14 ms·

Is aging a disease?

95 points by kenhty 14y ago

SonicSoul 14y ago
isn't it necessary for evolution? Also to keep a balanced variety of species in a self sustaining system such as earth. I suppose without aging, population control would fall squarely on parasites (such as viruses), plagues, natural disasters, and wars over domination of limited resources. Actually i suppose we could be wired differently where organisms don't feel a need to have as much offspring.. But that reinforces the evolution problem.
- gnaritas 14y ago
  What evolution problem? Evolution happens regardless, but why should we be bound to the limitations of nature when we have the potential ability to rise above them?
  - bitwize 14y ago
    Yeah, look how far transcending the limits of nature got us. The planet is polluted and rapidly warming up; and biodiversity, food and water supplies, and other natural resources are dwindling, all because of us trying to get out of the niche nature had provided us.
    - JulianMorrison 14y ago
      You want to see the same thing in nature, put some yeast in a bottle full of sugar water. They won't think much about their waste products or the limits of resources either. Nature is full of boom/crunch scenarios. You are seeing a biased view because you are seeing the ecosystems that lasted - ones that oscillate perhaps, but average to balanced. Humans and our works are as natural as ants and anthills. All creatures strive to expand - humans, uniquely, have the ability to apply choice to the matter. If anything it's our ecological thinking that is "transcending the limits of nature".
  - SonicSoul 14y ago
    the way i see it as a evolution problem is two fold. Evolution happens via generations of species. if a single generation is around indefinitely, it is not evolving. Secondly, the units of species with inferior genes (in evolutionary sense) are also around indefinitely with ability to continue to have offspring slowing down the process of that genome being filtered out of existence
    - gnaritas 14y ago
      You're making the mistake of assuming evolution is progress; that's not how it works. Evolution is adaption to the current environment, that could be progress or devolving, whatever works better. Older genes are not inferior. Secondly, evolution works across great timescales, doubling or tripling lifetimes won't stop evolution. There is no evolution problem. Thirdly, if people could live indefinitely, there would still not be an evolution problem, there'd be a population and resource problem, which would change the environment thus accelerating evolution by selecting those who could survive on fewer resources or those capable of obtaining resources.
- tzs 14y ago
  Other than among humans and animals under the care of humans, don't almost all animals die from causes other than old age? That doesn't show that aging isn't necessary, but it indicates that aging doesn't have to continue until it becomes a cause of death.
- JulianMorrison 14y ago
  Evolution has no intent. It's just shit that happens. And we humans are at a technological point where we can modify our culture, our technology, or our own biological nature much faster than evolution, making it a non-issue.
- rsanchez1 14y ago
  The only thing really necessary for evolution is production of offspring and accumulation of mutations. If you think about it, organisms that divide themselves to reproduce themselves, such as bacteria, some algae, and even cancerous cells, are essentially immortal, making copies of themselves and living with the identity of the original organism until the copy acquires mutations. Lifespan is merely something that wasn't selected for in the evolution of multicellular organisms, while the production of strong offspring was selected. Lifespan is something we can manipulate, and indeed we have, especially in the past few hundreds of years. When we figure out how to avoid irreversible cellular damage indefinitely, then we will have beaten death.
- orangecat 14y ago
  isn't it necessary for evolution? Yes, in the same way that it's necessary for people with bad eyesight to be eaten by bears.
- reasonattlm 14y ago
  It isn't "necessary for evolution" but rather an inevitable consequence of evolution. Quite different. Aging species outcompete ageless species in near every niche, with a few interesting exceptions. That says nothing about aging other than how effective a strategy it is in evolutionary competition - if living every moment of life in agony was an effective strategy, we'd all be doing that. See: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/we-age-because-the-world-changes.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/we-age-because-th... Evolution in the natural sense, of course, has little to do with our future now that we're getting our hands on the controls of biology, and then technologies that can replace biology. Though in the general sense it will play an important role in every culture build by humans.
kiba 14y ago
Aging also kills. So we'll be living longer life and healthier life if we find a cure for aging.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
evo_9 14y ago
Reminds me of this excellent read about how our perception of age and dying taints our ability to even consider it a problem we can work on and correct: http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html
TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago
Betteridge's Law of Headlines - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".
mlinksva 14y ago
Story is 2 years old. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.12809,y.2011,no.4,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.12809,y.2011,no.4... is slightly newer more in depth treatment by David Gems, the person quoted. More similar via https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+%22david%20gems%22 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+...
espeed 14y ago
Something I noticed the other day: Genesis 6:3 says, "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years" (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6%3A1-4&version=NIV http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6%3A1-4&...). Interestingly, if you look at the list of the verified oldest people, only one is over 120 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_peo...).
- rmserror 14y ago
  What is this an argument for? Sure, this argues against a literal interpretation of the truth of the Bible, as somebody has lived more than 120 years. If I start another religious cult and claim that humans won't live for more than 130 years, am I suddenly more valid? What exactly is your point here?
  - sotdan 14y ago
    The parent comment might just be pointing out an amusing coincidence.
- Niten 14y ago
  The christian bible also claims that a man gathered every species from the earth and saved them from an angry god's globe-encompassing flood by stuffing them all in a big boat. What point are you trying to make, exactly?
