4 ms·

I am not trying to diminish the work being reported on here. I just want to comment that I see these kinds of articles posted frequently, and they always leave

I am not trying to diminish the work being reported on here. I just want to comment that I see these kinds of articles posted frequently, and they always leave me feeling like Experimental "foo" results in NN% improvement in "quux" in new study. Possible human trials scheduled for "someday far far away" and could "one day" lead to rainbow colored pet unicorns for all humans. Basically, some amazing thing may happen someday and I'll never hear about it and will likely be dead and gone well before it bears fruit. It would be wonderful if there was a site that summarized these kinds of breakthrough research projects in a way that was practical for laypeople. E.g. disease, research being done, possible treatment/cure, stage of testing, availability to general public / how to get it or become part of trial group, cost, risks etc. E.g. I'd love to be able to star & watch this like a Github repo and be notified of progress...

xiphias2 6y ago
There is, it’s called lifespan.io https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/ https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/
- rubicon33 6y ago
  I assume that foundation was started by David A. Sinclair? Same author of this book? https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-audiobook/dp/B07QGH1Q43/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lifespan&qid=1607142318&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-audiobook/dp/B07QGH1Q43/ref=... Very interesting research in that book but honestly, very little actionable paths for the reader. We aren't yet to a point where it's possible to just pop a pill and live another 100 years. Probably the most effective thing you can do right now is caloric restriction, but that can kind of suck. The holy grail would be some way to eat normally, and slow the aging process.
  - rishav_sharan 6y ago
    Wasn't blood transfusion from a young another effective method? Though it is a Pandora's box of ethical problems
    - Dylan16807 6y ago
      Is it? You can sell plasma right now, so it seems straightforward to let people sell blood every 2 months if they want to.
    - inglor_cz 6y ago
      Interestingly, they had similar results with just giving mice saline mixture with albumin. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115724.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115724.h... Which sort of indicates that it is not young blood per se that plays the important role, but dilution and removal of "something" that accumulates with age. Albumin is expensive, at least so far, no one thought about an industrial method to produce large quantities, because there was no demand for them. Aside from price, no ethical problems there. Also, frequent blood donors tend to be much more healthy. A study from Kuopio, Finland, showed that they are almost immune to heart attacks: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9737556/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9737556/ Ofc, the question of causality is strong here, no doubt. But maybe - if the body of a blood donor is forced to produce new blood frequently, might this new blood be "healthier" or "younger" in some sense.
      - nradov 6y ago
        There is a hypothesis that excess iron is a risk factor for heart attack, and that periodic blood loss clears it out. This could be why pre-menopausal women have lower rates of heart attack than men and post-menopausal women, even after adjusting for age and other factors.
      - galangalalgol 6y ago
        For men and postmenopausal women that could just be dumping excess iron to avoid organ damage. If the albumin had similar results for regular blood donors and premenopausal women, maybe we need albumin.
      - awiesenhofer 6y ago
        A good occasion to remind everyone to consider donating blood, especially now - most places are pretty low on blood transfusions currently because of the pandemic. Varies by country of course but if you are healthy and it's possible where you live you can help a lot!
  - andy_ppp 6y ago
    Skip meals, live in a calorie deficit, take resveratrol, try to reduce inflammation, exercise, sort sleep, are the ones I can remember off my head. Also eat a massive amount of broccoli sprouts.
    - rubicon33 6y ago
