
Life span is a red herring. It's like listening to a smoker point out their grandma lived til 95 while smoking, so how bad could it be? She just couldn't walk up the stairs without gasping for breath her final 30 years. There's a lot more to life than life span -- literally all of it. The curse of the human brain is that we easily rationalize and dismiss things like complex systems that don't have an obvious 1:1 daily payoff like exercise. You know exercise is good yet since you don't personally perceive its day to day impact on you, then it must be useless. Even though it might improve your lifelong mood 10%, prevent that hypothetical cancer from metastasizing in 10 years, make you 10% less irritable, make your dick perform for 10 years longer than it's going to now, be the lynch pin in all sorts of beneficial branches that life can take even on molecular levels that you will never be able to truly perceive. This is basically the state of the art of our understanding of exercise -- it's the only panacea we know of. Seems mighty convenient to convince yourself that something that's hard and requires willpower and that almost everyone fails at is in fact unnecessary after all. I would be a little more defensive against such obvious sweet self-deceptions.
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emit_time 6y ago

> Peter Attia is one of the many great people worth following in this area, with a very high-quality information-dense podcast. One of my favorite podcasts, and I had listened to every episode until recently. (no longer driving during the pandemic, and that’s when I used to listen to podcasts) The information density is awesome, it really makes me think trying to keep up with it, and over time I start to understand a bit more.