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Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice
- Mizza 13y agoThe actual paper is here, free abstract but the full PDF is paywalled: http://www.cell.com/retrieve/pii/S0092867413015213?cc=y http://www.cell.com/retrieve/pii/S0092867413015213?cc=y
- derekja 13y agohttp://www.sendspace.com/file/o6n3ad http://www.sendspace.com/file/o6n3ad
- ChuckMcM 13y agoI always wonder about this quote, “Whether that means we’ll all live to 150, I don’t know, but the important part is that we don’t spend the last 20 to 30 years of our lives in bad health.” Imagine a process that makes you feel like you are 25 right up until you body gives up at a physical age of 100 or something. Do you end up doing riskier things because you don't "feel" old? And if you did would you die sooner? Its an interesting question for me. I'm not sure how that would work. (and of course if they are successful (which I hope they are) then we're talking about pushing back retirement until 90 or maybe 95 right?)
- salient 13y agoI'd rather have the choice. I have no choice with ageing. The same is true of "immortality". What immortality really means is that you kind of have a choice of not disappearing forever (well unless a car runs you down or something, but in the future that can probably be fixed, too, by "backing ourselves up").
- ams6110 13y agoRather selfish? We'll have enough problems in the coming decades with geriatric baby boomers, you now want to give people the option to live forever?
- rjknight 13y agoIf they have fewer kids then where's the harm?
- ChrisNorstrom 13y agoThis is very true. It's proven itself over and over in history. The more stable, healthy, and developed a country is the less children it has. Europe and East Asian countries are having this problem right now as both have negative population growth. In fact this might be the solution to over population. If I knew I'd live to 150 I'd probably wait till I'm 75 to reproduce and replace myself with children.
- VLM 13y agoWell, you've outed "Chris" as the male form of the name "Chris" as there are certain female reproductive system issues where once you're outta eggs thats all folks. Dudes are fertile to a ripe old age. So at 75 you need a wife 1/3 your age. The cultural issues could be pretty huge if women are only fertile for a small fraction of their life and dudes are fertile for X times as long as women. Or maybe it becomes a cultural "job" of young people to churn out kids as fast as possible for old people to raise them, which we seem to already be implementing in certain socioeconomic classes.
- ChrisNorstrom 13y agoGood point. But I'm sure that's a problem that will be solved by that time. Not sure if this is 100% true but "It had been widely accepted that a woman was born with a limited number of eggs [...] But, in 2012 this dogma was challenged in a paper that found proliferative germ cells that sustain oocyte and follicle production in the postnatal mammalian ovary. This means that women do not have a limited number of eggs."
- kps 13y agoPersonally, I probably do riskier things when I do feel old. Tick... tick... tick....
- ganeumann 13y agoIt's not the feeling old, it's the realization that you have, in fact, spent the first half of your life not doing the things you wanted to do. And then the realization that you better get a move on if you want to get them done. Motorcycles, Porsches, divorce + remarriage to a much younger woman, angel investing. You know, the mid-life crisis.
- VLM 13y agoThere is a NoSQL joke floating around in here somewhere.
- DennisP 13y agoI always picture some poor guy who spends decades dreaming of the day he can buy a fancy sports car. Finally he can afford it, he buys the car he's wanted since he was 15, and people say "hey look, he's having a midlife crisis."
- sliverstorm 13y agoif they are successful (which I hope they are) then we're talking about pushing back retirement until 90 or maybe 95 right? Which I would be totally OK with. Imagine how much more scientific progress we could make if we had 70-year veterans of their field with the sharp mind of a 27-year-old!
- ams6110 13y agoWho says their minds will be sharp? This discovery is about muscle aging.
- sliverstorm 13y agoWe're just speculating here :)
- agumonkey 13y agoGood point indeed, that said, even physical health can be a toll on your mind. Freed from that you can spend more time thinking instead of aching.
- Vardhan 13y agoIs that the goal of life? Incessant scientific progress?