  - invalidOrTaken 14y ago
    Who says he's trying to make a point? This is something that I, as a religious hacker, find pretty cool (even if I am browsing HN from church). No one's saying this "proves" anything. No one's trying to convert anyone here, and no one's threatened anyone with hellfire and damnation or whatever. Can't we just go, "Oh, cool," and move on?
- steveplace 14y ago
diminish 14y ago
Yet another title with question mark. Aging appears to be more of a feature and not a bug of organic life.
- philh 14y ago
  With respect to what design goal?
  - diminish 14y ago
    the success of the dna based replication. not a design goal indeed.
  - tobias3 14y ago
    It makes life adaptable to a changing environment.
    - Erunno 14y ago
      Humans, due to their highly evolved brains, have accumulated such a vast amount of knowledge that we can adapt our environment to suit our needs as we have been doing for the past centuries. And if our understanding of genetics deepens to the point where we can directly manipulate our biology we won't need the comparably crude trial and error methodology that is mutation and selection anymore. This would still fall under the evolutionary advantage our brains give us.
      - tobias3 14y ago
        It hasn't deepend to that point yet tough. It's still trial&error genetics and medicine. Being smarter than nature is a tall order. I'd say the long term success (Millions of years) of humankind is still not sure. Does not seem very stable at the moment, climate change and the potential destruction via nuclear bombs and so on...
        Erunno 14y ago
delinka 14y ago
There was some research headlined on HN within the last year that suggested aging was nature's response to cancer. Something like: if our cells replicated at a "young rate" for all our lives, replication mistakes would have us dying of cancer at a higher rate. So nature slows down cell replication to prevent cancer growth. I'll try to find the link. Feel free to reply with such if you find it before I do.
AngryParsley 14y ago
Let's use some criteria from Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease (http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/real_diseases_unasking_the_question/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/real_diseases_unasking_the_quest...). 1. Biological? Yes 2. Involuntary? Yes 3. Rare? No 4. Unpleasant? Yes 5. Discrete? No 6. Medicable? Yes So aging has many aspects of what we call disease. Of course, the implied question that everyone cares about is is, "Will humanity be better off if we devote more resources to curing aging?" The answer to that brings much more baggage, and depends on your moral and religious views.
- JulianMorrison 14y ago
  Ageing is pretty discrete - at least if you're looking at the accumulating damage, rather than the bio-machinery that creates it as a side effect. Complex mechanism -> simple damage -> complex symptoms because the simple damage is body-pervasive.
- chucknthem 14y ago
  Out of that list, I think unpleasant is what separates a disease from other biological phenomena. You can say the same thing about human growth (the early parts of aging), but it's not unpleasant until later.
- Zak 14y ago
  I'm not even sure that's the right question. If you're asking about spending government money on it or donating to a charity in support of it, then it's the right question. If you're asking whether private research in to it should be forbidden by law or made impractical through regulation, I think it's not the right question. A better question might be "Is there any compelling reason to forbid this?".
reasonattlm 14y ago
This is a question that crops up regularly - and it does so entirely because of the regulatory structure that exists in much of the Western world, such as that imposed by the FDA. In essence the FDA only approves medicines for specific, recognized, named diseases. Therefore you cannot legally, commercially treat aging in the US, as aging is not recognized by the FDA as a disease, and there is no path towards reversing that situation. (Though let us be clear, the idea of a named disease is a nebulous entity: "Alzheimer's" probably covers at least three distinct conditions, for example, and it's much the same for Parkinson's and many other diseases that were named early and only now are being split out into their various etiologies. Ultimately at the level biotech is moving into now, names for collections of symptoms and similar-looking damage go away in favor of treating specific mechanisms that get you there). To show just how much of a cost the FDA imposes just by this regulatory aspect, you might look at sarcopenia: it has cost millions of dollars and years to date and will cost millions and years more to lobby the FDA (meaning put dollars into the pockets of lawyers and appointees) to recognize sarcopenia as a condition. Until that happens, there will be no serious commercial research into the numerous potential mechanisms and therapies, because you can't sell the results in the US. Now multiply that by the thousands of potential named conditions you could carve off the bulk of mechanisms that is called aging. Look at the SENS Foundation research pages for a primer on the underpinnings: http://sens.org/sens-research/research-themes http://sens.org/sens-research/research-themes So given this ridiculous state of affairs, pretty much par for the course for big government, therapies for aging will never happen in the US for so long as the present regulatory structure exists, and for so long as there is no massive medical tourism and global research and development exchange devoted to circumventing it. That latter community is only just getting started, when considered in the grand scheme of things. But most people are blind to all of this, and think that the FDA is actually a force for good - because they don't see the opportunity cost and the progress that didn't happen. In fact, the FDA and its equivalents overseas are the biggest obstacle to significant medical progress in this age of revolutionary advances in biotechnology. http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/the-fda-is-a-destructive-force.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/the-fda-is-a-dest... For more reading on the "is aging a disease" thing, you might look at: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/talking-point-is-aging-a-disease.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/talking-point-is-... "Because aging is not viewed as a disease, the whole process of bringing drugs to market can't be applied to drugs that treat aging. This creates a disincentive to pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs to treat it," said Gems. http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2009/07/sage-crossroads-podcasts-on-the-pharmaceutical-industry-and-aging.