      Yes, these are the steps. I'll expand on one as well: > try to reduce inflammation Avoid the obvious things (alcohol, drugs) but also your diet has a huge effect on systemic inflammation. It's one theory as to why caloric restriction works. Simply eating less, means less inflammation. But WHAT you eat also matters. As it turns out, SUGAR is highly inflammatory. To a lesser extent, complex carbohydrates are too. So if you're really interested in longevity consider not just eating less, but eating less sugar (and by extension, carbohydrates). If you ask me that sucks. Part of living life, is enjoying good food. And as it happens, a lot of good food is full of fat and sugar. I moderate and I don't eat a lot of it, but to think I would need to basically cut all of it out just to live another frail 10 years doesn't seem worth it to me.
  - galangalalgol 6y ago
    There are several ideas about why caloric restriction might be working. There was one study that implicated human growth hormone in combination with zinc, dhea, vitamin d, and burberine in telomeres lengthening. Human growth hormone is produced in response to ghrelin, which is released when we are hungry. So it might be that it is the hunger, not the lack of food that slows aging.
    - rubicon33 6y ago
      If that is true, then it infers that simply being hungry could extend life. Some compounds promote hunger, notably THC found in marijuana. Yet, as far as I know, chronic marijuana users are not living substantially longer lives? Then again, the hunger effect probably also diminishes as ones tolerance increases.
      - galangalalgol 6y ago
        Intermittent fasting with a total calorie intake that is breakeven is probably the safest way to boost hgh, some weightlifters do this already. Others use ibutemoren which is a sectagogue for ghrelin to indirectly boost hgh
jradd 6y ago
is this why big–pharma harvest blue bloods? i'm not sure i believe this hoopla about the tree of life. but i'm interested in the biomedical applications from obscure species that feature bioluminescence, magic pheromones and how to test the quality of Eel I just put on back order. i loved your italicized block. don't down vote this one.
dehrmann 6y ago
Sounds like battery research.
WoodenChair 6y ago
I feel this way too, but I often find those circulating articles are in mainstream media by people who don't understand what they're reporting on or in "science will cure everything" blogs. However, this is a summary posted on one of the most respected journals in the world's website. The article/study it is summarizing was peer reviewed and developed by scientists at some of the world's top institutions. Sure, we shouldn't get caught up in reputation as a marker of quality, but at the same time it does count for something... this is not the same as most of the breathless articles that I see circulate on social media.
- saurik 6y ago
  I didn't feel like the comment was arguing about the quality of the articles, but more the notion of how reading an article about some point in time progress of some early thing feels useless: what you want is to follow the thing. It is like if you hear about some new piece of software when it is just some proof of concept and it won't be a "real thing" for three years but you want to follow it so you can keep learning about it and watch its progress... so you watch its git repository or subscribe to its mailing list or whatever, and you can do that; but with science, the process--which at the milestones of publishing feels very open--is usually some weird closed competitive process.
elric 6y ago
I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think it's actually as gloomy as that. Those kinds of articles help keep science in the news, which in turn keeps people interested in science, which hopefully leads to people considering careers in science. Maybe these things bear fruit, maybe they don't, but at least now we know about them, and maybe it'll inspire someone somewhere.
probably_wrong 6y ago
I have a relative that went blind due to double corneal tear. Every time one of these articles comes up, they forward me the link and ask whether that's something they could use. Of course, I always have to be the one giving the bad news. I rarely see any of those articles materialize in a way where I could say "yes, this is something I can get right now". The only one I remember actually making it is the Argus II, and even then there is no way I could afford the $150K price.
aent 6y ago
Closest you can get are probably podcasts with those researches, for example https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/ https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/