- sliverstorm 13y agoFor me? Yeah, pretty much.
- 31reasons 13y agoYup. There may be thousands of earth like planets in our galaxy alone. Shouldn't we explore them some time in future ?
- Tepix 13y agoWith 100 billion stars in the Milky Way, we're talking millions (or more), not thousands.
- robbrown451 13y agoWhat confuses me is that they seem to be making the assumption that if they are able to give good health in the later years, that the person will die at the same age they would have. Which seems unlikely. Seems to me if they are in good health, they won't die (healthy people don't tend to). Eventually, though, they will be in bad health enough to die. In which case, it IS about longer life spans, since we'll still have the same problems, just at a later age. I'm all for longer life (and I imagine they are too), but it seems to me that they are just trying to be politically correct by saying things like the above.
- Filligree 13y agoWell... in this particular case it really won't extend life, though. Not by much, quite possibly not at all; it could easily be somewhat of a carcinogen. It'll make you feel better, and give you more energy, and that's about it. Think of it like a kind of amphetamine, only not (hopefully not) that bad for you.
- uniclaude 13y ago> we're talking about pushing back retirement until 90 or maybe 95 right? This is the first thing I thought about when reading the article. It sounds like the dream of countries like Japan where retirement is costing a lot of money. I'd love to read the comment of an economist (or a sociologist) on this.
- fragsworth 13y agoAnyone care to explain why this is too good to be true? Because it's always too good to be true.
- kirubakaran 13y agoUntil it's not.
- enkephalin 13y agohas to happen some day, i guess
- ams6110 13y agoThe discovery concerns decline in mitochondrial function with age in muscle tissue. Another article about this, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25445748 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-25445748, explains that this could never be a cure-all for ageing. Other aspects such as shortening of telomeres or damage to DNA would not be reversed.
- seanica 13y agoIt sounds like an expensive drug habit to have. To start with, imagine the withdrawal symptoms.
- ric2z 13y agodeath
- codex 13y agoCan anyone explain how this compound differs from the NAD you can buy as a supplement, if at all?
- mrfusion 13y agoWell I do see this quote: "Turner said a “magic pill” that reverses ageing is several years away, partially due to the cost of the compound, which would be about $50,000 a day for a human." So in guessing there's some special processing of the compound or a special way to get it into each cell somehow.
- kolev 13y agoCurrently, you can buy NADH, which seem different, or NAD+ precursors (Niacin, Niacinamide) or Niagen (https://chromadex.com/Ingredients/NIAGEN.html https://chromadex.com/Ingredients/NIAGEN.html), which is proprietary and suppoedly increasing NAD+ levels. It's pretty expensive as of now compared to Niacin, but, still, $50/month isn't that much. Combining Niagen with Resveratrol should do the trick.
- kolev 13y agoI've been taking Niacinamide + Resveratrol for over 2 years. Honestly, I don't see any positive effect, but neither I see any negative effects either. Given I'm 40 now, I'm not 100% sure if this is a negative or a positive outcome. For example, without any supplementation, maybe I should've aged more... but how can I know for sure. My point it, as long as the supplement is orthomolecular, the negative side of spending a few dollars per month is well-justified.
- brador 13y agoAny expected or potential side effects?
- kolev 13y agoI've been taking Niacinamide + Resveratrol for over 2 years. Honestly, I don't see any positive effect, but neither I see any negative effects either. Given I'm 40 now, I'm not 100% sure if this is a negative or a positive outcome. For example, without any supplementation, maybe I should've aged more... but how can I know for sure. My point it, as long as the supplement is orthomolecular, the negative side of spending a few dollars per month is well-justified.
- fragsworth 13y ago> "with scientists set to look at how the theory of age reversal can be used to treat diseases such as cancer, dementia and diabetes." Alzheimer's medications can generally improve cognition. Age-reversal medications might work even better if used at an early age. I always see articles, media, and papers focusing on how something new can be used to treat some existing disease. But what I'm always thinking is "can I use this if I don't have a disease?" It's a strange disconnect. I know everyone is thinking what I'm thinking, but you never see this in the articles. Is it some kind of taboo?
