12 ms·

No limit to maximal lifespan in humans: how to beat a 122-year-old record

123 points by deegles 5y ago

trylfthsk 5y ago
"I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice. --CEO Nwabudike Morgan, Morganlink 3D-Vision Interview "
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  I heard, years ago, that even if we ended death from aging then our life expectancy would be about 1000 yrs, that is we'd never die from old age, but instead everyone would eventually die from trauma like getting hit by a bus. The source of this potentially was aubrey de grey talking on the matter, perhaps in a youtube video? I'm sorry i cannot provide a better source.
  - carabiner 5y ago
    Hmm, I've heard that only under 40 is trauma/suicide the leading cause of death. After that, it's cancer and all sorts of other diseases, or like undiagnosed heart conditions.
    - echelon 5y ago
      If we get human head transplants working, we can use regenerative cloning to create new bodies. It'll be the cure to aging, cancer, everything. If not clones of the patient, we could use monoclonal bodies with O- blood and HLA neutrality to negate the need for immunosuppressants. New thymuses and pulmonary systems regenerate immune and endothelial health of the brain. We're close, we just need a conceptual jump. It sounds icky, but not in practicality. Tangentially, we could use artificial chimeric pig uteruses to artificially give birth. It'd relieve the burden of bearing children.
      - charcircuit 5y ago
        Just have a robot body and then simply live in VR.
      - mellavora 5y ago
        Love the underlying assumption that somehow the head is "you" and the body is the replaceable part. Can't say I accept that assumption as true, but it is nice to see it laid out so explicitly.
      - nradov 5y ago
        Brains also decay and malfunction with age.
  - ALittleLight 5y ago
    I think if I was amortal I'd make sure to live a lifestyle apart from buses, cars, and airplanes. At least until I was getting brain backups, augmented body parts to reduce my risk to trauma, etc.
    - dorkwood 5y ago
      Do you currently live in a way that avoids buses, cars, and airplanes? If not, why not?
      - ctack 5y ago
        Because time is precious and the time saving risk is worth it.
        maerF0x0 5y ago
        This is an interesting outcome of not aging. As time becomes less dire, we can remove it (or decrease it's coefficient) as a variable in choices. Interestingly as we start to do thing more slowly our effective live span shrinks when counted in events rather than seconds. To illustrate the idea, consider if the travel portion of vacationing took 5 years, in a 1000 yr life you'd have at max 200 vacations. Someone who lives to 80 today and takes 2 vacations per year already has most of that number of "events" per life span. In part this is why adding "healthspan" is more important than lifespan.
      - ALittleLight 5y ago
        Mostly, yes. I think it would be even more valuable to do so if I was putting a longer span at risk every time I got in a car or plane.
      - taneq 5y ago
        Because the risk from them is far smaller than the opportunity cost of losing precious hours of your very finite lifespan moving in a slower but safer manner.
    - fallingknife 5y ago
  - buryat 5y ago
    culture and maybe even progress may stop developing if the generations change stops going
    - maerF0x0 5y ago
      I'm sorry to say but you cannot provably claim this as there's never been a control group. There are disconnected people groups which do not live very long and their cultures are stagnant. And I'd suggest that the most recent century has seen the most development concurrent with massive growth in lifespan...
  - xorfish 5y ago
    Mortality per year for 20-25 year old men is 1 in 2650 and for women it is 1 in 4000 in Switzerland. The mortality would be lower if you add life experience and some risk aversion to it. An average life expectancy of a few ten thousand years doesn't seem unreasonable.
  - dbbk 5y ago
    I mean, it seems like the issues created by overcrowding of the Earth would be a pretty quick problem
- henry_bone 5y ago
  “On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
- mensetmanusman 5y ago
  I think it would help if Nwabudike lived in a massive ice palace so that their only interaction with the universe was the occasional neutrino and OMG particle instead of the dna scrambling cosmic rays that we all deal with.
- vidarh 5y ago
  .. from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, for those unaware. In the game he was born in 2005, and the game has a mandatory "retirement age" of 2600 at the lower difficulty settings and 2500 at the higher difficulties, so I'm guessing "Even five hundred" was not picked at random.
imoverclocked 5y ago
> CONFLICTS OF INTEREST The author has no conflicts of interest to declare Right, who wants to live forever? There are so many conversations about living longer and they lead in so many different directions: - How does the world move on from bad influences - At what point is it ok to choose when we can die - Will over-population become a serious issue - How do we support a larger aged population? - Do we expect to also extend "working years" ... and then why? - Does extending life cheapen our perception of it? ... etc The amount of time we have on this planet is a huge unknown to most of us. When any of us learn about a shorter finite time (eg: medical diagnoses), it often inspires us to make drastic changes, sometimes for the better. By finding ways of blanket-extending our life spans, we necessarily change societal expectations. Hopefully this doesn't become yet another area where we have a widening wealth-gap.
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  > - Will over-population become a serious issue Over population is a function of choosing to have children. I still think people who have children are not being properly held accountable for the outcomes of their choices -- look at how over populated countries are now the most polluting (even with low per capital pollution). Somehow responsible countries are held to task for their per capita pollution, but not credited with not having created massive amounts of people?
  - hellbannedguy 5y ago
