4 ms·

> A virus like that would become real indistinguishable from "behavior of the human body" in not very much time if its infectivity was high. My weird theory: h

by csdvrx 5y ago

> A virus like that would become real indistinguishable from "behavior of the human body" in not very much time if its infectivity was high. My weird theory: how can we know then if aging (or its acceleration or the diseases usually linked to it) isn't the result of some infection that's super contagious and infects 100% of the people,

raylad 5y ago
It's not weird, it's the same idea I had back in the 1970s, but at that time things like retroviruses weren't known or understood. Now we know about endogenous retroviruses, and yes, they have infected everyone (going back millions of years) and yes, they do become more active in aging and are responsible for cancers and causing cellular senescence via DNA damage through retrotransposon activity. You can inhibit them with some of the same anti-retrovirals that work on HIV. Or nutritionally what may work is: high doses of cyanidin plus NAD precursors to stimulate SIRT6, which normally prevents at least one of these endogenous retroviruses, LINE1, from being expressed.
- csdvrx 5y ago
  Super interesting. Please tell me more, like what you are taking besides that. I find it especially interesting how some multicellular macro organisms like jellyfish (one of the oldest ancestor of all non insect animals) have no aging, while humans and most other animals do. Could it be that their immune system or simply their evolutionary path prevented them from being exposed to such endoviruses, that may simply be too omnipresent (or long integrated) in about every other species to be selected out? (They could also present an advantage at the population scale, by ensuring a quick turnover and therefore more genetic evolution simply by filtering out not just the unadvantageous gene but the older adults, thus offering more opportunities for the new generation to replace them faster) This could be supported if jellyfish had less requirements for evolution, like a stable ecological niche - something I have no idea about!
inter_netuser 5y ago
Because it's very unlikely the same pathogen or disease would affect shrimp and humans in the exact same way.

by csdvrx 5y ago

raylad 5y ago

It's not weird, it's the same idea I had back in the 1970s, but at that time things like retroviruses weren't known or understood. Now we know about endogenous retroviruses, and yes, they have infected everyone (going back millions of years) and yes, they do become more active in aging and are responsible for cancers and causing cellular senescence via DNA damage through retrotransposon activity. You can inhibit them with some of the same anti-retrovirals that work on HIV. Or nutritionally what may work is: high doses of cyanidin plus NAD precursors to stimulate SIRT6, which normally prevents at least one of these endogenous retroviruses, LINE1, from being expressed.

csdvrx 5y ago
Super interesting. Please tell me more, like what you are taking besides that. I find it especially interesting how some multicellular macro organisms like jellyfish (one of the oldest ancestor of all non insect animals) have no aging, while humans and most other animals do. Could it be that their immune system or simply their evolutionary path prevented them from being exposed to such endoviruses, that may simply be too omnipresent (or long integrated) in about every other species to be selected out? (They could also present an advantage at the population scale, by ensuring a quick turnover and therefore more genetic evolution simply by filtering out not just the unadvantageous gene but the older adults, thus offering more opportunities for the new generation to replace them faster) This could be supported if jellyfish had less requirements for evolution, like a stable ecological niche - something I have no idea about!

inter_netuser 5y ago

Because it's very unlikely the same pathogen or disease would affect shrimp and humans in the exact same way.