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2009/07/sage-crossroads-p... Why, despite the great range of potential applicable biotechnology, do we not see hundreds of millions of dollars invested in startups attempting to address the aging process? The answer is buried in this New York Times article on Sirtris: "Dr. Westphal and Mr. Sinclair stress that they are not working to 'cure' aging, a condition that, so far at least, is common to all humanity and that most physicians do not consider a disease. 'Curing aging is not an endpoint the federal drug agency would recognize,' Dr. Westphal says dryly. Instead, both men say, they are working to ameliorate the diseases of aging." ... LARRY MILLER: [When] I was heading aging at Glaxo Smith Kline, the issues that I faced were that I was very interested in developing medications for frailty and weakness in muscle for when people get old because when people get weak they usually stop eating and then they fall and break a hip and end up in the hospital and die potentially, but the regulatory apparatus isn't there yet. Sarcopenia isn’t recognized as an official disease by the FDA, so the pathway to get drugs approved for frailty and to get more people mobile and into society is just not there.
jackhoy 14y ago
You can help raise awareness of this issue here: http://questions.sciencedebate.org/forums/149344-the-top-science-questions-facing-america-2012-edi/suggestions/2693427-should-the-united-states-fund-a-war-on-aging- http://questions.sciencedebate.org/forums/149344-the-top-sci...
MikeCapone 14y ago
Whatever you call it, it's terrible and it's fixable (like other diseases), so we should work on it.
Porter_423 14y ago
We at Nanobiotech Pharma have been doing research on aging & arteriosclerosis as it’s principal cause since 1997. Our research shows that most aging effects are secondary to arteriosclerosis & chronic, life-long responses to inflammation. We believe we have isolated the culprits and have developed effective remedies. You heard it here first: AGING IS INFECTIOUS and can be REVERSED. Read more: www.nanobiotech.us
fossuser 14y ago
The following is more tangentially related to the article then a direct comment about the interesting points it makes. An interesting hypothesis I read about aging was that it's an anticancer mechanism necessary to become old enough to reproduce. The cellular metabolic process creates a lot free radicals that cause damage, while the body has built in mechanisms to repair the damage at high rates of replication the chance of damage resulting in turning on an oncogene increases. In order to combat this the body slows down its division process to prevent the likelihood of cancer but as a side effect we experiencing the symptoms of aging and inevitable death (usually by cancer if you live long enough to get it). Not sure if any of this is accurate, but the idea is interesting and something I hadn't thought of. It also introduces problems since if at all accurate trying to prevent aging may result in higher cancer risk. Talk of this also reminds me of a quote I like (from http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-documentation/ http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-...): "We all express the symptoms of a fatal, inherited degenerative condition called aging - or so the joke goes. It's a dark joke, but there's truth to be found in it, as is often the case in black humor. Unfortunately, all too few people think of themselves as patients suffering aging, and fewer still would call themselves patient advocates, agitating for research leading towards therapies and cures for aging. This is a sorry state of affairs: given that our time is limited and ticking away, the tasks upon the table should always include some consideration of aging. What can we do about it? How can we engineer a research community, funding and support to make real progress within our lifetimes? If you don't spend at least some of your time on this issue, then you're fiddling while Rome burns. Time is the most precious thing we have, and we live on the cusp of technologies that will allow us to gain more of it - but those advances in medicine won't happen soon enough unless we work at it."
tokenadult 14y ago
Thanks for submitting the interesting article, and thanks for the interesting comments already posted by various HN participants. I'll respond generally to those in this comment. From the article: "A study published last year by Danish researchers estimated that more than half of all babies born in wealthy nations since the year 2000 will live to see their 100th birthdays." I had the privilege of reading that study, "Ageing populations: the challenges ahead," Lancet. 2009 October 3; 374(9696): 1196–1208. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61460-4 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ and then discussing it with one of the collaborators of a study author in a "journal club" at my alma mater university. Detailed studies of life expectancy at advanced age in a variety of countries show that various lifestyle changes and other changes result in a worldwide trend of increasing lifespan, such that "Very long lives are not the distant privilege of remote future generations—very long lives are the probable destiny of most people alive now in developed countries." The top-ranked HN comment as I post my comment here says, "In essence the FDA only approves medicines for specific, recognized, named diseases. Therefore you cannot legally, commercially treat aging in the US, as aging is not recognized by the FDA as a disease, and there is no path towards reversing that situation." The comment has already been challenged by a knowledgeable participant here as not fully accurate, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3968515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3968515 and in any event is not relevant to the worldwide research effort (exemplified by the study I have linked here) into the worldwide trend of longer lifespans in the developed world, because the FDA regulates medical treatments only in the United States. (I have lived in a developed country other than the United States, and am well aware that many treatments that are not approved in the United States are prescribed by physicians in other countries and researched by researchers in other countries.) The FDA is not shortening lifespans in the United States, despite what some advocacy organizations say to the contrary. I have had multiple ancestors who were born in the 1800s live into their nineties. And my wife's ancestors, born in a poor country then in the undeveloped world, managed to have quite long lifespans. So we are accustomed in our family to thinking about the implications of long lifespans. Oddly, heritability of longevity is actually LOWER than the heritability of most measurable human characteristics. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/health/31age.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/health/31age.html?