    Yea---I'm getting tired of acting excited when I hear we have another one on the way. In the USA, if you have an income (sometimes without any income), judges are putting guys in jail over non-support. It could be planned, or a Netfllix and chill; there are guys in jail over non-support. There's a part of me that gets it. Then there's a part of me that thinks the guy should have a say in the matter, and going to jail should not be part of the discussion, especially for the poor guys. I got off track, and realize the economy needs workers, and tax payers. Extending adult lives might make the modern economic system work? I just feel like there are to many of us, and kids from wealthy families pollute far more than poor kids over their lifetimes. To those that believe "It's my body--my right!" I'm with you, but are certain guys who can't be financial providers like society demands. Look up the comedian David Foley if you want a scare. And he's upper middle class, or used to be. I guarantee who might cancel your Netflix, and never have another booty call. And yes--as men we aren't supose to talk about the joyous event of baby making Ever. It's none of our business? Except when the judge throws you in jail. I know a homeless guy with severe psychological issues. (I have no idea why he's not on SSDI.) He's beyond help, other than needing a shelter, and regular meals--which is nonexistant. Ironic that my county is very wealthy. One of his acquaintances decided she wanted a child in her late 30's. "She needed purpose in her life". She asked around town. No one wanted any part of it. She finally corralled this basket case into her car on a rainy night, and poof she was pregnant. She told him she ecpected nothing. Her family is loaded. A year in a half later ge gets a letter from the family court in my county, and if he didn't show up there was a fine. (delivered to a free po box from a nonprofit)
jchook 5y ago
Check out _Lifespan_ by Dr. David Sinclair if you enjoy the topic of anti-aging.
- masterbit 5y ago
  .. just listening to the audio book. It supports the articles headline with substantial insights. I can recommend it. Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24984800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24984800
henry_bone 5y ago
Genesis 6:3 (KJV): And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.
- mds 5y ago
  This statement after Methuselah had lived for 969 years, before (it is implied) drowning in a flood.
  - mellavora 5y ago
    to expand-- the original poster shows that this is in Gen 6. But man was created a few chapters earlier. Thus, if one accepts the genesis creation myth as some standard of truth, God's original plan was that: we are created in his image In his image we are created. Man and woman we are created. i.e. the bible says god intends us to be as fully-formed and perfect ("immortal") as god. addendum: the form I gave above is a well-known poetic form where the rhyme is in the ideas. Thus the very strong implication that the image of god is "man and woman"; a full being has both. addendum II: Recall also that this says a full person should have both male and female aspects; Eve was split off from Adam (rib surgery). This says NOTHING about sexual orientation. Just as Jesus said NOTHING about it. Homophobic attacks go against the nature spirit and word of god as recorded in the bible.
    - joshuahughes 5y ago
      How is this in any way related to the OP's post about lifespan?
  - timbit42 5y ago
    If you study the various versions, Masoretic, Samaritan and Septuagint, a number of the ages differ. At some point someone reduced Methuselah's age because it would have meant he survived the flood, which didn't fit their interpretation of the Noah story. That said, most of the ages in Genesis were incorrectly translated from Sumerian cuneiform due to them having different numbering systems for different things which reused some of the same symbols (why would anyone find that confusing???). Whoever copied those numbers into the Bible used the wrong numbering system. If you convert back and use the numbering system for dates and time, you get regular ages. For example, Methuselah didn't live 969 years, but instead, 85 years.
black_13 5y ago
Getting old and dying are so ultimately democratic. And no one can beat it.
john_moscow 5y ago
Age-related diseases and dying from old age is the tip of the iceberg. A much more important part is how the behavior/personality changes with age. We start out foolish and energetic, trying things out, making mistakes and creating new neural connections at the peak rate. Towards the 30s, we slow down, rely more on experience, most of newly learned things are recombinations and abstractions on top of the things learned earlier. Once we approach the end of the life, we become much more risk-averse, hesitant to wander off known paths, and grasping fundamentally new concepts becomes nearly impossible. Remember making fun of all those pensioners still using dial-up? It is likely related to the limited capacity of the human brain and I doubt it could be easily worked around. Generational change and the limitless supply of the generation Z, willing to break things and learn from their mistakes, is what propelled humanity out of the caves and made civilization possible. I don't think killing it off in the name of abstract longevity would be a wise idea...
- vmception 5y ago
  I would contend that human behavior is primarily driven by incentives If people dont have to “act older” which includes relying on experiencs and having those experiences to begin with, they wont at the same distribution We already see this in play generationally and cities where there are options
- kvee 5y ago
  We can always improve our brains
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  Easily explained through hormones
- keyle 5y ago
  I'm indeed a strong believer that if we could live forever, the suicide rate would be high, very high. There is only so much a human mind can get through. Think of all the bad things that can happen to someone in their lives, mental scaring is real. At some point, something is going to snap. Only vein people would actually keep going forever. Most normal people would give in at some point having had enough. That said, extending life to 200-300 years would be good. I just think that forever would make everyone bat shit crazy and murdering each other or having suicide parties.
projektfu 5y ago
This author has a curious publication history, publishing lots of articles in journals of which he is editor-in-chief.
Gravyness 5y ago
Pardon my skepticism but this reads like a fairy tale where the author was promised a lot of money to conduct a study that does not need sources because all their strange conclusions are on the abstract and therefore are the hypothesis (and conveniently does not require sources). Amazing, you found the fountain of youth and you just need 1 million dollars to conduct the experiment and it will take <insert my average maximum lifespan here> years? Sign me up, I'm sure it will never run late after all my life depends on it! > Leading demographers claim that human lifespan is fixed at a natural limit around 122 years. However, there is no fixed limit in animals. Not only do the (unknown) experts are all certain of something that requires proof, they also write it in invisible ink! Damn! > In animals, anti-aging interventions (dietary restrictions, rapamycin, genetic manipulations) postpone age-related diseases and thus automatically extend maximum lifespan. So you are saying that animals anti-aging interventions are: - Dietary restrictions - Rapamycin* - Genetic manipulations > In humans, anti-aging interventions have not been yet implemented What an innovative idea! Have you ever heard of this thing called Rapamycin*? it is already approved for use in human patients since 2010: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bies.200900171 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bies.2009001... Sorry, this article and this "implicit" conclusion that we can live forever are what people laugh as crazy conspiracy theorists and some of them are flat earthers so they sure as fuck know what they are talking about. Proof first, speech later. \rant Not to sound too irrationally angry but this is as foundationless as a floating city.
