5 ms·

Anti-aging molecule successfully restores multiple markers of youth

37 points by sebazzz 2y ago

zihotki 2y ago
.. in mice.
- bulbosaur123 2y ago
  EVERYTHING works in mice!
- olx_designer 2y ago
  It's good to be mice
cess11 2y ago
LOL, as the adolescents say. https://pubpeer.com/search?q=depinho https://pubpeer.com/search?q=depinho Edit: For those who aren't familiar with PubPeer, it's a platform for exposing research fraud and criticisms of research papers. This particular researcher is well known on it.
thomasdeleeuw 2y ago
A sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people. Not that rich people not already have access to better healthcare, but still.
- worldsayshi 2y ago
  What if it gets controlled by everyone?
  - tetris11 2y ago
    It could be a flip of a coin. Craig Venter[0] almost patented what was back then the human reference genome (based on his own genome), but thankfully publicly funded efforts prevailed to taper the profiteering. We could be in a similar situation with anti-aging drugs. Plus, with citizen science projects making ad-hoc labs more accessible than ever, there's a good chance that normal people could make their own versions of these anti-aging drugs, assuming that science journals and informatic pipelines remain accessible (the current rent-seeking of top journals lends some small but worrying evidence against this). 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Proj...
- vsuperpower2020 2y ago
  Great, now communists are going after longer lifespans again.
- JumpCrisscross 2y ago
  > sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people Sadder day for those who only sees tragedy in progress.
- unsupp0rted 2y ago
  Why can’t we all live in caves and chase our prey across the savannah, all equal, until a broken leg or an infected scratch causes certain death, like nature intended?
  - sgu999 2y ago
    To others: how are these kind of arguments called? "We probably or may not need X" "Alright you go back to eating bananas in a tree then!" EDIT: Had forgotten for a second that we can know ask this kind of questions to a computer, "straw man argument".
    - interstice 2y ago
      Reductio ad absurdum. Possibly
    - d_tr 2y ago
      Where X = "Starting to rot from the inside out as soon as we hit forty, while simultaneously watching loved ones age badly and becoming decreasingly self-sufficient, at best." Yeah, who needs "X". I won't even bother with the "the rich" stuff, because, frankly, it's too tired, pathetic, childish and naive.
  - Devasta 2y ago
    Might just be me, but I don't think the world would be a better place with a separate caste of immortals controlling the world governments and resources. Crazy, I know.
    - d_tr 2y ago
      It's not crazy, no one thinks that. My question is why do so many people think of and fear this as a plausible scenario, to the point they prefer to rot and die than see progress in that front. Now this is crazy.
      - Devasta 2y ago
- cess11 2y ago
  "That’s what I like about death, it’s democratic. It would irritate me if you could jog and live forever and I got stuck here smoking and having a good time and died over it. No, you’ll die too, you know, you’ll have thirty four more years to run up and down the stairmaster." https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-humanism-1993/ https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-...
- 65656533ddd 2y ago
  [flagged]
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
bulbosaur123 2y ago
inb4 it's not available to anyone ever
Euphorbium 2y ago
Not a single mention if it causes cancer.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- RobotToaster 2y ago
  The actual study says the opposite: >"It is encouraging, however, that long- term TAC treatment was well tolerated without any overt or his- tological adverse effects including carcinogenesis. Nonetheless, additional safety studies in non-human primates are warranted. Along these lines, it is worth noting that TAC may reduce cancer incidence, given that insufficient telomerase resulting in telomere dysfunction coupled with loss of p53-dependent DNA check- point control is a major driver of chromosomal instability and cancer genesis in the aged. 53 Correspondingly, TERT reactiva- tion in aged inducible-TERT mice was shown to reverse aging phenotypes without causing an increase in cancer." https://hub.libstc.cc/10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.048.pdf https://hub.libstc.cc/10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.048.pdf
inciampati 2y ago
Long telomeres do not lead to long life. Telomere length has an optional length that's not too short nor too long. Maybe activating TERT in elderly people won't hurt because they won't have time to develop cancer? But it seems like a bad idea based on our tendency to project absolutes: telomeres shorten with age, so obviously we should lengthen them to be young! Right? Recent research has challenged the notion that longer telomeres are universally beneficial, revealing a complex relationship between telomere length and cancer risk. Having excessively long telomeres is indeed related to an increased cancer risk, primarily because it prevents the natural selection against potentially cancerous cells[1][3]. Key findings from recent studies include: 1. People with mutations leading to abnormally long telomeres have a higher risk of developing various cancers, including melanoma, thyroid neoplasms, and blood-related cancers[1]. 2. Long telomeres allow cells to accumulate more mutations over time, as they can divide more times before reaching critical telomere shortening[1][3]. 3. The telomere tumor suppressor pathway, which normally helps prevent cancer by limiting cell division, is less effective when telomeres are too long[4]. 4. Families with mutations in the TINF2 gene, which regulates telomere length, show a higher incidence of various cancers, including breast, colorectal, and thyroid cancers[4]. 5. Genome-wide association studies have identified both rare and common genetic variants that lengthen telomeres and are strongly associated with increased cancer risk[3]. These findings suggest that while short telomeres can lead to premature aging and organ failure, excessively long telomeres may provide a permissive environment for cancer development by allowing cells to proliferate beyond normal limits[1][3][4]. [1] Long telomeres may heighten cancer risks https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/long-telomeres-may-heighten-cancer-risks https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/long-te... [2] Link Between Long Telomeres and Long Life Is a Tall Tale, Study ... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/health/long-telomeres-age-longevity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/health/long-telomeres-age... [3] Long telomeres and cancer risk: the price of cellular immortality - PMC https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6715353/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6715353/ [4] Telomere shortening protects against cancer https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/29625-telomere-shortening-protects-cancer/ https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/29625-telomere-shortening-p... [5] Mice with hyper-long telomeres show less metabolic aging ... - Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12664-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12664-x
stenl 2y ago
TERT activation is one of the most common alterations causing cancer. In fact, the whole point of the normally very low TERT expression in somatic cells is likely to be cancer prevention. It’s the mechanism behind the Hayflick limit, which puts a bound on the max number of divisions a cell can go through, via telomere shortening. Without such a limit, you get cancer. I highly doubt it will make you live longer.
- jb1991 2y ago
  Until there is a cure for cancer.
- AstralStorm 2y ago
  Sure it likely will. However, it may also get you cancers, for which we'd need to enhance other cancer preventing mechanisms. TERT is essentially a fallback. Plus perhaps you can have a "rejuvenation session" with TERT instead of boosting it forever. Thing seems like it can work after TAC is no longer being activated for quite some time. Ultimately though yes, it may increase the number of cells that have already taken multiple hits if multiple hit cancer hypothesis is really true.