_r=1&#38... It could be that anyone, even someone without much of a family history of long life span, might meet the prediction of the study linked above that a young person born after the year 2000 in a developed country is as likely as not to live to the age of 100. Thus far we are making incremental progress, all over the world in a variety of human societies, increasing human lifespan and life expectancy at most ages. Meanwhile a number of forms of fundamental biological research are still just in their beginning stages. In particular, the issue of "missing heritability" in disease research http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831613/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831613/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3059431/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3059431/ suggests that we have a long way to go to identify biological pathways in living human beings that make a difference in how long individual human beings live. The ongoing progress of science-based medicine http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/category/science-and-medicine/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/category/scien... is slower than desirable partly because all human researchers, in whatever regulatory environment, struggle to overcome their own cognitive biases as they attempt to determine what treatments work in reducing all-cause mortality and morbidity. And the huge role of lifestyle factors in mortality and morbidity http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658866/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658866/ http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000058 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj... suggests that as causation of disease and early death becomes more clear, we will not necessarily find that all human beings choose to reduce their risk of early death to the same degree. To sum up, the submitted article was quite interesting. It reports, "There is now a "groundswell" of specialists in aging, says Dillin, who are lobbying the world's biggest drug regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to consider redefining aging as a disease in its own right." If by "aging" those lobbying scientists mean "all-cause morbidity and mortality," that could be a good reality check on outcome studies of treatments for specific diseases. As it is now, people are living longer, year after year after year, and in some places they seem to be living to a healthier old age than ever before. Continuing that trend is a likely outcome of ongoing efforts both to evaluate disease treatments more scientifically and to understand better at a fundamental level how human physiology works.
jakeonthemove 14y ago
I never understood why the FDA won't approve drugs that improve an aspect of our body, but only those that treat something.
- refurb 14y ago
  A lot of it comes down to the risk vs. benefit equation. The FDA decides to approval/deny new drug for marketing by (attempting) to balance the benefits of the therapy with the drawbacks. This is why a drug like Tysabri (used to treat MS) can cause a potentially fatal brain infect (PML) and the FDA still gives it an "OK" to be marketed. And it's also the reason why it's so hard to get obesity drugs approved. Huge population + small risk = a lot of patients harmed. The FDA considers a healthy human to be the "optimal outcome". If you want to improve an aspect of human health beyond that, you'll have to show that there are zero risks associated with it.
orthecreedence 14y ago
It really makes me sick to my stomach that so many people spend the time and resources on "figuring out" aging and how to stop it. Humanity's #1 problem is overpopulation. So let's...make everyone...live longer?? We don't need to stop or slow down aging. We need to accept the fact that everything that's alive eventually dies. "When" is arbitrary (with the exception of people under 30 dying). Prolonging the inevitable is a waste of resources, and an enormous burden on society. All these horrible diseases we get when we get older are a product of the fact that our bodies exist for so long. Normally, we'd just die, but modern medicine keeps the body alive so the mind can rot instead. But at least you're alive!!! Also, if people are retiring at 65 and living to be 120, then everyone who is actually productive has to support all these bags of living organic tissue hooked up to machines for another 60 years. For what purpose? You're born. You grow up. You have children. You retire. Then you die, and you make room for everyone else. This is one thing we don't have to sit around questioning. Nobody deserves to live forever. This whole "I have to live longer!!" ego trip is sickening.
- kwk 14y ago
  What's sickening is the way you devalue life by thinking you're helpless to sustain it. Life is just another phenomenon subtended by physical law. We, as intelligent creatures, have the tools necessary to use those laws to our advantage. If you're not willing to use those tools, that's you're prerogative, but don't look down on those of us who would like to make the most of our time on this earth.
  - orthecreedence 14y ago
    What's sickening is that you think sustaining life is valuing life. On an individual/egotistical level, perhaps. On a global level, not at all. If I die, life goes on. If you die, life ends. See the difference? "Make the most our time" and live indefinitely are opposite concepts. Making the most of the time you're given is an honorable goal. Extending life for unknown reasons besides "living longer" doesn't make logical sense, and is a large waste of resources for people who are actually productive. Let's say you're 80. Should you spend $100K to live another 10 years or would you rather your grandchildren go to college? Pick one. Extending your life is devaluing everybody else's life. There's plenty of life out in the world that benefits when someone dies, either through consumption of raw material or reappropriation of resources. Dying is not devaluing life, it's celebrating it by returning what's given to you for others to use.
dacilselig 14y ago
Am I to assume that since the title ends with a question mark that the answer is no?
lsparrish 14y ago
I think that if a cure for aging is invented tomorrow, I won't be able to benefit from it. Why? Because it will still be in clinical trials by the time I die. The simple solution is to pour money (and lots of it) into the goal of clinically reversible cryonics. At low temperatures, aging vanishes along with all other metabolic activity -- cancer, viral infection, and so forth would all be stopped in their tracks. This buys precious time that can be used to develop a cure for pretty much any condition whatsoever. Cryonics could also be cheap. The energy costs for a large scale cryonics facility are much lower than for small-scale due to the square-cube law. (Square the surface area and you get a cube of the volume, for any shape of container.) So the more the merrier.