- epicureanideal 5y ago
  I think you make some good points, but I also think it's useful that this article was published. It's important to get the idea out there that human lifespan can be extended, so more funding can be directed to that.
  - robbiep 5y ago
    But ideas in junk journals don’t ‘help’ that idea, and it isn’t a novel idea in the first place, there are literally senescence institutes studying this problem
  - 5y ago
usrbinbash 5y ago
Uh huh. I would like to have 3 questions answered: 1. How can the telomere shortening be reversed in an adult without inducing abberant cell growth? 2. How do we stop stem cell populations from reaching senescence? 3. How do we deal with the fact that continued mitosis leads to an accumulation of copy-errors in aforementioned cell populations?
- qaq 5y ago
  Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)?
- nosianu 5y ago
  To 1, telomeres; I need an expert to confirm or deny: I think to remember having read that the telomeres aren't really an issue. That that they get shorter is a consequence, not a reason - they are not needed because death of the cell occurs earlier. I also think to remember there actually is a mechanism (a protein) to extend them, it's just that in places where it wasn't needed it is not used and evolution therefore removed it, because it had no consequence. I think it was form one of the books of (biochemist) Nick Lane. Myself, I only took the basic bio-chem course so I never got to such advanced specialized topics. EDIT: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1933587/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1933587/ > 1. Do telomere biology and telomerase activity determine aging? > The first aspect to this question is whether differences in aging rates among mammalian species are caused in whole or in part by species-specific differences in telomerase/telomere biology. A very brief consideration of this question will show that this is unlikely. > There is little evidence that commonly observed changes in older individuals, such as anemia and impaired wound healing, result from impaired cellular proliferation, which would be the anticipated consequence of shortened telomeres (ofc there is a lot more details to consider)
  - kettleballroll 5y ago
    It's been some time since I've worked in biology, but: telomere shortening is mostly a protection against aberant growth (ie, cancer): it sets an upper limit to how often a cell can multiply. If we'd live long enough that even healthy cells run up against that limit, we'd have to deactivate/reverse that mechanism. But then we'd lose one very effective defense against cancer.
flashfaffe2 5y ago
This no limit to maximal lifespan has always stuck me as this is in total contradiction with the evolution theory as defined by Darwin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinism#:~:text=Darwinism%20is%20a%20theory%20of,compete%2C%20survive%2C%20and%20reproduce https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinism#:~:text=Darwinism%....
- czzr 5y ago
  How is it in total contradiction?
  - flashfaffe2 5y ago
    Basically , if you ( the species ) live forever then how would expect the natural selection occurs? This underpins That you have reach the pinnacle and no can adapt in any kind of environment
    - ben_w 5y ago
      “Not getting old” does not mean “not having offspring”, competition of slightly mutated offspring is what evolution is driven by. And the expectation is that no ageing and no disease will give us a 50% chance of surviving any given (IIRC) 1000-ish year period, because accidents will still happen. In nature, you still have predators and lots of diseases that limit lifespan even of those species which have biological immortality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality
  - dumbfoundded 5y ago
    Death is necessary for evolution. Shorter lifespans mean more rounds of genetic mutation meaning evolution can happen faster. I think overall the point is right but I'd a lot of nuance. - The evolutionary ideal lifespan for any creature is certainly limited but asking about the potential is more of a biochemical question and somewhat orthogonal to evolution. - Some creatures fill extremely long lived niches proving that at the level of cellular dynamics, longevity is certainly possible. - Humans no longer really depend on evolution. We'll start genetically modifying ourselves soon and I'd be surprised if there weren't any gm people walking around already. - Our biggest limiting factor is experimentation. These experiments take a long time and aren't ethical to perform on humans. We'll certainly figure out how to make immortal rats before people.
gzer0 5y ago
This is a known predatory junk journal. https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/ https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/ Please stop spreading these scam journals.
- KronisLV 5y ago
  From the about page of the linked site: > Journals that publish work without proper peer review and which charge scholars sometimes huge fees to submit should not be allowed to share space with legitimate journals and publishers, whether open access or not. These journals and publishers cheapen intellectual work by misleading scholars, preying particularly early career researchers trying to gain an edge. The credibility of scholars duped into publishing in these journals can be seriously damaged by doing so. It is important that as a scholarly community we help to protect each other from being taken advantage of in this way. Seems to me that there should be a browser extension or something to bring things like this to a person's attention. Maybe a uBlock Origin list?
  - danuker 5y ago
    You can use my keyword highlighter, at least for the invented words (needs modifications for multiple-worded names though): https://openuserjs.org/scripts/danuker/Keyword_Highlighter/ https://openuserjs.org/scripts/danuker/Keyword_Highlighter/
  - mdrzn 5y ago
    I second the idea of a browser extension for bad brands/journals/websites in general, maybe something like this posted earlier could be expanded [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29577148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29577148
- wwwwewwww 5y ago
  Which journal are you referring to? I tried to search different variations of the website name on the list and couldn't find it.
  - 5y ago
hericium 5y ago
> Leading demographers claim that human lifespan is fixed at a natural limit around 122 years. According to 2019 book "Lifespan: Why We Age And Why We Don't Have To"[1][2] by David A. Sinclair, the science does not know anyone who lived until 120. Scientists studied centenarians (people who lived to be 100 years old) and supercentenarians (110) from around the world to see what made them tick longer. To my knowledge, there is no *centenarian word for 120 years old person yet. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespan:_Why_We_Age_%E2%80%93_and_Why_We_Don%27t_Have_To https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespan:_Why_We_Age_%E2%80%93... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43723901-lifespan https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43723901-lifespan