37 points by sebazzz 2y ago

zihotki 2y ago

.. in mice.

bulbosaur123 2y ago
EVERYTHING works in mice!
olx_designer 2y ago
It's good to be mice

cess11 2y ago

LOL, as the adolescents say. https://pubpeer.com/search?q=depinho https://pubpeer.com/search?q=depinho Edit: For those who aren't familiar with PubPeer, it's a platform for exposing research fraud and criticisms of research papers. This particular researcher is well known on it.

thomasdeleeuw 2y ago

A sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people. Not that rich people not already have access to better healthcare, but still.

worldsayshi 2y ago
What if it gets controlled by everyone?
- tetris11 2y ago
  It could be a flip of a coin. Craig Venter[0] almost patented what was back then the human reference genome (based on his own genome), but thankfully publicly funded efforts prevailed to taper the profiteering. We could be in a similar situation with anti-aging drugs. Plus, with citizen science projects making ad-hoc labs more accessible than ever, there's a good chance that normal people could make their own versions of these anti-aging drugs, assuming that science journals and informatic pipelines remain accessible (the current rent-seeking of top journals lends some small but worrying evidence against this). 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Project https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Craig_Venter#Human_Genome_Proj...
vsuperpower2020 2y ago
Great, now communists are going after longer lifespans again.
JumpCrisscross 2y ago
> sad day for humanity when death, the great equalizer, gets closer to being controlled by rich people Sadder day for those who only sees tragedy in progress.
unsupp0rted 2y ago
Why can’t we all live in caves and chase our prey across the savannah, all equal, until a broken leg or an infected scratch causes certain death, like nature intended?
- sgu999 2y ago
  To others: how are these kind of arguments called? "We probably or may not need X" "Alright you go back to eating bananas in a tree then!" EDIT: Had forgotten for a second that we can know ask this kind of questions to a computer, "straw man argument".
  - interstice 2y ago
    Reductio ad absurdum. Possibly
  - d_tr 2y ago
    Where X = "Starting to rot from the inside out as soon as we hit forty, while simultaneously watching loved ones age badly and becoming decreasingly self-sufficient, at best." Yeah, who needs "X". I won't even bother with the "the rich" stuff, because, frankly, it's too tired, pathetic, childish and naive.
- Devasta 2y ago
  Might just be me, but I don't think the world would be a better place with a separate caste of immortals controlling the world governments and resources. Crazy, I know.
  - d_tr 2y ago
    It's not crazy, no one thinks that. My question is why do so many people think of and fear this as a plausible scenario, to the point they prefer to rot and die than see progress in that front. Now this is crazy.
    - Devasta 2y ago
cess11 2y ago
"That’s what I like about death, it’s democratic. It would irritate me if you could jog and live forever and I got stuck here smoking and having a good time and died over it. No, you’ll die too, you know, you’ll have thirty four more years to run up and down the stairmaster." https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-humanism-1993/ https://rickroderick.org/302-heidegger-and-the-rejection-of-...
65656533ddd 2y ago
[flagged]
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

