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Longevity FAQ: A beginner's guide to longevity research
- apsec112 6y agoHN discussion from three years ago, although I think this page has been updated since then: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098176 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16098176
- flyinglizard 6y agoActual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Imagine life with no kids and the joy they bring, a stagnation in all societal structures, no turnover of ideas (loosely quoting "agendas don't die; people die"). I'm sure such a civilization would be very stable, but won't have any extreme sports.
- d_burfoot 6y ago> Imagine life with no kids People will still be able to have kids. In fact in many cases people will be able to have as many kids as they normally would. As long as the fertility rate is less than 2 children/woman, the total population will still converge even if no one dies. Places like South Korean have a fertility rate of 1 c/w, which would produce a mere doubling of the total population.
- yesbabyyes 6y ago> As long as the fertility rate is less than 2 children/woman, the total population will still converge even if no one dies. Converge to what? How?
- ben_w 6y agoI think they mean the infinite sequence of Σ (generation_n) always converges to some finite number when generation_(n+1) = k * generation_n has k < 1, which is equivalent to <2 immortal children per woman. I don’t think that’s a good model, as people who want more offspring will out-reproduce those who don’t, but that’s an argument for another time.
- s7atic 6y ago> I don’t think that’s a good model, as people who want more offspring will out-reproduce those who don’t, but that’s an argument for another time. This argument assumes the offspring behaves in the same way as their parents. I don't see that necessarily being true. Even if that is the case, there are legislative solutions.
- reducesuffering 6y agoTo population 0. 1.9 children / woman is a .95 multiplier on human population per generation, like a -5% interest rate. Assuming birth rate is constant < 2, it converges to 0.
- sokoloff 6y agoNot "if no one dies" which was part of GGP's claim.
- reducesuffering 6y agoCorrect, my mistake. Other comments with summations are the accurate convergence then.
- 0-_-0 6y agoThis is correct. For example: Let's say the population is P and the net reproduction rate (the number of daughters a woman has in her lifetime) is 0.9. The next generation would have 0.9P people, the next one would have 0.9², then 0.9³, etc. Even with immortality you would get lim_(i→∞)∑ᵢ0.9ⁱP = 9P. So as long as the net reproduction rate is less than one the population stabilises at a finite number even if everyone is immortal.
- vimy 6y agoWhy do you assume there would be no kids? How else will we populate our solar system.
- flyinglizard 6y agoI remember the times where colonizing the solar system was a means for our collective survival, not an endgame for which we irreversibly change our society. That aside, we could populate the solar system just as well with people who live a healthy century. It only takes a few months to get to Mars with the current technology.
- antepodius 6y agoWe could populate it equally well with people who live a healthy half-century. And think of the progress that would be possible with that sort of population turnaround! Will you join me in making this dream come true?
- adrianN 6y agoEventually there would be a lot fewer kids. The new worlds we can colonize scale quadratically with the volume of space we can reach, but the number of potentially procreating humans scales cubically. Although I'd assume that we have left our biological bodies behind before that.
- xwdv 6y agoThe best time to be alive is when longevity break throughs first appear. You have the advantages of experiencing the old ways of living and get to live unexpectedly longer and see the world adapt to the new normal. Fortunately that is what we are positioned for.
- nynx 6y agoYou're getting some downvotes, but I actually agree with this. The next ten or twenty years are going to be the most exciting so far, and then it only goes up from there.
- Vinceo 6y agoHow long time do you think it's realistic that we reach longevity escape velocity? And what current longevity research do you think is the most promising?
- lachlan-sneff 6y agoI have no idea, I'm not a scientist, I'm just a transhumanist.
- xwdv 6y agoProbably about 20 years, just try to hold on until then.
- lachlan-sneff 6y agoDo you not want to live longer?
- flyinglizard 6y agoI also don’t want to pay taxes but here I am, grudgingly paying them for the benefit of our societal structure. Would I want to live in a world where people don’t have kids, where people can take as much time as they want because time is infinite, a world where you wouldn’t even go out on the street for the chance something would happen to you and deprive you of eternal existence? I’m not sure, and in any case, it will be a vastly different future. Imagine Mark Zuckerberg running his empire for 900 years straight.
- echelon 6y agoYou do you. I want to live 900 years and explore every discipline under the sun. I want to travel the world twenty times, read every book, see a hundred thousand sunsets. Don't tell me I or anyone else doesn't deserve that. Evolution left us with bodies that don't permit it, but we'll escape that limit someday.