vixen99 5y ago
Life insurance rates can provide a validity check on this kind of claim.
dsq 5y ago
People entering this post may enjoy Larry Niven's short SF story 'Grendel' in which, if I remember correctly, the protagonist solves a murder partially by realizing that a female antagonist was actually much older than she appeared, due to using an immortality drug, and that the need for novelty was a driver for such people.
trentgreene 5y ago
The double contrast is a huge smell for writing. Consider the general form: Proposition A However, Proposition B In Contrast (or any other contradictory linking phrase), Proposition C Have you considered it? Now answer two questions: - Do you think Proposition C is in contrast to A or B? or neither? - Have you ever seen this general form in _good_ writing?
jd115 5y ago
This is the main problem I've always had with the evidence-based scientific approach. Just because all of your data points show the same thing, doesn't make that thing true. This just goes counter to all logic. How is 122 ANYTHING other than a random number? Oh, your set is all human lives ever recorded? Meh... Doesn't mean a thing. Your set is too small. To me, it is self-evident that there is no natural limit to human lifespan. If anything, the existence of a natural limit should require proof, not the lack of it. But more importantly, spending time on proving something so random seems utterly useless to me, especially compared to the alternative of embracing the (far more natural) assumption that no such limit exists and working from there. (But yea, with all this said, the article is a bit of a dud.)
- maxlamb 5y ago
  122 is not a number they picked at random, it is the age of the oldest human ever with a verifiable birth certificate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
  - coldtea 5y ago
    What parent means is that it's still random, as that person could just as well have lived 121 or 123 or 125 years. But that's a trivial observation that doesn't really change anything. 122 wasn't never supposed to be "non-random" as in some kind of physical law. The natural law concerns the increased certainty of death observed as ages > 100 approach, not a hard and fixed 122 number encoded in our DNA.
- ReaLNero 5y ago
  So since a 10-sigma event could result in a 200-yr old person, there is no real limit? There is no hard limit, but clearly the age distribution drops suddenly (for developed countries) at 70. There are a bunch of single points of failure in our body -- the heart, the liver, the spine, the major blood vessels, the trachea, etc. There's only so many 9's that those components are built to last for, and they ALL have to work! FYI: I agree that "Leading demographers ... 122 years" is an incorrect statement.
- 5y ago
Proven 5y ago
Yeah, sure - US healthcare is bankrupt is as, and the Fed is actively ruining the savers and others who produce more they consume. Socialist claptrap - all that matters is what you need or "deserve", not what you can afford. Those who make it beyond the current average expectancy for their category should consider themselves lucky.
vlkr 5y ago
Silicon Valley techies are turning to a cheap diabetes drug to help them live longer https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/23/metformin-for-cancer-prevention-longevity-popular-in-silicon-valley.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/23/metformin-for-cancer-prevent...
- LinuxBender 5y ago
  Metformin is the pharmaceutical version of Berberine [1] You can get Berberine without a prescription. Metformin has been used in the US for about 40 years and Berberine in Asia for about 3000 years, initially used to treat gut infections. A couple things to note if you take either of those is that they put a heavy load on the liver and also deplete vitamin B12. It may be worth keeping an eye on liver enzymes if using either. Hydration is also important. I should also add that if you start doing either to stay near a restroom for the first few weeks. [1] - https://examine.com/supplements/berberine/ https://examine.com/supplements/berberine/
- nradov 5y ago
  Metformin may delay the onset of some chronic metabolic diseases but it won't extend maximum lifespan and there are significant negative side effects. It's certainly not a fountain of youth. Proper diet and exercise can deliver most of the same benefits with no medical drawbacks. https://peterattiamd.com/joanmannick-nirbarzilai/ https://peterattiamd.com/joanmannick-nirbarzilai/
vbphprubyjsgo 5y ago
Wow, all I have to do is take some chemical they discovered to stop aging?
ZeroGravitas 5y ago
Has anyone translated some long living people's 'years' into Quality-adjusted life years? It feels like that's the more important metric and there must be a bunch of low hanging fruit like "get vaccinated" that score highly without needing sci-fi breakthroughs. Or is it all so boringly predictable that no one bothers?
pmdulaney 5y ago
Has God indeed said that there is a limit to human lifespan?
- timbit42 5y ago
  No. Some take a verse from the story of Noah to mean man is limited to 120 years but that verse actually meant the flood would happen 120 years later. Additionally, the ages and years in Genesis are wrong. They were mistranslated from Sumerian. If you translate them back and re-translate them properly, people in the Bible all lived normal ages. For example, instead of living 930 years, Adam lived 81 years. Methuselah appears to have died in the flood but there are additional manipulations of the ages. This is apparent if you compare the ages in the Masoretic, Samaritan and Septuagint texts. Methuselah's age was reduced by some scribe when they noticed his age would have meant he survived the flood, and they couldn't have that.
  - pmdulaney 5y ago
    Well, we disagree on how to interpret Scripture. The most interesting tidbit about the Flood (to me, anyway) is the fact that Methuselah means (I've been told) "After this, the end" -- which I take to mean that God gave Methuselah extraordinary longevity as an indication of his patience in waiting for that evil generation to repent.
    - timbit42 5y ago
      Yes, so they changed his name as well. The most interesting tidbit about the Flood for me is that the idea of it being global is a recent belief. Long ago it was not thought as such. The only reason to think it was global is the Hebrew 'eretz' translated as 'earth', which is a poor word to choose because it means a lot more to modern ears than to the ears of those it was written for. When we think of earth, we think of planet, but those it was written for would not have thought that. Also, if you look through Genesis, the only place 'eretz' is translated as 'earth' is in the Noah story. Everywhere else it is translated as 'soil', 'ground' or 'land'. If you replace 'eretz' and therefore 'earth' in the Noah story with 'ground' or 'land', suddenly it doesn't say the flood was global, and neither does it in the original Hebrew because it never did, and it wasn't.
RichardHeart 5y ago
Conflicts of Interest: Prefer not dying. :)