95 points by kenhty 14y ago

isn't it necessary for evolution? Also to keep a balanced variety of species in a self sustaining system such as earth. I suppose without aging, population control would fall squarely on parasites (such as viruses), plagues, natural disasters, and wars over domination of limited resources. Actually i suppose we could be wired differently where organisms don't feel a need to have as much offspring.. But that reinforces the evolution problem.

gnaritas 14y ago
What evolution problem? Evolution happens regardless, but why should we be bound to the limitations of nature when we have the potential ability to rise above them?
- bitwize 14y ago
  Yeah, look how far transcending the limits of nature got us. The planet is polluted and rapidly warming up; and biodiversity, food and water supplies, and other natural resources are dwindling, all because of us trying to get out of the niche nature had provided us.
  - JulianMorrison 14y ago
    You want to see the same thing in nature, put some yeast in a bottle full of sugar water. They won't think much about their waste products or the limits of resources either. Nature is full of boom/crunch scenarios. You are seeing a biased view because you are seeing the ecosystems that lasted - ones that oscillate perhaps, but average to balanced. Humans and our works are as natural as ants and anthills. All creatures strive to expand - humans, uniquely, have the ability to apply choice to the matter. If anything it's our ecological thinking that is "transcending the limits of nature".
- SonicSoul 14y ago
  the way i see it as a evolution problem is two fold. Evolution happens via generations of species. if a single generation is around indefinitely, it is not evolving. Secondly, the units of species with inferior genes (in evolutionary sense) are also around indefinitely with ability to continue to have offspring slowing down the process of that genome being filtered out of existence
  - gnaritas 14y ago
    You're making the mistake of assuming evolution is progress; that's not how it works. Evolution is adaption to the current environment, that could be progress or devolving, whatever works better. Older genes are not inferior. Secondly, evolution works across great timescales, doubling or tripling lifetimes won't stop evolution. There is no evolution problem. Thirdly, if people could live indefinitely, there would still not be an evolution problem, there'd be a population and resource problem, which would change the environment thus accelerating evolution by selecting those who could survive on fewer resources or those capable of obtaining resources.
tzs 14y ago
Other than among humans and animals under the care of humans, don't almost all animals die from causes other than old age? That doesn't show that aging isn't necessary, but it indicates that aging doesn't have to continue until it becomes a cause of death.
JulianMorrison 14y ago
Evolution has no intent. It's just shit that happens. And we humans are at a technological point where we can modify our culture, our technology, or our own biological nature much faster than evolution, making it a non-issue.
rsanchez1 14y ago
The only thing really necessary for evolution is production of offspring and accumulation of mutations. If you think about it, organisms that divide themselves to reproduce themselves, such as bacteria, some algae, and even cancerous cells, are essentially immortal, making copies of themselves and living with the identity of the original organism until the copy acquires mutations. Lifespan is merely something that wasn't selected for in the evolution of multicellular organisms, while the production of strong offspring was selected. Lifespan is something we can manipulate, and indeed we have, especially in the past few hundreds of years. When we figure out how to avoid irreversible cellular damage indefinitely, then we will have beaten death.
orangecat 14y ago
isn't it necessary for evolution? Yes, in the same way that it's necessary for people with bad eyesight to be eaten by bears.
reasonattlm 14y ago
It isn't "necessary for evolution" but rather an inevitable consequence of evolution. Quite different. Aging species outcompete ageless species in near every niche, with a few interesting exceptions. That says nothing about aging other than how effective a strategy it is in evolutionary competition - if living every moment of life in agony was an effective strategy, we'd all be doing that. See: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/we-age-because-the-world-changes.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2011/03/we-age-because-th... Evolution in the natural sense, of course, has little to do with our future now that we're getting our hands on the controls of biology, and then technologies that can replace biology. Though in the general sense it will play an important role in every culture build by humans.

kiba 14y ago

Aging also kills. So we'll be living longer life and healthier life if we find a cure for aging.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

evo_9 14y ago

Reminds me of this excellent read about how our perception of age and dying taints our ability to even consider it a problem we can work on and correct: http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html http://www.nickbostrom.com/fable/dragon.html

TazeTSchnitzel 14y ago

Betteridge's Law of Headlines - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_Law_of_Headlines "Any headline which ends in a question mark can be answered by the word 'no'".

mlinksva 14y ago

Story is 2 years old. http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.12809,y.2011,no.4,content.true,page.1,css.print/issue.aspx http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/id.12809,y.2011,no.4... is slightly newer more in depth treatment by David Gems, the person quoted. More similar via https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+%22david%20gems%22 https://encrypted.google.com/search?q=site%3Afightaging.org+...

espeed 14y ago

Something I noticed the other day: Genesis 6:3 says, "My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be a hundred and twenty years" (http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6%3A1-4&version=NIV http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+6%3A1-4&...). Interestingly, if you look at the list of the verified oldest people, only one is over 120 years (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_people http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_verified_oldest_peo...).

rmserror 14y ago
What is this an argument for? Sure, this argues against a literal interpretation of the truth of the Bible, as somebody has lived more than 120 years. If I start another religious cult and claim that humans won't live for more than 130 years, am I suddenly more valid? What exactly is your point here?
- sotdan 14y ago
  The parent comment might just be pointing out an amusing coincidence.
Niten 14y ago
The christian bible also claims that a man gathered every species from the earth and saved them from an angry god's globe-encompassing flood by stuffing them all in a big boat. What point are you trying to make, exactly?
- invalidOrTaken 14y ago
  Who says he's trying to make a point? This is something that I, as a religious hacker, find pretty cool (even if I am browsing HN from church). No one's saying this "proves" anything. No one's trying to convert anyone here, and no one's threatened anyone with hellfire and damnation or whatever. Can't we just go, "Oh, cool," and move on?
steveplace 14y ago

diminish 14y ago

Yet another title with question mark. Aging appears to be more of a feature and not a bug of organic life.