- flyinglizard 6y agoDo you have kids? I think my view on this radically changed as a father. I feel like my generation sticking around forever would come at the expense of our children (or their children, which by proxy is the same thing). With kids around, there’s just something biologically soothing that tells you “you’ve done your part. You can leave this world at peace”. I know it’s not the same for everyone but on a humankind level, that’s exactly how it works. “A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they shall never sit.”
- bpizzi 6y agoThose are beliefs from the past. Given time it will change. What human kind is biologically hardwired for is personal survival ability, not leaving the world for youngsters as soon as possible, and those two precepts are mutually exclusive.
- kgin 6y agoI would ask why 80 just happens to be the best lifespan for humans. If we’re optimizing for things you listed, imagine how much more child-inspired joy and new idea throughput we could get if we had kids at 18 and died at 40? I’m still unclear on the point of life, but I’m not convinced it’s that kind of optimization exercise.
- PeterisP 6y agoI would look at this as something where the interests of the society or species as a whole diverge from the interests of individuals. It may be quite reasonable for someone to prefer a more dynamic society and social structures caused by an average life span of 50 years, while at the same time preferring themselves and their loved ones to live for 100+ years on average. The question of "do you want to live much longer" is not the same as "do you want everyone to live much longer"; accepting that death and "forced turnover" has some positive role in how societies function (e.g. that you can't have eternal dictators because, in the worst case, eventually they die of old age) is compatible with still wanting death to be something that happens only to someone else whom you don't know or don't like. It's hypocritical but realistic - there's no reason to assume that longevity advances will be distributed to be evenly available.
- acituan 6y ago> I would look at this as something where the interests of the society or species as a whole diverge from the interests of individuals. This is spot on, and exactly what is going at the genetic level. The reason we have sexual reproduction as opposed to mere cloning ourselves is the fact that environment that the initial set of genes worked well changes over time and the genes have to continuously innovate and experiment to have a chance in adapting to the new environment. Sexual reproduction introduces this variability to build these A/B/C... tests in the form of mini niches we are constructing. Granted, humans don't only reproduce genetically but also memetically, to borrow from Dawkins. And the memetic transmission is complicated, on one hand technology makes it trivial for ideas to spread, on the other hand 1-1 care of grandparents and parents still matter a lot for example in child development. But at the genetic level, wishing to extend life means essentially "cloning" one's genes more and more into the future.
- rantwasp 6y agoI would not fear it. Technology has the potential to make us immortal and to help us transcend out biological beginnings. Humans that live for extended periods of time would be able to make progress and keep knowledge alive for longer periods of time facilitating an acceleration of progress made -> repeat. You are also assuming that we fix aging but we make no progress in other domains. Would you really care how old you were if you could "download" yourself in a new replica at will? ie technology was so advanced that we would maintain our biological form only because we would like to experience things our ancestors did, not because it would be necessary. --- Also, when people say longevity there are at least 2 things that are mingled together. One is: living longer but the other one is just improving the quality of life. So whenever you are afraid of this new future, picture people living 20% longer only, but their life quality into their 80s and 90s would be the same as a person today in their 40s. Who would not want to have a better quality of life and instead of spending their last decades watching as their body fails and things get worse and worse?
- kiba 6y agoActual substantial longevity - beyond quality of life enhancements - is something I greatly fear. It would change everything. Enhancing health basically means you live longer. If you don't want to live longer then don't be healthy.
- abdullahkhalids 6y agoI don't have to convince you or death-desirers of anything. I simply have to outlive you. (loosely quoting Cory Doctorow)
- hyko 6y agoThere’s nothing to fear really. Why would there be no kids? Why would biologically “young” people have no new ideas? I didn’t like extreme sports when I was young, but maybe if I was 10,000 years old, I’d think screw it and have a go at BASE jumping...
- accurrent 6y agoI don't know why you got down voted. Its perfectly honest to express what you feel.
- alirsgp 6y agoAnyone don't want longevity for humans? I think death is a beautiful thing and for a lot of us including myself life has been really tough at times. The fact that there is an equalizer in death makes life comforting at times.
- Apocryphon 6y agoIt doesn't have to be all or nothing. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jdCB9yE9Hcc
- kiba 6y agoAnyone don't want longevity for humans? I think death is a beautiful thing and for a lot of us including myself life has been really tough at times. The fact that there is an equalizer in death makes life comforting at times. Life been tough, sure, but never at at any point did I think death is comforting, not even at the lowest point.
- synaesthesisx 6y agoLongevity ≠ immortality. Death is inevitable, but maximizing (quality) existence should be a priority for humanity.