123 points by deegles 5y ago

"I plan to live forever, of course, but barring that I'd settle for a couple thousand years. Even five hundred would be pretty nice. --CEO Nwabudike Morgan, Morganlink 3D-Vision Interview "

maerF0x0 5y ago
I heard, years ago, that even if we ended death from aging then our life expectancy would be about 1000 yrs, that is we'd never die from old age, but instead everyone would eventually die from trauma like getting hit by a bus. The source of this potentially was aubrey de grey talking on the matter, perhaps in a youtube video? I'm sorry i cannot provide a better source.
- carabiner 5y ago
  Hmm, I've heard that only under 40 is trauma/suicide the leading cause of death. After that, it's cancer and all sorts of other diseases, or like undiagnosed heart conditions.
  - echelon 5y ago
    If we get human head transplants working, we can use regenerative cloning to create new bodies. It'll be the cure to aging, cancer, everything. If not clones of the patient, we could use monoclonal bodies with O- blood and HLA neutrality to negate the need for immunosuppressants. New thymuses and pulmonary systems regenerate immune and endothelial health of the brain. We're close, we just need a conceptual jump. It sounds icky, but not in practicality. Tangentially, we could use artificial chimeric pig uteruses to artificially give birth. It'd relieve the burden of bearing children.
    - charcircuit 5y ago
      Just have a robot body and then simply live in VR.
    - mellavora 5y ago
      Love the underlying assumption that somehow the head is "you" and the body is the replaceable part. Can't say I accept that assumption as true, but it is nice to see it laid out so explicitly.
    - nradov 5y ago
      Brains also decay and malfunction with age.
- ALittleLight 5y ago
  I think if I was amortal I'd make sure to live a lifestyle apart from buses, cars, and airplanes. At least until I was getting brain backups, augmented body parts to reduce my risk to trauma, etc.
  - dorkwood 5y ago
    Do you currently live in a way that avoids buses, cars, and airplanes? If not, why not?
    - ctack 5y ago
      Because time is precious and the time saving risk is worth it.
      - maerF0x0 5y ago
        This is an interesting outcome of not aging. As time becomes less dire, we can remove it (or decrease it's coefficient) as a variable in choices. Interestingly as we start to do thing more slowly our effective live span shrinks when counted in events rather than seconds. To illustrate the idea, consider if the travel portion of vacationing took 5 years, in a 1000 yr life you'd have at max 200 vacations. Someone who lives to 80 today and takes 2 vacations per year already has most of that number of "events" per life span. In part this is why adding "healthspan" is more important than lifespan.
    - ALittleLight 5y ago
      Mostly, yes. I think it would be even more valuable to do so if I was putting a longer span at risk every time I got in a car or plane.
    - taneq 5y ago
      Because the risk from them is far smaller than the opportunity cost of losing precious hours of your very finite lifespan moving in a slower but safer manner.
  - fallingknife 5y ago
- buryat 5y ago
  culture and maybe even progress may stop developing if the generations change stops going
  - maerF0x0 5y ago
    I'm sorry to say but you cannot provably claim this as there's never been a control group. There are disconnected people groups which do not live very long and their cultures are stagnant. And I'd suggest that the most recent century has seen the most development concurrent with massive growth in lifespan...
- xorfish 5y ago
  Mortality per year for 20-25 year old men is 1 in 2650 and for women it is 1 in 4000 in Switzerland. The mortality would be lower if you add life experience and some risk aversion to it. An average life expectancy of a few ten thousand years doesn't seem unreasonable.
- dbbk 5y ago
  I mean, it seems like the issues created by overcrowding of the Earth would be a pretty quick problem
henry_bone 5y ago
“On a long enough time line, the survival rate for everyone drops to zero.” ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
mensetmanusman 5y ago
I think it would help if Nwabudike lived in a massive ice palace so that their only interaction with the universe was the occasional neutrino and OMG particle instead of the dna scrambling cosmic rays that we all deal with.
vidarh 5y ago
.. from Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri, for those unaware. In the game he was born in 2005, and the game has a mandatory "retirement age" of 2600 at the lower difficulty settings and 2500 at the higher difficulties, so I'm guessing "Even five hundred" was not picked at random.

imoverclocked 5y ago

> CONFLICTS OF INTEREST The author has no conflicts of interest to declare Right, who wants to live forever? There are so many conversations about living longer and they lead in so many different directions: - How does the world move on from bad influences - At what point is it ok to choose when we can die - Will over-population become a serious issue - How do we support a larger aged population? - Do we expect to also extend "working years" ... and then why? - Does extending life cheapen our perception of it? ... etc The amount of time we have on this planet is a huge unknown to most of us. When any of us learn about a shorter finite time (eg: medical diagnoses), it often inspires us to make drastic changes, sometimes for the better. By finding ways of blanket-extending our life spans, we necessarily change societal expectations. Hopefully this doesn't become yet another area where we have a widening wealth-gap.

maerF0x0 5y ago
> - Will over-population become a serious issue Over population is a function of choosing to have children. I still think people who have children are not being properly held accountable for the outcomes of their choices -- look at how over populated countries are now the most polluting (even with low per capital pollution). Somehow responsible countries are held to task for their per capita pollution, but not credited with not having created massive amounts of people?
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  Yea---I'm getting tired of acting excited when I hear we have another one on the way. In the USA, if you have an income (sometimes without any income), judges are putting guys in jail over non-support. It could be planned, or a Netfllix and chill; there are guys in jail over non-support. There's a part of me that gets it. Then there's a part of me that thinks the guy should have a say in the matter, and going to jail should not be part of the discussion, especially for the poor guys. I got off track, and realize the economy needs workers, and tax payers. Extending adult lives might make the modern economic system work? I just feel like there are to many of us, and kids from wealthy families pollute far more than poor kids over their lifetimes. To those that believe "It's my body--my right!" I'm with you, but are certain guys who can't be financial providers like society demands. Look up the comedian David Foley if you want a scare. And he's upper middle class, or used to be. I guarantee who might cancel your Netflix, and never have another booty call. And yes--as men we aren't supose to talk about the joyous event of baby making Ever. It's none of our business? Except when the judge throws you in jail. I know a homeless guy with severe psychological issues. (I have no idea why he's not on SSDI.) He's beyond help, other than needing a shelter, and regular meals--which is nonexistant. Ironic that my county is very wealthy. One of his acquaintances decided she wanted a child in her late 30's. "She needed purpose in her life". She asked around town. No one wanted any part of it. She finally corralled this basket case into her car on a rainy night, and poof she was pregnant. She told him she ecpected nothing. Her family is loaded. A year in a half later ge gets a letter from the family court in my county, and if he didn't show up there was a fine. (delivered to a free po box from a nonprofit)