- jaibot 13y agoYes. http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/ http://dresdencodak.com/2009/09/22/caveman-science-fiction/
- 11001 13y agoActually, before we started to "poop in the hole", the rates of infectious diseases were way lower.
- rictic 13y agoNot a bad point, especially given that the current consensus seems to be that the agricultural revolution[1] was a net negative for most individuals in society (evidence of significant wear on the body from bending all day, evidence of worse nutrition), but it was a winning adaptation at the group level. Underscores the point that progress can make us less happy. That said, I strongly believe that we can do anti-aging right and improve the lot of humanity. [1] We only started needing a designated place to poop because we stayed around in one place and became numerous.
- nzp 13y agoWhat are you talking about? (serious question)
- VLM 13y ago
- mrfusion 13y agoI wonder if these researchers could win the mprize [1] for this? [1] http://www.mprize.org/ http://www.mprize.org/
- polskibus 13y agoThey should put it on kickstarter, asking for donations and early adopters. I'm pretty sure they would've fulfilled their goals in a week or less.
- saalweachter 13y agoPledge $X or more Y backers ONE EXTRA DAY OF LIFE.
- D-Coder 13y agoSomeone once asked me why I'm so interested in life-elongation technology. I said, "I'm BETTING MY LIFE on it!"
- jarnix 13y agoGreat for the mice. I don't understand this phrase "Turner said a “magic pill” that reverses ageing is several years away, partially due to the cost of the compound, which would be about $50,000 a day for a human." ? $50,000 a day for a human ? What is the effect of a day of treatment ?
- BadassFractal 13y ago50k at first, 5 bucks eventually, hopefully.
- slashdotaccount 13y agoThat number is almost certainly bullshit. It would be nice from a drug manufacturer's perspective to artificially limit supply so that they could get away with charging 50k a day for the stuff, but it seems insanely implausible that anything that comes out of a set of bioreactors could ever actually cost that.
- gingerlime 13y agoI wonder whether the researchers were tempted to try this on themselves. Or the lab costs of producing it[1] would effectively prevent it? [1] quoted at $50k per day, not sure how many days a person needs...
- darsham 13y agoThis seems to be a pretty big deal, but the article gives off the impression that mithocondrial aging is the only reason that we age. In fact there are many other aging factors that have not been linked to mithocondrial aging (and have, agruably, no relationship). Some other factors I recall studying are - gradual DNA damage, which is quite inevitable - collagen degradation, which affects the eyes and all cartilaginous tissues.
- zmmmmm 13y agoYes, it is confusing, since there is no wider context given in the article at all. The conventional story I hear about ageing is that telomeres in replicating cells become shorter until the DNA no longer replicates and the cell either dies or seriously malfunctions. As a significant proportion of the cells in your body move into this state you "age". So I'm struggling to relate this phenomena to the mitochondrial story described in the article - it's not clear to me whether these are independent aspects of ageing or somehow related?
- Filligree 13y agoIndependent. There are, oh, I think I once saw a lost of about fifteen major known causes of ageing. Some are worse than others; this is one of the really serious ones, but not #1. Others of note are... - Intracellular debris - Intercellular debris - Gradual macroscopic degeneration from incomplete healing/scarring - Progressive DNA damage, with any number of consequences (e.g. cancer) - Asymptotic loss of some brain functions (e.g. learning) I could go on. For evolutionary reasons all of these hit at roughly the same time, which means uploading remains the most promising approach for completely eliminating ageing. Well, almost completely. Upload someone, and you eliminate degeneration below the firmware/software layer, but you still need to cope with a brain that didn't evolve to last for centuries.
- kbenson 13y agouploading remains the most promising approach for completely eliminating ageing If so, in the future the equivalent of CryptoLocker will be a terrorist weapon that takes hostages.