- orangecat 6y agoThere are reasonable arguments against significantly increased lifespans, although I strongly disagree. There are no reasonable arguments against preventing or repairing the damage caused by aging, which is both a humanitarian and economic disaster.
- ALittleLight 6y agoI think people who feel this way should be perfectly free to, but not everyone does, and they should be free not to die as per their preference. I think of it as, if my loved one (or me) were in the hospital with a fatal disease, but there was a cure, I would want the cure. I can't really see myself saying "Yeah, but death is so beautiful..." I see aging the same way, as another fatal disease and I'd cure it if I could. I don't hope for an indefinite period of old age, but an indefinite period of good health, like 20-30s.
- thiagotomei 6y agoIf people were dying in troves of a disease (...) every effort would be put on saving them, right? How come some deaths are considered "fine", but others aren't? No. Just No. Let longevity come. Let immortality come. Let us live forever, sail the heavens, and travel to every world, every star, every galaxy, everywhere.
- phobosanomaly 6y agoThat's kind of selfish. You're ignoring the impact on parking availability for the rest of the universe.
- dang 6y agoPlease don't do this here.
- phobosanomaly 6y agoFair enough. Feel free to delete.
- sg47 6y agoI watched a documentary on Fred Beckey and then Valley Uprising. For a group that took a lot of risk, many of them seem to live or have lived till the age of 75. Fred Beckey himself lived till the age of 94. His entire lifestyle is a list of things to not to live long except for the exercise.
- jz_ 6y agoList of companies working on the biology of aging: http://agingbiotech.info/companies/ http://agingbiotech.info/companies/
- coldelectrons 6y agoI want to outlive all the bastards, fix every problem they've ever created, and live well past their loathesome names passing from memory.
- SMAAART 6y agoFood intake is regulated primarily by dietary protein and carbohydrate • Low-protein, high-carbohydrate diets are associated with the longest lifespans • Energy reduction from high-protein diets or dietary dilution does not extend life https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(14)00065-5?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS1550413114000655%3Fshowall%3Dtrue https://www.cell.com/cell-metabolism/fulltext/S1550-4131(14)...
- jraby3 6y agoWow what a frustrating website to scroll through. Interesting way to display the data but from my understanding this theory isn’t accurate. Having memorable moments is what makes time seem longer. That’s why when we’re younger and try new things all the time that period seems memorable. Going to the same job in the same place for years makes it feel like time flies by because there is no new experience in that period.
- 0-_-0 6y ago...in mice, which evolved to eat mainly carbohydrates, while humans evolved to eat whatever they could
- swyx 6y agowhat's that rule about research that most research should come with the disclaimer "in mice"?
- bausano_michael 6y agohttps://mobile.twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://mobile.twitter.com/justsaysinmice
- larssorenson 6y agoYou're probably thinking of the twitter account @justsaysinmice, https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice https://twitter.com/justsaysinmice. For the uninitiated and otherwise unaware, many studies regarding illnesses, disease, nutrition, exercise, medicine, etc. perform clinical trials with mice. Resultant publications are picked up by news outlets who headline the results, without the caveat that the results were only found in mice. Mice are, notably, not humans and the results don't (in fact, rarely ever) carry over 1:1.
- staticassertion 6y agoSo the tl;dr from what I've found so far is that: * What you eat * When you eat * How much you eat * Exercise Are by far the simplest, cheapest, and most well documented way to extend life by quite a lot. We have lots of evidence to back calorie restriction. We know that eating more earlier in the day vs later means your insulin levels can recover better (or something?). We know eating certain types of fats is bad for you, and eating certain types of other things are good for you. Exercise, or at least the right kind of exercise (seems like there are open questions here, like how much is actually important) is healthy. Then there are a number of pills you can take. When it comes to the pills we have a lot less evidence. From what I've seen there are probably a dozen or so pills, each one with bits and pieces of science surrounding them, that will maybe have some impact on mortality or aging. Some of the research does seem quite compelling - niacin, for example, seems to be pretty well researched and is actually prescribed at times. Niacin is also one of the pills you'll see come up a lot if you start looking into anti-aging. Others like resveratrol (which, actually, appears to be old news - people have moved on, it seems, to more bioavailable substances) have a lot less research, though they're promising. If you're willing to spend 100-200 dollars a month or so it seems that you can get most or all of these. I don't think any research has been done on what taking all of these will do to you, but there is research on how the chemicals behave and I suppose from there people seem to draw conclusions on interactions. Interestingly, from what I've read a lot of the popular "anti aging" trends like anti-oxidants are, more or less, very much debunked. My understanding is that while anti-oxidants absolutely do what their name implies in a lab setting, most of them tend to not do a damn thing in humans with regards to oxidation. So who knows what is or isn't going to work. From my layman understanding, if you're ~20 years old you can basically just not fuck up super hard and wait another decade and we'll know a lot more. If you're 30, definitely start taking health seriously but maybe don't worry so much about downing 50 supplements that only have a bit of backing research. If you're 40 and above, and your goal is life extension... you might have to take a gamble. If you're interested, I found this channel quite interesting - I appreciated the guy always citing studies (and he explicitly calls out why he thinks the study is or is not high quality). https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpcvPcHJVOkO9Qp79BOagTg https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCpcvPcHJVOkO9Qp79BOagTg This FAQ definitely seems to be a good 'one stop shop' for learning the state of things, without being prescriptive. I'm not a doctor. I just got interested in the last few weeks about this stuff. None of this is without risk - that much is obvious. Only just the other day I was reading a post by someone who ended up in the hospital with liver failure that very possibly could have been tied to their supplementation. If you start taking pills that you don't understand you seem very likely to fuck things up - some pills require that you take other pills also, for example lots of nootropics will fuck you up if you don't get enough choline in your diet. All of this is to say, there's cool and promising stuff here, but do your own research, and if you're very young and healthy don't stress about this stuff yet - the first step is always diet and exercise.