jchook 5y ago

Check out _Lifespan_ by Dr. David Sinclair if you enjoy the topic of anti-aging.

masterbit 5y ago
.. just listening to the audio book. It supports the articles headline with substantial insights. I can recommend it. Earlier discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24984800 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24984800

henry_bone 5y ago

Genesis 6:3 (KJV): And the LORD said, My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.

mds 5y ago
This statement after Methuselah had lived for 969 years, before (it is implied) drowning in a flood.
- mellavora 5y ago
  to expand-- the original poster shows that this is in Gen 6. But man was created a few chapters earlier. Thus, if one accepts the genesis creation myth as some standard of truth, God's original plan was that: we are created in his image In his image we are created. Man and woman we are created. i.e. the bible says god intends us to be as fully-formed and perfect ("immortal") as god. addendum: the form I gave above is a well-known poetic form where the rhyme is in the ideas. Thus the very strong implication that the image of god is "man and woman"; a full being has both. addendum II: Recall also that this says a full person should have both male and female aspects; Eve was split off from Adam (rib surgery). This says NOTHING about sexual orientation. Just as Jesus said NOTHING about it. Homophobic attacks go against the nature spirit and word of god as recorded in the bible.
  - joshuahughes 5y ago
    How is this in any way related to the OP's post about lifespan?
- timbit42 5y ago
  If you study the various versions, Masoretic, Samaritan and Septuagint, a number of the ages differ. At some point someone reduced Methuselah's age because it would have meant he survived the flood, which didn't fit their interpretation of the Noah story. That said, most of the ages in Genesis were incorrectly translated from Sumerian cuneiform due to them having different numbering systems for different things which reused some of the same symbols (why would anyone find that confusing???). Whoever copied those numbers into the Bible used the wrong numbering system. If you convert back and use the numbering system for dates and time, you get regular ages. For example, Methuselah didn't live 969 years, but instead, 85 years.

black_13 5y ago

Getting old and dying are so ultimately democratic. And no one can beat it.

john_moscow 5y ago

Age-related diseases and dying from old age is the tip of the iceberg. A much more important part is how the behavior/personality changes with age. We start out foolish and energetic, trying things out, making mistakes and creating new neural connections at the peak rate. Towards the 30s, we slow down, rely more on experience, most of newly learned things are recombinations and abstractions on top of the things learned earlier. Once we approach the end of the life, we become much more risk-averse, hesitant to wander off known paths, and grasping fundamentally new concepts becomes nearly impossible. Remember making fun of all those pensioners still using dial-up? It is likely related to the limited capacity of the human brain and I doubt it could be easily worked around. Generational change and the limitless supply of the generation Z, willing to break things and learn from their mistakes, is what propelled humanity out of the caves and made civilization possible. I don't think killing it off in the name of abstract longevity would be a wise idea...

vmception 5y ago
I would contend that human behavior is primarily driven by incentives If people dont have to “act older” which includes relying on experiencs and having those experiences to begin with, they wont at the same distribution We already see this in play generationally and cities where there are options
kvee 5y ago
We can always improve our brains
GhettoComputers 5y ago
Easily explained through hormones
keyle 5y ago
I'm indeed a strong believer that if we could live forever, the suicide rate would be high, very high. There is only so much a human mind can get through. Think of all the bad things that can happen to someone in their lives, mental scaring is real. At some point, something is going to snap. Only vein people would actually keep going forever. Most normal people would give in at some point having had enough. That said, extending life to 200-300 years would be good. I just think that forever would make everyone bat shit crazy and murdering each other or having suicide parties.

projektfu 5y ago

This author has a curious publication history, publishing lots of articles in journals of which he is editor-in-chief.

Gravyness 5y ago

Pardon my skepticism but this reads like a fairy tale where the author was promised a lot of money to conduct a study that does not need sources because all their strange conclusions are on the abstract and therefore are the hypothesis (and conveniently does not require sources). Amazing, you found the fountain of youth and you just need 1 million dollars to conduct the experiment and it will take <insert my average maximum lifespan here> years? Sign me up, I'm sure it will never run late after all my life depends on it! > Leading demographers claim that human lifespan is fixed at a natural limit around 122 years. However, there is no fixed limit in animals. Not only do the (unknown) experts are all certain of something that requires proof, they also write it in invisible ink! Damn! > In animals, anti-aging interventions (dietary restrictions, rapamycin, genetic manipulations) postpone age-related diseases and thus automatically extend maximum lifespan. So you are saying that animals anti-aging interventions are: - Dietary restrictions - Rapamycin* - Genetic manipulations > In humans, anti-aging interventions have not been yet implemented What an innovative idea! Have you ever heard of this thing called Rapamycin*? it is already approved for use in human patients since 2010: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bies.200900171 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/bies.2009001... Sorry, this article and this "implicit" conclusion that we can live forever are what people laugh as crazy conspiracy theorists and some of them are flat earthers so they sure as fuck know what they are talking about. Proof first, speech later. \rant Not to sound too irrationally angry but this is as foundationless as a floating city.