philh 14y ago
With respect to what design goal?
- diminish 14y ago
  the success of the dna based replication. not a design goal indeed.
- tobias3 14y ago
  It makes life adaptable to a changing environment.
  - Erunno 14y ago
    Humans, due to their highly evolved brains, have accumulated such a vast amount of knowledge that we can adapt our environment to suit our needs as we have been doing for the past centuries. And if our understanding of genetics deepens to the point where we can directly manipulate our biology we won't need the comparably crude trial and error methodology that is mutation and selection anymore. This would still fall under the evolutionary advantage our brains give us.
    - tobias3 14y ago
      It hasn't deepend to that point yet tough. It's still trial&error genetics and medicine. Being smarter than nature is a tall order. I'd say the long term success (Millions of years) of humankind is still not sure. Does not seem very stable at the moment, climate change and the potential destruction via nuclear bombs and so on...
      - Erunno 14y ago

delinka 14y ago

There was some research headlined on HN within the last year that suggested aging was nature's response to cancer. Something like: if our cells replicated at a "young rate" for all our lives, replication mistakes would have us dying of cancer at a higher rate. So nature slows down cell replication to prevent cancer growth. I'll try to find the link. Feel free to reply with such if you find it before I do.

AngryParsley 14y ago

Let's use some criteria from Diseased thinking: dissolving questions about disease (http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/real_diseases_unasking_the_question/ http://lesswrong.com/lw/2as/real_diseases_unasking_the_quest...). 1. Biological? Yes 2. Involuntary? Yes 3. Rare? No 4. Unpleasant? Yes 5. Discrete? No 6. Medicable? Yes So aging has many aspects of what we call disease. Of course, the implied question that everyone cares about is is, "Will humanity be better off if we devote more resources to curing aging?" The answer to that brings much more baggage, and depends on your moral and religious views.

JulianMorrison 14y ago
Ageing is pretty discrete - at least if you're looking at the accumulating damage, rather than the bio-machinery that creates it as a side effect. Complex mechanism -> simple damage -> complex symptoms because the simple damage is body-pervasive.
chucknthem 14y ago
Out of that list, I think unpleasant is what separates a disease from other biological phenomena. You can say the same thing about human growth (the early parts of aging), but it's not unpleasant until later.
Zak 14y ago
I'm not even sure that's the right question. If you're asking about spending government money on it or donating to a charity in support of it, then it's the right question. If you're asking whether private research in to it should be forbidden by law or made impractical through regulation, I think it's not the right question. A better question might be "Is there any compelling reason to forbid this?".

reasonattlm 14y ago

This is a question that crops up regularly - and it does so entirely because of the regulatory structure that exists in much of the Western world, such as that imposed by the FDA. In essence the FDA only approves medicines for specific, recognized, named diseases. Therefore you cannot legally, commercially treat aging in the US, as aging is not recognized by the FDA as a disease, and there is no path towards reversing that situation. (Though let us be clear, the idea of a named disease is a nebulous entity: "Alzheimer's" probably covers at least three distinct conditions, for example, and it's much the same for Parkinson's and many other diseases that were named early and only now are being split out into their various etiologies. Ultimately at the level biotech is moving into now, names for collections of symptoms and similar-looking damage go away in favor of treating specific mechanisms that get you there). To show just how much of a cost the FDA imposes just by this regulatory aspect, you might look at sarcopenia: it has cost millions of dollars and years to date and will cost millions and years more to lobby the FDA (meaning put dollars into the pockets of lawyers and appointees) to recognize sarcopenia as a condition. Until that happens, there will be no serious commercial research into the numerous potential mechanisms and therapies, because you can't sell the results in the US. Now multiply that by the thousands of potential named conditions you could carve off the bulk of mechanisms that is called aging. Look at the SENS Foundation research pages for a primer on the underpinnings: http://sens.org/sens-research/research-themes http://sens.org/sens-research/research-themes So given this ridiculous state of affairs, pretty much par for the course for big government, therapies for aging will never happen in the US for so long as the present regulatory structure exists, and for so long as there is no massive medical tourism and global research and development exchange devoted to circumventing it. That latter community is only just getting started, when considered in the grand scheme of things. But most people are blind to all of this, and think that the FDA is actually a force for good - because they don't see the opportunity cost and the progress that didn't happen. In fact, the FDA and its equivalents overseas are the biggest obstacle to significant medical progress in this age of revolutionary advances in biotechnology. http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/the-fda-is-a-destructive-force.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2012/04/the-fda-is-a-dest... For more reading on the "is aging a disease" thing, you might look at: http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/talking-point-is-aging-a-disease.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2010/05/talking-point-is-... "Because aging is not viewed as a disease, the whole process of bringing drugs to market can't be applied to drugs that treat aging. This creates a disincentive to pharmaceutical companies to develop drugs to treat it," said Gems. http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2009/07/sage-crossroads-podcasts-on-the-pharmaceutical-industry-and-aging.php http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2009/07/sage-crossroads-p... Why, despite the great range of potential applicable biotechnology, do we not see hundreds of millions of dollars invested in startups attempting to address the aging process? The answer is buried in this New York Times article on Sirtris: "Dr. Westphal and Mr. Sinclair stress that they are not working to 'cure' aging, a condition that, so far at least, is common to all humanity and that most physicians do not consider a disease. 'Curing aging is not an endpoint the federal drug agency would recognize,' Dr. Westphal says dryly. Instead, both men say, they are working to ameliorate the diseases of aging." ... LARRY MILLER: [When] I was heading aging at Glaxo Smith Kline, the issues that I faced were that I was very interested in developing medications for frailty and weakness in muscle for when people get old because when people get weak they usually stop eating and then they fall and break a hip and end up in the hospital and die potentially, but the regulatory apparatus isn't there yet. Sarcopenia isn’t recognized as an official disease by the FDA, so the pathway to get drugs approved for frailty and to get more people mobile and into society is just not there.