- thadk 6y agoIn 1897, philosopher Paul Janet came up with the model that current moments of time in our lives might be perceived by their "fraction of life lived thus far". This would seem to undermine the value of longevity somewhat: according to this visualization of the idea: https://www.maximiliankiener.com/digitalprojects/time/ https://www.maximiliankiener.com/digitalprojects/time/
- naniwaduni 6y agoCounterpoint: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%5Cint_1%5Ewdx%2Fx https://www.wolframalpha.com/input/?i=%5Cint_1%5Ewdx%2Fx
- gloatyegret 6y agoWhat does that integral show?
- feral 6y agoThey are making the argument that total perceived time would still increase logarithmically as absolute time increases, even under the model discussed. (And doesn't, say, approach some fixed sum.) Hence there's still a point to trying to live longer, even if the value of each additional time period decreases. Anyway, that's if you agree that model! There's a couple of other things I'd consider without even examining it's core assumptions: memory fades over time - time earlier in my life might not contribute as much to my perceived time, as recent time does; what if you spend your early life just getting to the place you want to be (resources, self-development etc)? Extra time in that place could be very valuable!
- mvaliente2001 6y agoThat even if the perceived duration of a year depends on the number of years lived (1/x), the sum of all perceived durations is unbound.
- osmarks 6y agoI'm inclined to think that this sort of thing is partly driven by something like Stockholm syndrome, because trying to convince yourself having a shorter life is okay is easier than actually extending it.
- sci_prog 6y agoVeritasium has a good, relatively recent video on this topic: https://youtu.be/QRt7LjqJ45k https://youtu.be/QRt7LjqJ45k
- koonsolo 6y agoI stopped reading after seeing the cancer/hearth disease chart. It reinforces the belief that most deaths are caused by cancer, while actually it's hearth disease. So if you make a chart, please make it accurate. Therefore I couldn't trust the rest, since it might all be "drawn from the wrist".
- Gatsky 6y agoThis isn’t true. Cancer is often the top cause of death in women depending on which country you are in (eg Australia).
- est31 6y agoIf you unify all cancers into one category, then cancer is the top cause. If you split them up into the different types, then heart disease is bigger than any single of them. So you are wrong. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-causes-of-death https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/the-top-10-... Shows heart disease as #1 with 3 million deaths but separates the cancer types. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/cancer Says there were 9.6 million deaths caused by cancer, so more than 3 times the heart disease amount.
- Supermancho 6y agoThe second link says: "Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally, and is responsible for an estimated 9.6 million deaths in 2018. Globally, about 1 in 6 deaths is due to cancer." > So you are wrong. Please be more careful in making this statement. The evidence you present should allow the reader to make their own decision.
- est31 6y ago> "Cancer is the second leading cause of death globally Huh missed that, thanks for pointing it out! I guess that this statement compares combined cancer types with the combined cardiovascular diseases [1]. Then, yes, cancer is #2. But the cardiovascular diseases can't really be summarized by "heart disease" because they include stuff like stroke as well. So I wouldn't really say that OP is right. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_causes_of_death_by_rat... PS: Also note that in a sibling comment I already stated that I got the death count of heart disease wrong.
- turing_complete 6y agoI want to get involved in longevity - first as a side project, maybe later full-time. What would be the best way to support the cause as a software engineer or data scientist?
