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In the search to stall aging, biotech startups are out for blood
- CamelCaseName 5y agoI skimmed the article and didn't see it mentioned -- has there been any recent news about Google's Calico acquisition in 2013?
- wavefunction 5y agoIt's still acquired
- akkawwakka 5y agoCalico seems like a vestige of Larry’s Google. Hope Ruth doesn’t Loon it. https://killedbygoogle.com https://killedbygoogle.com
- kiba 5y agoCalico is a company criticized for not being product or engineering driven business.
- greatgoat420 5y agoIf replacing plasma with saline works, shouldn't that occur naturally with bloodletting? Maybe there was something to the practice of leeching.
- colechristensen 5y agoI always thought this. There seem to be issues with a few things which the body has problems eliminating (heavy metals, new synthetic chemicals not found in nature, etc) Why not give your body a break by diluting all that a liter per month of blood at a time. I don’t imagine there would be a huge effect, but I do imagine a nonzero effect.
- Turing_Machine 5y agoIndeed. On the other hand, with classic bloodletting, you're also losing red and white blood cells, unlike the plasma-only technique, which preserves them.
- gwern 5y agoBlood donation and blood letting have other effects and confounding factors. You're supposed to be healthy to donate blood regularly, so right there you have an explanation for the observed longevity correlate. But it would also have other effects like reducing iron: people argue many men have too much iron later in life, while other donators like women may have too little, so that's mucking up your net effect. Filtering blood, or diluting with saline, avoids these issues and helps get at the question of inflammatory & aging factors vs youthful factors.
- shard 5y agoSounds like the solution is to both donate blood and get saline drips regularly.
- rscho 5y ago> Maybe there was something to the practice of leeching Yes. Hirudine.
- rodgerd 5y agoGreat. So now we'll see blood supplies for actual life-saving proceedures dry up in favour of blood going to VC snake oil aimed at keeping Peter Theil alive for a few more years.
- nostromo 5y agoYoung blood doesn’t seem to be necessary, just removing some of the old blood is enough. It’s touched on in the article.
- courtf 5y agoOle Pete needs more time on this earth getting corrupt, criminal politicians to take chunks out of the nation's democratic foundations. He's running neck and neck with the CCP on that goal. What a race!
- throwawaysea 5y agoIs the “Out for Blood” phrasing coincidental or an intentional reference to the documentary about Theranos?
- hellbannedguy 5y ago"Although the trials to date have been small and not always placebo-controlled,"
- generalizations 5y agoThat's a giant caveat, but it may simply mean that the experiments are exploratory.
- rscho 5y agoFor anyone with experience in clinical research, it very literally means: "we don't know what we're doing".
- TheAdamAndChe 5y agoLongevity and lifespan estimation is already well researched within actuarial science. Why couldn't actuarial tables be used for this kind of thing?
- nradov 5y agoI find it amusing how companies are pursuing long-shot life extension technology when the vast majority of people haven't even optimized the basics of nutrition, sleep, exercise, sun exposure, and toxin avoidance. But perhaps they'll find enough customers among the "worried well".
- gpm 5y agoIf your average person became fanatic about nutrition, sleep, exercise, sun exposure, and toxin avoidance - how many extra years do you think they would add to their life? 5? 10? What percentage of their free time do you think they would need to dedicate to those things? --- Meanwhile, an average 20 year old who is unconcerned about optimizing those things, is healthier than the average 40 year old who is. A "miracle cure" that fixed the effects of aging would be worth orders of magnitude more than being fanatic about your health today, and would (note the miracle part) consume orders of magnitude less time. Of course that miracle cure is expected to be metaphorical gold.
- rantwasp 5y agoi believe you can add 10-15 years easily if you: eat right, exercise and avoid nasty chemicals. Easily. It does not take that much more time, but it can be more expensive when it comes to food and products you use. If you go into the experimental / really expensive territory I think you can add another 5, maybe 10 years. So I firmly believe, that today, you can expand your lifespan by 25 years if you do all the right things, you can afford it and of course you don't have very poor genetics.
- kiba 5y agoThat's good, but ultimately, it's still only 25 years. Pursuing long shot life extension tech is complementary to your effort to keep yourselves healthy.