bulbosaur123 2y ago

inb4 it's not available to anyone ever

Euphorbium 2y ago

Not a single mention if it causes cancer.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
RobotToaster 2y ago
The actual study says the opposite: >"It is encouraging, however, that long- term TAC treatment was well tolerated without any overt or his- tological adverse effects including carcinogenesis. Nonetheless, additional safety studies in non-human primates are warranted. Along these lines, it is worth noting that TAC may reduce cancer incidence, given that insufficient telomerase resulting in telomere dysfunction coupled with loss of p53-dependent DNA check- point control is a major driver of chromosomal instability and cancer genesis in the aged. 53 Correspondingly, TERT reactiva- tion in aged inducible-TERT mice was shown to reverse aging phenotypes without causing an increase in cancer." https://hub.libstc.cc/10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.048.pdf https://hub.libstc.cc/10.1016/j.cell.2024.05.048.pdf

inciampati 2y ago

Long telomeres do not lead to long life. Telomere length has an optional length that's not too short nor too long. Maybe activating TERT in elderly people won't hurt because they won't have time to develop cancer? But it seems like a bad idea based on our tendency to project absolutes: telomeres shorten with age, so obviously we should lengthen them to be young! Right? Recent research has challenged the notion that longer telomeres are universally beneficial, revealing a complex relationship between telomere length and cancer risk. Having excessively long telomeres is indeed related to an increased cancer risk, primarily because it prevents the natural selection against potentially cancerous cells[1][3]. Key findings from recent studies include: 1. People with mutations leading to abnormally long telomeres have a higher risk of developing various cancers, including melanoma, thyroid neoplasms, and blood-related cancers[1]. 2. Long telomeres allow cells to accumulate more mutations over time, as they can divide more times before reaching critical telomere shortening[1][3]. 3. The telomere tumor suppressor pathway, which normally helps prevent cancer by limiting cell division, is less effective when telomeres are too long[4]. 4. Families with mutations in the TINF2 gene, which regulates telomere length, show a higher incidence of various cancers, including breast, colorectal, and thyroid cancers[4]. 5. Genome-wide association studies have identified both rare and common genetic variants that lengthen telomeres and are strongly associated with increased cancer risk[3]. These findings suggest that while short telomeres can lead to premature aging and organ failure, excessively long telomeres may provide a permissive environment for cancer development by allowing cells to proliferate beyond normal limits[1][3][4]. [1] Long telomeres may heighten cancer risks https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/long-telomeres-may-heighten-cancer-risks https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/long-te... [2] Link Between Long Telomeres and Long Life Is a Tall Tale, Study ... https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/health/long-telomeres-age-longevity.html https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/04/health/long-telomeres-age... [3] Long telomeres and cancer risk: the price of cellular immortality - PMC https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6715353/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6715353/ [4] Telomere shortening protects against cancer https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/29625-telomere-shortening-protects-cancer/ https://www.rockefeller.edu/news/29625-telomere-shortening-p... [5] Mice with hyper-long telomeres show less metabolic aging ... - Nature https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12664-x https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12664-x

stenl 2y ago

TERT activation is one of the most common alterations causing cancer. In fact, the whole point of the normally very low TERT expression in somatic cells is likely to be cancer prevention. It’s the mechanism behind the Hayflick limit, which puts a bound on the max number of divisions a cell can go through, via telomere shortening. Without such a limit, you get cancer. I highly doubt it will make you live longer.

jb1991 2y ago
Until there is a cure for cancer.
AstralStorm 2y ago
Sure it likely will. However, it may also get you cancers, for which we'd need to enhance other cancer preventing mechanisms. TERT is essentially a fallback. Plus perhaps you can have a "rejuvenation session" with TERT instead of boosting it forever. Thing seems like it can work after TAC is no longer being activated for quite some time. Ultimately though yes, it may increase the number of cells that have already taken multiple hits if multiple hit cancer hypothesis is really true.