- apsec112 6y agoLaura's website also has a "How Can I Help?" page: https://www.ldeming.com/how-to-help https://www.ldeming.com/how-to-help
- TedDoesntTalk 6y agoI remember reading recently that Peter Thiel gets blood transfusions from children (parabiosis). Is that accurate?
- tim333 6y ago>Mr Thiel said: "I want to publicly tell you that I'm not a vampire. On the record, I am not a vampire." >When questioned further on the matter, he denied that he has ever injected himself with a "young person's blood," https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/peter-thiel-vampire-donald-trump-life-extension-blood-transfusion-ambrosia-palantir-a8614061.html https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/ne...
- tim333 6y agoI've been trying some of the David Sinclair NMN + resveratrol stuff for a couple of months. I think I can safely state there has been no noticeable effect in my case. There's a guy on the internet been trying it for 6 months with seemingly some positive effects https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWx77ARQ9lo https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWx77ARQ9lo And it seems to do stuff in mice. https://khn.org/news/a-fountain-of-youth-pill-sure-if-youre-a-mouse/ https://khn.org/news/a-fountain-of-youth-pill-sure-if-youre-...
- moh_maya 6y agoMouse models are just that. Models. A lot of the results in mice don't carry over to humans. A positive result in mice is only weakly indicative of potential efficacy in humans. [1,2] Pop-sci articles seldom acknowledge this or draw attention to this. Re reservatol, the jury is really out on that one too. [3,4] [1] https://theconversation.com/of-mice-and-men-why-animal-trial-results-dont-always-translate-to-humans-73354 https://theconversation.com/of-mice-and-men-why-animal-trial... [2] https://www.nature.com/news/chilly-lab-mice-skew-cancer-studies-1.14190 https://www.nature.com/news/chilly-lab-mice-skew-cancer-stud... [3] https://www.bostonmagazine.com/health/2019/10/29/david-sinclair/ https://www.bostonmagazine.com/health/2019/10/29/david-sincl... [4] https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/diet-rich-resveratrol-offers-health-boost-201405157153 https://www.health.harvard.edu/blog/diet-rich-resveratrol-of...
- tim333 6y agoYeah it's a bit hard to tell either way - works or does nothing much. The enthusiasts like Sinclair take DNA methylation tests which seem to indicate some effect but whether that translates to longer life I dunno. I've been too tight to try those as they tend to run $300 per test.
- mindhash 6y agoWow. This is awesome. Thank you Laura for taking time and writing this.
- chriselles 6y agoI’m a 51 year old interested amateur. While I’m hopeful bio/chemistry/genetic research will help enhance life quality/longevity my focus has been largely lifestyle to go along with a few supplements. Sleep: minimum of 7 hours Fitness: strength & movement, yoga/stretching, low impact long duration activity to protect joints Mental Fitness: intellectual challenges such as reading long-form and learning to code Mindfulness: managing stress/anxiety Engagement: with family/friends Environment: trying to maximise time in healthy environments and limiting my time in unhealthy environments Hydration: lots of water, no juices/sofa, rarely any alcohol Nutrition: Intermittent fasting(18/6 5 days a week), ketogenic diet, no processed sugars Supplements used: Resveratrol Ubiquinol NAD Thiacin Fish Oil Ginkgo Before I hit 50, I made the shift away from trying to maximise performance and shift focus towards durability/longevity. I have an outlier score( to the good side) for telomere length, so I’m biased towards believing it helps, but all I can do is all I can do and make the most of every day and remember to have fun along the way.
- sizzle 6y agoDoes fasting and depriving your brain of nutrients like calcium, magnesium etc. impair your cognitive abilities?
- chriselles 6y agoI’ve been on a disciplined ketogenic diet for 3 years now. I had put on weight due to a few persistent training injuries. I lost 22kg fairly quickly combined with a return to durability/longevity focused fitness. Anecdotally, I actually feel my cognitive ability has improved. I feel sharper and able to focus better/longer and have been published far more after than prior. However, I have to admit that I need to stay quite well hydrated or else I start feeling slower/foggier, I reckon it could be both diet and age related. I feel like I am fastest/sharpest in the morning prior to a late lunch when my eating window opens. I do eat breakfast on weekends and have the occasional cheat meal approx once per month. Just my anecdotal experience.
- Erlich_Bachman 6y agoWhere did he write that he deprives his brain of nutrients like calcium or magnesium?
- artir 6y agoYou can find another FAQ here for more related reading https://nintil.com/longevity https://nintil.com/longevity