epicureanideal 5y ago
I think you make some good points, but I also think it's useful that this article was published. It's important to get the idea out there that human lifespan can be extended, so more funding can be directed to that.
- robbiep 5y ago
  But ideas in junk journals don’t ‘help’ that idea, and it isn’t a novel idea in the first place, there are literally senescence institutes studying this problem
- 5y ago

usrbinbash 5y ago

Uh huh. I would like to have 3 questions answered: 1. How can the telomere shortening be reversed in an adult without inducing abberant cell growth? 2. How do we stop stem cell populations from reaching senescence? 3. How do we deal with the fact that continued mitosis leads to an accumulation of copy-errors in aforementioned cell populations?

qaq 5y ago
Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT)?
nosianu 5y ago
To 1, telomeres; I need an expert to confirm or deny: I think to remember having read that the telomeres aren't really an issue. That that they get shorter is a consequence, not a reason - they are not needed because death of the cell occurs earlier. I also think to remember there actually is a mechanism (a protein) to extend them, it's just that in places where it wasn't needed it is not used and evolution therefore removed it, because it had no consequence. I think it was form one of the books of (biochemist) Nick Lane. Myself, I only took the basic bio-chem course so I never got to such advanced specialized topics. EDIT: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1933587/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1933587/ > 1. Do telomere biology and telomerase activity determine aging? > The first aspect to this question is whether differences in aging rates among mammalian species are caused in whole or in part by species-specific differences in telomerase/telomere biology. A very brief consideration of this question will show that this is unlikely. > There is little evidence that commonly observed changes in older individuals, such as anemia and impaired wound healing, result from impaired cellular proliferation, which would be the anticipated consequence of shortened telomeres (ofc there is a lot more details to consider)
- kettleballroll 5y ago
  It's been some time since I've worked in biology, but: telomere shortening is mostly a protection against aberant growth (ie, cancer): it sets an upper limit to how often a cell can multiply. If we'd live long enough that even healthy cells run up against that limit, we'd have to deactivate/reverse that mechanism. But then we'd lose one very effective defense against cancer.

flashfaffe2 5y ago

This no limit to maximal lifespan has always stuck me as this is in total contradiction with the evolution theory as defined by Darwin https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinism#:~:text=Darwinism%20is%20a%20theory%20of,compete%2C%20survive%2C%20and%20reproduce https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darwinism#:~:text=Darwinism%....

czzr 5y ago
How is it in total contradiction?
- flashfaffe2 5y ago
  Basically , if you ( the species ) live forever then how would expect the natural selection occurs? This underpins That you have reach the pinnacle and no can adapt in any kind of environment
  - ben_w 5y ago
    “Not getting old” does not mean “not having offspring”, competition of slightly mutated offspring is what evolution is driven by. And the expectation is that no ageing and no disease will give us a 50% chance of surviving any given (IIRC) 1000-ish year period, because accidents will still happen. In nature, you still have predators and lots of diseases that limit lifespan even of those species which have biological immortality: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biological_immortality
- dumbfoundded 5y ago
  Death is necessary for evolution. Shorter lifespans mean more rounds of genetic mutation meaning evolution can happen faster. I think overall the point is right but I'd a lot of nuance. - The evolutionary ideal lifespan for any creature is certainly limited but asking about the potential is more of a biochemical question and somewhat orthogonal to evolution. - Some creatures fill extremely long lived niches proving that at the level of cellular dynamics, longevity is certainly possible. - Humans no longer really depend on evolution. We'll start genetically modifying ourselves soon and I'd be surprised if there weren't any gm people walking around already. - Our biggest limiting factor is experimentation. These experiments take a long time and aren't ethical to perform on humans. We'll certainly figure out how to make immortal rats before people.

gzer0 5y ago

This is a known predatory junk journal. https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/ https://predatoryjournals.com/journals/ Please stop spreading these scam journals.

KronisLV 5y ago
From the about page of the linked site: > Journals that publish work without proper peer review and which charge scholars sometimes huge fees to submit should not be allowed to share space with legitimate journals and publishers, whether open access or not. These journals and publishers cheapen intellectual work by misleading scholars, preying particularly early career researchers trying to gain an edge. The credibility of scholars duped into publishing in these journals can be seriously damaged by doing so. It is important that as a scholarly community we help to protect each other from being taken advantage of in this way. Seems to me that there should be a browser extension or something to bring things like this to a person's attention. Maybe a uBlock Origin list?
- danuker 5y ago
  You can use my keyword highlighter, at least for the invented words (needs modifications for multiple-worded names though): https://openuserjs.org/scripts/danuker/Keyword_Highlighter/ https://openuserjs.org/scripts/danuker/Keyword_Highlighter/
- mdrzn 5y ago
  I second the idea of a browser extension for bad brands/journals/websites in general, maybe something like this posted earlier could be expanded [0]. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29577148 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29577148
wwwwewwww 5y ago
Which journal are you referring to? I tried to search different variations of the website name on the list and couldn't find it.
- 5y ago

hericium 5y ago

> Leading demographers claim that human lifespan is fixed at a natural limit around 122 years. According to 2019 book "Lifespan: Why We Age And Why We Don't Have To"[1][2] by David A. Sinclair, the science does not know anyone who lived until 120. Scientists studied centenarians (people who lived to be 100 years old) and supercentenarians (110) from around the world to see what made them tick longer. To my knowledge, there is no *centenarian word for 120 years old person yet. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespan:_Why_We_Age_%E2%80%93_and_Why_We_Don%27t_Have_To https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lifespan:_Why_We_Age_%E2%80%93... [2] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43723901-lifespan https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/43723901-lifespan

vixen99 5y ago

Life insurance rates can provide a validity check on this kind of claim.