- rantwasp 5y agowell. it depends. most people i’ve talked to are not afraid of being old, they’re afraid of all the health issues and poor quality of life that comes with being old. so, my question is: if you could have the life quality of a 40yo at 80, and live to 105 instead of 80, would you only consider the improvement to be only 25 years?
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Gauge_Irrahphe 5y agoI no longer believe in aging, it just doesn't make any sense. It's heavy metals. NOT their presence but the fact that they were depleted. Fossils consistently show concentrations that would be considered extreme by current health standards. Many tried to correctly fix aging with heavy metals, but cadmium was unknown to them.
- rapsey 5y agoWhat PhD's do you have to make this radical conclusion?
- Google234 5y agoThis is not the best way to confront the OP’s idea.
- Google234 5y agoUm, I would be careful about ingesting cadmium, my friend. Anyway, you can easily test your hypothesis on mice if you actually want to pursue this idea.
- Gauge_Irrahphe 5y agoIts toxicity seems to be nonsense. The replacement of soluble collagen with insoluble collagen with age doesn't seem to occur. Bones are indeed less mineralized, but in a way that makes more mechanical sense i.e. less concrete, but more rebar. Some wound healing pathways are inhibited, but it's scar tissue formation that is inhibited. Repair and remodelling as seen in dolphins takes place instead. Kidneys indeed excrete things they don't normally do, but it seems to be an active process, where larger molecules are moved through, not leaking. Also stable levels of cadmium are sought, its levels are regulated, excess levels are excreted.
- Google234 5y agoWhere are you getting this info? Also, nonsense looks like a very strong word, there seems to be a huge amount of evidence that Cd is in fact very toxic.
- bloqs 5y agoGot to vaguely plug Dr Aubrey de Grey here, hes an excellent speaker on this area.
- Google234 5y agoHe has one talk that he’s been giving for years presenting his hypothesis on solving aging. He’s done great work legitimizing longevity research. Though, I’m not convinced that he has the solution.
- TylerLives 5y ago2 days ago, he said in an interview: > A month or so from now, there's stuff I can't talk about, that is happing that will be really seismic in this field. Somebody whose name we all know, and whose name I cannot mention, but who has been talking to me and has been interested in this for more than 15 years is finally going to be doing something. And if you're listening for god sake don't fuck it up the way Larry Elison did 20 years ago and the way Larry Page did 8 years ago. Get it right." My thoughts: The biggest problem about radical life extension is still cultural. I honestly don't understand how this is not the most important thing in everyone's life. I'm not trying to attack or shame anyone, I'm genuinely clueless. What are people doing that is more important?
- brooksyd2 5y agoWhy aren't you doing it? It's still not clear that this can even be solved, so it's a risky venture to dedicate your life to.
- milleramp 5y agoThe solution to pollution is dilution.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- refurb 5y agoCan you imagine how aging would blow up the current social programs? Even countries like Japanese are facing a situation where social programs will need to be cut as the number of workers per retired person is getting very lopsided. I would imagine if we extended human life expectancy to say 120 on average, we’d need to bump the retirement age to 85 just to keep the books balanced.
- Google234 5y agoI don’t think that would be very controversial. Work is just 40 hours a week on average.
- bspammer 5y agoThe whole concept of retirement is based off of peoples’ bodies breaking down to the point where they can’t work anymore. If we had genuine rejuvenation, a 100 year old would be just as capable of working as a 20 year old.
- refurb 5y agoSo get to live another 40 years but it’s just working longer?
- reducesuffering 5y agoObviously not, it depends on the ratio. Because roughly every year you contribute is a year you can rest on your laurels. If we currently live to 80, and work on average 20-65, that's 45/80, so the same ratio of working years is 67 of the 120 living years. Retirement would be 87.
- rscho 5y agoThis comment section is really funny, because it's really HN incarnate. A bunch of people with enough hubris to want to live forever and implicitly think they can make the world more interesting by staying around a few centuries.
- bspammer 5y agoI don’t see why it’s hubris. I enjoy being alive, it’s as simple as that. I guess you think cancer treatment is hubris too? If proven technology existed to significantly extend your lifespan (and you remained healthy), would you nobly refuse to use it?
- vallas 5y agoComparing life biotechnological extension with natural optimization is like comparing natural human calculus with computer calculus. The optimization of natural human calculus is not worth the time