5 ms·

Actual, practical human longevity improvement. It seems ridiculous how small of a healthcare tech niche this is given the potential impact.

willis936 6y ago
I searched the internet for “telomere therapy” earlier today. I was curious if there had been any interesting advancements in the past year. Almost all hits were holistic healing sites.
- istorical 6y ago
  There was a study in the last month showing telomere lengthening in humans via hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Still waiting for more reproductions of the study but quite promising. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/can-breathing-pure-oxygen-under-pressure-reverse-ageing-1.4422779 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/can-breathing-pure-o...
- ncmncm 6y ago
  There was a big splash about this just a couple of weeks ago: hyperbaric oxygen treatment triggering telomere restoration. Don't know if anybody has shown any actual benefit from having the telomeres boosted. Some of what had seemed like a good idea (antioxidants!) have turned out to interfere in essential signaling pathways, and be therefore harmful in excess.
bmitc 6y ago
Why? Human longevity is a source of problems, and I personally wish we'd work harder at making the quality of our lives better instead of extending our time here.
- tashoecraft 6y ago
  Human longevity goes hand in hand with making our lives better. You don't make people live longer without drastically reducing diseases and healthcare costs whilst also greatly increasing the lifetime earning potential. Human longevity is one of the most important things we can be focusing on.
  - bmitc 6y ago
    I disagree with that assessment, and it isn’t what I was referring to. Of course advances in healthcare are good for people, especially for things that address disorders that strongly affect someone’s health and quality of life and also those that prematurely end life. But these things are already under heavy research and development. So it calls into question what the original commenter and I suppose you are searching for. Why do we have a need for additional work on explicitly increasing human longevity whenever such a thing is already a secondary or tertiary effect of what we’re already doing? But a cure for cancer, for example and if it ever happens, will have no effect on poverty, lack of education, inequalities of all kinds, mental disorders, and the multitude of other societal and environmental problems. There are tons of things we can be doing that can improve people’s quality of life, standard of living, enjoyment of life, reducing stress, and more that have little if nothing to do with healthcare advances. Even advances in the fields of psychology and psychiatry are a bit like trying to plug a leak with bubble gum. Certainly helping people to recover from and live with mental disorders is a good thing, although seemingly underfunded in current times, but one must understand that humans are not emotionally built for the societies we’ve created. I just don’t see how longevity should be an explicit goal when the lives for so many people are a complete struggle.
    - tashoecraft 6y ago
      Because longevity is barely studied. It receives near no funding. It has barely any attention and yet it kills more people than any other disease. The quest for longevity explicitly helps many things. Fixing cancer is reactionary, preventing cancer from starting is longevity. You’re confusing existing medical research with longevity research. They are very different. Almost all medical research is for fixing things that have gone wrong, longevity is trying to prevent them going wrong in the first place. There’s always the idea that we could be doing something else, something that helps more. No one said you need to stop all other research and funding, but if we are able to prolong aging diseases you’ll help near everyone on the planet. Give Lifespan by David Sinclair a read
      - bmitc 6y ago

willis936 6y ago

I searched the internet for “telomere therapy” earlier today. I was curious if there had been any interesting advancements in the past year. Almost all hits were holistic healing sites.

istorical 6y ago
There was a study in the last month showing telomere lengthening in humans via hyperbaric oxygen chamber. Still waiting for more reproductions of the study but quite promising. https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/can-breathing-pure-oxygen-under-pressure-reverse-ageing-1.4422779 https://www.irishtimes.com/news/science/can-breathing-pure-o...
ncmncm 6y ago
There was a big splash about this just a couple of weeks ago: hyperbaric oxygen treatment triggering telomere restoration. Don't know if anybody has shown any actual benefit from having the telomeres boosted. Some of what had seemed like a good idea (antioxidants!) have turned out to interfere in essential signaling pathways, and be therefore harmful in excess.

bmitc 6y ago

Why? Human longevity is a source of problems, and I personally wish we'd work harder at making the quality of our lives better instead of extending our time here.

tashoecraft 6y ago
Human longevity goes hand in hand with making our lives better. You don't make people live longer without drastically reducing diseases and healthcare costs whilst also greatly increasing the lifetime earning potential. Human longevity is one of the most important things we can be focusing on.
- bmitc 6y ago
  I disagree with that assessment, and it isn’t what I was referring to. Of course advances in healthcare are good for people, especially for things that address disorders that strongly affect someone’s health and quality of life and also those that prematurely end life. But these things are already under heavy research and development. So it calls into question what the original commenter and I suppose you are searching for. Why do we have a need for additional work on explicitly increasing human longevity whenever such a thing is already a secondary or tertiary effect of what we’re already doing? But a cure for cancer, for example and if it ever happens, will have no effect on poverty, lack of education, inequalities of all kinds, mental disorders, and the multitude of other societal and environmental problems. There are tons of things we can be doing that can improve people’s quality of life, standard of living, enjoyment of life, reducing stress, and more that have little if nothing to do with healthcare advances. Even advances in the fields of psychology and psychiatry are a bit like trying to plug a leak with bubble gum. Certainly helping people to recover from and live with mental disorders is a good thing, although seemingly underfunded in current times, but one must understand that humans are not emotionally built for the societies we’ve created. I just don’t see how longevity should be an explicit goal when the lives for so many people are a complete struggle.
  - tashoecraft 6y ago
    Because longevity is barely studied. It receives near no funding. It has barely any attention and yet it kills more people than any other disease. The quest for longevity explicitly helps many things. Fixing cancer is reactionary, preventing cancer from starting is longevity. You’re confusing existing medical research with longevity research. They are very different. Almost all medical research is for fixing things that have gone wrong, longevity is trying to prevent them going wrong in the first place. There’s always the idea that we could be doing something else, something that helps more. No one said you need to stop all other research and funding, but if we are able to prolong aging diseases you’ll help near everyone on the planet. Give Lifespan by David Sinclair a read
    - bmitc 6y ago