jackhoy 14y ago

You can help raise awareness of this issue here: http://questions.sciencedebate.org/forums/149344-the-top-science-questions-facing-america-2012-edi/suggestions/2693427-should-the-united-states-fund-a-war-on-aging- http://questions.sciencedebate.org/forums/149344-the-top-sci...

MikeCapone 14y ago

Whatever you call it, it's terrible and it's fixable (like other diseases), so we should work on it.

Porter_423 14y ago

We at Nanobiotech Pharma have been doing research on aging & arteriosclerosis as it’s principal cause since 1997. Our research shows that most aging effects are secondary to arteriosclerosis & chronic, life-long responses to inflammation. We believe we have isolated the culprits and have developed effective remedies. You heard it here first: AGING IS INFECTIOUS and can be REVERSED. Read more: www.nanobiotech.us

fossuser 14y ago

The following is more tangentially related to the article then a direct comment about the interesting points it makes. An interesting hypothesis I read about aging was that it's an anticancer mechanism necessary to become old enough to reproduce. The cellular metabolic process creates a lot free radicals that cause damage, while the body has built in mechanisms to repair the damage at high rates of replication the chance of damage resulting in turning on an oncogene increases. In order to combat this the body slows down its division process to prevent the likelihood of cancer but as a side effect we experiencing the symptoms of aging and inevitable death (usually by cancer if you live long enough to get it). Not sure if any of this is accurate, but the idea is interesting and something I hadn't thought of. It also introduces problems since if at all accurate trying to prevent aging may result in higher cancer risk. Talk of this also reminds me of a quote I like (from http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-documentation/ http://hplusmagazine.com/2011/07/13/longevity-science-needs-...): "We all express the symptoms of a fatal, inherited degenerative condition called aging - or so the joke goes. It's a dark joke, but there's truth to be found in it, as is often the case in black humor. Unfortunately, all too few people think of themselves as patients suffering aging, and fewer still would call themselves patient advocates, agitating for research leading towards therapies and cures for aging. This is a sorry state of affairs: given that our time is limited and ticking away, the tasks upon the table should always include some consideration of aging. What can we do about it? How can we engineer a research community, funding and support to make real progress within our lifetimes? If you don't spend at least some of your time on this issue, then you're fiddling while Rome burns. Time is the most precious thing we have, and we live on the cusp of technologies that will allow us to gain more of it - but those advances in medicine won't happen soon enough unless we work at it."

tokenadult 14y ago

Thanks for submitting the interesting article, and thanks for the interesting comments already posted by various HN participants. I'll respond generally to those in this comment. From the article: "A study published last year by Danish researchers estimated that more than half of all babies born in wealthy nations since the year 2000 will live to see their 100th birthdays." I had the privilege of reading that study, "Ageing populations: the challenges ahead," Lancet. 2009 October 3; 374(9696): 1196–1208. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)61460-4 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2810516/ and then discussing it with one of the collaborators of a study author in a "journal club" at my alma mater university. Detailed studies of life expectancy at advanced age in a variety of countries show that various lifestyle changes and other changes result in a worldwide trend of increasing lifespan, such that "Very long lives are not the distant privilege of remote future generations—very long lives are the probable destiny of most people alive now in developed countries." The top-ranked HN comment as I post my comment here says, "In essence the FDA only approves medicines for specific, recognized, named diseases. Therefore you cannot legally, commercially treat aging in the US, as aging is not recognized by the FDA as a disease, and there is no path towards reversing that situation." The comment has already been challenged by a knowledgeable participant here as not fully accurate, http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3968515 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=3968515 and in any event is not relevant to the worldwide research effort (exemplified by the study I have linked here) into the worldwide trend of longer lifespans in the developed world, because the FDA regulates medical treatments only in the United States. (I have lived in a developed country other than the United States, and am well aware that many treatments that are not approved in the United States are prescribed by physicians in other countries and researched by researchers in other countries.) The FDA is not shortening lifespans in the United States, despite what some advocacy organizations say to the contrary. I have had multiple ancestors who were born in the 1800s live into their nineties. And my wife's ancestors, born in a poor country then in the undeveloped world, managed to have quite long lifespans. So we are accustomed in our family to thinking about the implications of long lifespans. Oddly, heritability of longevity is actually LOWER than the heritability of most measurable human characteristics. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/health/31age.html?_r=1&pagewanted=print http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/31/health/31age.html?_r=1&#38... It could be that anyone, even someone without much of a family history of long life span, might meet the prediction of the study linked above that a young person born after the year 2000 in a developed country is as likely as not to live to the age of 100. Thus far we are making incremental progress, all over the world in a variety of human societies, increasing human lifespan and life expectancy at most ages. Meanwhile a number of forms of fundamental biological research are still just in their beginning stages. In particular, the issue of "missing heritability" in disease research http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831613/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2831613/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3059431/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3059431/ suggests that we have a long way to go to identify biological pathways in living human beings that make a difference in how long individual human beings live. The ongoing progress of science-based medicine http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/category/science-and-medicine/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/category/scien... is slower than desirable partly because all human researchers, in whatever regulatory environment, struggle to overcome their own cognitive biases as they attempt to determine what treatments work in reducing all-cause mortality and morbidity. And the huge role of lifestyle factors in mortality and morbidity http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658866/ http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2658866/ http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000058 http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fj... suggests that as causation of disease and early death becomes more clear, we will not necessarily find that all human beings choose to reduce their risk of early death to the same degree. To sum up, the submitted article was quite interesting. It reports, "There is now a "groundswell" of specialists in aging, says Dillin, who are lobbying the world's biggest drug regulator, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, to consider redefining aging as a disease in its own right." If by "aging" those lobbying scientists mean "all-cause morbidity and mortality," that could be a good reality check on outcome studies of treatments for specific diseases. As it is now, people are living longer, year after year after year, and in some places they seem to be living to a healthier old age than ever before. Continuing that trend is a likely outcome of ongoing efforts both to evaluate disease treatments more scientifically and to understand better at a fundamental level how human physiology works.