dsq 5y ago

People entering this post may enjoy Larry Niven's short SF story 'Grendel' in which, if I remember correctly, the protagonist solves a murder partially by realizing that a female antagonist was actually much older than she appeared, due to using an immortality drug, and that the need for novelty was a driver for such people.

trentgreene 5y ago

The double contrast is a huge smell for writing. Consider the general form: Proposition A However, Proposition B In Contrast (or any other contradictory linking phrase), Proposition C Have you considered it? Now answer two questions: - Do you think Proposition C is in contrast to A or B? or neither? - Have you ever seen this general form in _good_ writing?

jd115 5y ago

This is the main problem I've always had with the evidence-based scientific approach. Just because all of your data points show the same thing, doesn't make that thing true. This just goes counter to all logic. How is 122 ANYTHING other than a random number? Oh, your set is all human lives ever recorded? Meh... Doesn't mean a thing. Your set is too small. To me, it is self-evident that there is no natural limit to human lifespan. If anything, the existence of a natural limit should require proof, not the lack of it. But more importantly, spending time on proving something so random seems utterly useless to me, especially compared to the alternative of embracing the (far more natural) assumption that no such limit exists and working from there. (But yea, with all this said, the article is a bit of a dud.)

maxlamb 5y ago
122 is not a number they picked at random, it is the age of the oldest human ever with a verifiable birth certificate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment
- coldtea 5y ago
  What parent means is that it's still random, as that person could just as well have lived 121 or 123 or 125 years. But that's a trivial observation that doesn't really change anything. 122 wasn't never supposed to be "non-random" as in some kind of physical law. The natural law concerns the increased certainty of death observed as ages > 100 approach, not a hard and fixed 122 number encoded in our DNA.
ReaLNero 5y ago
So since a 10-sigma event could result in a 200-yr old person, there is no real limit? There is no hard limit, but clearly the age distribution drops suddenly (for developed countries) at 70. There are a bunch of single points of failure in our body -- the heart, the liver, the spine, the major blood vessels, the trachea, etc. There's only so many 9's that those components are built to last for, and they ALL have to work! FYI: I agree that "Leading demographers ... 122 years" is an incorrect statement.
5y ago

Proven 5y ago

Yeah, sure - US healthcare is bankrupt is as, and the Fed is actively ruining the savers and others who produce more they consume. Socialist claptrap - all that matters is what you need or "deserve", not what you can afford. Those who make it beyond the current average expectancy for their category should consider themselves lucky.

vlkr 5y ago

Silicon Valley techies are turning to a cheap diabetes drug to help them live longer https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/23/metformin-for-cancer-prevention-longevity-popular-in-silicon-valley.html https://www.cnbc.com/2019/03/23/metformin-for-cancer-prevent...

LinuxBender 5y ago
Metformin is the pharmaceutical version of Berberine [1] You can get Berberine without a prescription. Metformin has been used in the US for about 40 years and Berberine in Asia for about 3000 years, initially used to treat gut infections. A couple things to note if you take either of those is that they put a heavy load on the liver and also deplete vitamin B12. It may be worth keeping an eye on liver enzymes if using either. Hydration is also important. I should also add that if you start doing either to stay near a restroom for the first few weeks. [1] - https://examine.com/supplements/berberine/ https://examine.com/supplements/berberine/
nradov 5y ago
Metformin may delay the onset of some chronic metabolic diseases but it won't extend maximum lifespan and there are significant negative side effects. It's certainly not a fountain of youth. Proper diet and exercise can deliver most of the same benefits with no medical drawbacks. https://peterattiamd.com/joanmannick-nirbarzilai/ https://peterattiamd.com/joanmannick-nirbarzilai/

vbphprubyjsgo 5y ago

Wow, all I have to do is take some chemical they discovered to stop aging?

ZeroGravitas 5y ago

Has anyone translated some long living people's 'years' into Quality-adjusted life years? It feels like that's the more important metric and there must be a bunch of low hanging fruit like "get vaccinated" that score highly without needing sci-fi breakthroughs. Or is it all so boringly predictable that no one bothers?

pmdulaney 5y ago

Has God indeed said that there is a limit to human lifespan?

timbit42 5y ago
No. Some take a verse from the story of Noah to mean man is limited to 120 years but that verse actually meant the flood would happen 120 years later. Additionally, the ages and years in Genesis are wrong. They were mistranslated from Sumerian. If you translate them back and re-translate them properly, people in the Bible all lived normal ages. For example, instead of living 930 years, Adam lived 81 years. Methuselah appears to have died in the flood but there are additional manipulations of the ages. This is apparent if you compare the ages in the Masoretic, Samaritan and Septuagint texts. Methuselah's age was reduced by some scribe when they noticed his age would have meant he survived the flood, and they couldn't have that.
- pmdulaney 5y ago
  Well, we disagree on how to interpret Scripture. The most interesting tidbit about the Flood (to me, anyway) is the fact that Methuselah means (I've been told) "After this, the end" -- which I take to mean that God gave Methuselah extraordinary longevity as an indication of his patience in waiting for that evil generation to repent.
  - timbit42 5y ago
    Yes, so they changed his name as well. The most interesting tidbit about the Flood for me is that the idea of it being global is a recent belief. Long ago it was not thought as such. The only reason to think it was global is the Hebrew 'eretz' translated as 'earth', which is a poor word to choose because it means a lot more to modern ears than to the ears of those it was written for. When we think of earth, we think of planet, but those it was written for would not have thought that. Also, if you look through Genesis, the only place 'eretz' is translated as 'earth' is in the Noah story. Everywhere else it is translated as 'soil', 'ground' or 'land'. If you replace 'eretz' and therefore 'earth' in the Noah story with 'ground' or 'land', suddenly it doesn't say the flood was global, and neither does it in the original Hebrew because it never did, and it wasn't.

RichardHeart 5y ago

Conflicts of Interest: Prefer not dying. :)