xiphias2 6y ago

There is, it’s called lifespan.io https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/ https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/

rubicon33 6y ago
I assume that foundation was started by David A. Sinclair? Same author of this book? https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-audiobook/dp/B07QGH1Q43/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=lifespan&qid=1607142318&sr=8-1 https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-audiobook/dp/B07QGH1Q43/ref=... Very interesting research in that book but honestly, very little actionable paths for the reader. We aren't yet to a point where it's possible to just pop a pill and live another 100 years. Probably the most effective thing you can do right now is caloric restriction, but that can kind of suck. The holy grail would be some way to eat normally, and slow the aging process.
- rishav_sharan 6y ago
  Wasn't blood transfusion from a young another effective method? Though it is a Pandora's box of ethical problems
  - Dylan16807 6y ago
    Is it? You can sell plasma right now, so it seems straightforward to let people sell blood every 2 months if they want to.
  - inglor_cz 6y ago
    Interestingly, they had similar results with just giving mice saline mixture with albumin. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115724.htm https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/06/200615115724.h... Which sort of indicates that it is not young blood per se that plays the important role, but dilution and removal of "something" that accumulates with age. Albumin is expensive, at least so far, no one thought about an industrial method to produce large quantities, because there was no demand for them. Aside from price, no ethical problems there. Also, frequent blood donors tend to be much more healthy. A study from Kuopio, Finland, showed that they are almost immune to heart attacks: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9737556/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/9737556/ Ofc, the question of causality is strong here, no doubt. But maybe - if the body of a blood donor is forced to produce new blood frequently, might this new blood be "healthier" or "younger" in some sense.
    - nradov 6y ago
      There is a hypothesis that excess iron is a risk factor for heart attack, and that periodic blood loss clears it out. This could be why pre-menopausal women have lower rates of heart attack than men and post-menopausal women, even after adjusting for age and other factors.
    - galangalalgol 6y ago
      For men and postmenopausal women that could just be dumping excess iron to avoid organ damage. If the albumin had similar results for regular blood donors and premenopausal women, maybe we need albumin.
    - awiesenhofer 6y ago
      A good occasion to remind everyone to consider donating blood, especially now - most places are pretty low on blood transfusions currently because of the pandemic. Varies by country of course but if you are healthy and it's possible where you live you can help a lot!
- andy_ppp 6y ago
  Skip meals, live in a calorie deficit, take resveratrol, try to reduce inflammation, exercise, sort sleep, are the ones I can remember off my head. Also eat a massive amount of broccoli sprouts.
  - rubicon33 6y ago
    Yes, these are the steps. I'll expand on one as well: > try to reduce inflammation Avoid the obvious things (alcohol, drugs) but also your diet has a huge effect on systemic inflammation. It's one theory as to why caloric restriction works. Simply eating less, means less inflammation. But WHAT you eat also matters. As it turns out, SUGAR is highly inflammatory. To a lesser extent, complex carbohydrates are too. So if you're really interested in longevity consider not just eating less, but eating less sugar (and by extension, carbohydrates). If you ask me that sucks. Part of living life, is enjoying good food. And as it happens, a lot of good food is full of fat and sugar. I moderate and I don't eat a lot of it, but to think I would need to basically cut all of it out just to live another frail 10 years doesn't seem worth it to me.
- galangalalgol 6y ago
  There are several ideas about why caloric restriction might be working. There was one study that implicated human growth hormone in combination with zinc, dhea, vitamin d, and burberine in telomeres lengthening. Human growth hormone is produced in response to ghrelin, which is released when we are hungry. So it might be that it is the hunger, not the lack of food that slows aging.
  - rubicon33 6y ago
    If that is true, then it infers that simply being hungry could extend life. Some compounds promote hunger, notably THC found in marijuana. Yet, as far as I know, chronic marijuana users are not living substantially longer lives? Then again, the hunger effect probably also diminishes as ones tolerance increases.
    - galangalalgol 6y ago
      Intermittent fasting with a total calorie intake that is breakeven is probably the safest way to boost hgh, some weightlifters do this already. Others use ibutemoren which is a sectagogue for ghrelin to indirectly boost hgh

jradd 6y ago

is this why big–pharma harvest blue bloods? i'm not sure i believe this hoopla about the tree of life. but i'm interested in the biomedical applications from obscure species that feature bioluminescence, magic pheromones and how to test the quality of Eel I just put on back order. i loved your italicized block. don't down vote this one.

dehrmann 6y ago

Sounds like battery research.

WoodenChair 6y ago

I feel this way too, but I often find those circulating articles are in mainstream media by people who don't understand what they're reporting on or in "science will cure everything" blogs. However, this is a summary posted on one of the most respected journals in the world's website. The article/study it is summarizing was peer reviewed and developed by scientists at some of the world's top institutions. Sure, we shouldn't get caught up in reputation as a marker of quality, but at the same time it does count for something... this is not the same as most of the breathless articles that I see circulate on social media.

saurik 6y ago
I didn't feel like the comment was arguing about the quality of the articles, but more the notion of how reading an article about some point in time progress of some early thing feels useless: what you want is to follow the thing. It is like if you hear about some new piece of software when it is just some proof of concept and it won't be a "real thing" for three years but you want to follow it so you can keep learning about it and watch its progress... so you watch its git repository or subscribe to its mailing list or whatever, and you can do that; but with science, the process--which at the milestones of publishing feels very open--is usually some weird closed competitive process.

elric 6y ago

I agree with the sentiment, but I don't think it's actually as gloomy as that. Those kinds of articles help keep science in the news, which in turn keeps people interested in science, which hopefully leads to people considering careers in science. Maybe these things bear fruit, maybe they don't, but at least now we know about them, and maybe it'll inspire someone somewhere.

probably_wrong 6y ago

I have a relative that went blind due to double corneal tear. Every time one of these articles comes up, they forward me the link and ask whether that's something they could use. Of course, I always have to be the one giving the bad news. I rarely see any of those articles materialize in a way where I could say "yes, this is something I can get right now". The only one I remember actually making it is the Argus II, and even then there is no way I could afford the $150K price.

aent 6y ago

Closest you can get are probably podcasts with those researches, for example https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/ https://peterattiamd.com/podcast/