jakeonthemove 14y ago

I never understood why the FDA won't approve drugs that improve an aspect of our body, but only those that treat something.

refurb 14y ago
A lot of it comes down to the risk vs. benefit equation. The FDA decides to approval/deny new drug for marketing by (attempting) to balance the benefits of the therapy with the drawbacks. This is why a drug like Tysabri (used to treat MS) can cause a potentially fatal brain infect (PML) and the FDA still gives it an "OK" to be marketed. And it's also the reason why it's so hard to get obesity drugs approved. Huge population + small risk = a lot of patients harmed. The FDA considers a healthy human to be the "optimal outcome". If you want to improve an aspect of human health beyond that, you'll have to show that there are zero risks associated with it.

orthecreedence 14y ago

It really makes me sick to my stomach that so many people spend the time and resources on "figuring out" aging and how to stop it. Humanity's #1 problem is overpopulation. So let's...make everyone...live longer?? We don't need to stop or slow down aging. We need to accept the fact that everything that's alive eventually dies. "When" is arbitrary (with the exception of people under 30 dying). Prolonging the inevitable is a waste of resources, and an enormous burden on society. All these horrible diseases we get when we get older are a product of the fact that our bodies exist for so long. Normally, we'd just die, but modern medicine keeps the body alive so the mind can rot instead. But at least you're alive!!! Also, if people are retiring at 65 and living to be 120, then everyone who is actually productive has to support all these bags of living organic tissue hooked up to machines for another 60 years. For what purpose? You're born. You grow up. You have children. You retire. Then you die, and you make room for everyone else. This is one thing we don't have to sit around questioning. Nobody deserves to live forever. This whole "I have to live longer!!" ego trip is sickening.

kwk 14y ago
What's sickening is the way you devalue life by thinking you're helpless to sustain it. Life is just another phenomenon subtended by physical law. We, as intelligent creatures, have the tools necessary to use those laws to our advantage. If you're not willing to use those tools, that's you're prerogative, but don't look down on those of us who would like to make the most of our time on this earth.
- orthecreedence 14y ago
  What's sickening is that you think sustaining life is valuing life. On an individual/egotistical level, perhaps. On a global level, not at all. If I die, life goes on. If you die, life ends. See the difference? "Make the most our time" and live indefinitely are opposite concepts. Making the most of the time you're given is an honorable goal. Extending life for unknown reasons besides "living longer" doesn't make logical sense, and is a large waste of resources for people who are actually productive. Let's say you're 80. Should you spend $100K to live another 10 years or would you rather your grandchildren go to college? Pick one. Extending your life is devaluing everybody else's life. There's plenty of life out in the world that benefits when someone dies, either through consumption of raw material or reappropriation of resources. Dying is not devaluing life, it's celebrating it by returning what's given to you for others to use.

dacilselig 14y ago

Am I to assume that since the title ends with a question mark that the answer is no?

lsparrish 14y ago

I think that if a cure for aging is invented tomorrow, I won't be able to benefit from it. Why? Because it will still be in clinical trials by the time I die. The simple solution is to pour money (and lots of it) into the goal of clinically reversible cryonics. At low temperatures, aging vanishes along with all other metabolic activity -- cancer, viral infection, and so forth would all be stopped in their tracks. This buys precious time that can be used to develop a cure for pretty much any condition whatsoever. Cryonics could also be cheap. The energy costs for a large scale cryonics facility are much lower than for small-scale due to the square-cube law. (Square the surface area and you get a cube of the volume, for any shape of container.) So the more the merrier.