- pvnick 13y agoResearchers injected a chemical called nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide, or NAD, which reduces in the body as we age. The addition of this compound led to the radical reversal in the ageing of the mice. While this is pretty cool, it seems that the most immediate effect would be a higher availability of adenosine triphosphate (ATP), meaning more energy "currency" for the body's machinery to work with [1] [2] (someone please comment if my understanding is incomplete). Used as a general lifestyle drug †, grandma isn't suddenly going to look like a sorority girl, but she may feel like one - a scary thought indeed! Anti-aging technologies are going to introduce many philosophical questions; although, that doesn't quite seem to be the case in this specific instance since this compound will probably just improve the quality of the last couple decades of a person's life rather than drastically extend it. What's the difference between curing disease/prolonging natural life vs unnatural "anti-aging" technologies? At what point do we start grappling with the issues of immortality? Personally, I believe that the mentally-deteriorating effects of everyday life, including what one may call "sin," will be too much for the modern human to retain his/her sanity after a certain point. I for one would rather face death. [1] http://www.genome.jp/dbget-bin/www_bget?C00003 http://www.genome.jp/dbget-bin/www_bget?C00003 [2] http://www.genome.jp/kegg-bin/show_pathway?map00190+C00003 http://www.genome.jp/kegg-bin/show_pathway?map00190+C00003 † I say "lifestyle drug" here to denote elective treatment, although the effects of natural aging and death dying probably do not fit in the technical definition, which is to treat "non-life threatening and non-painful conditions such as baldness, impotence, wrinkles, erectile dysfunction, or acne"
- _random_ 13y agoAgeing is a genetic disease. It has to be cured. We evolved to adapt to specific environment. Now that we are changing this environment we must change ourselves as well. Everyone should be given an option to die but it should be just one of a few options.
- dvanduzer 13y agoIndeed! Options like Death by My Little Pony: http://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/Friendship-is-Optimal http://www.fimfiction.net/story/62074/Friendship-is-Optimal http://www.fimfiction.net/story/69770/friendship-is-optimal-caelum-est-conterrens http://www.fimfiction.net/story/69770/friendship-is-optimal-...
- KVFinn 13y agoFrom Aubrey De Grey: Short answer is it’s not all that big a deal in biomedical terms. It’s a great discovery in terms of understanding mitochondria, and it provides a new way to rejuvenate mito function, but it doesn’t tell us that rejuvenating mito function in isolation in an otherwise still-old animal is a good idea -- and there have for many years been other ways to rejuvenate mito function which have not led to longer lifespan in rodents, notably acetyl-L-carnitine combined with alpha-lipoic acid (which has been marketed as Juvenon).
- Mizza 13y agoWhere are you getting this from?
- KVFinn 13y agoCalorie Restriction for Life Extension mailing list.
- tokenadult 13y agoAubrey De Grey is younger than I am, but he looks old and haggard, much older than I look (and much older than my younger sister who is almost exactly his age looks). I don't know why people take anti-aging advice from Aubrey De Grey. His advice has meager uptake or support in reliable sources on human medicine. AFTER EDIT: I see the first reaction to this comment was a silent downvote, which evokes my desire to learn. Now that we've established that you disagree with me, would it be all right for me to ask what facts I should consider to change my opinion that Aubrey De Grey's anti-aging advice is not correct? What positive rationale can you provide for taking his writings on his favorite topic seriously? What evidence can you provide that he is on to something that the National Institute of Aging[1] isn't researching adequately already without him? [1] http://www.nia.nih.gov/ http://www.nia.nih.gov/ ONE MORE EDIT: Thanks for the replies. I think the most helpful to me was As far as I know, Aubrey has not claimed to have invented any working anti-aging treatments so far because I've been curious for a long time why Aubrey De Grey receives so much mention here on Hacker News whenever research on aging comes up, but so little mention in any of the extensive medical literature I read. So he is one guy with some interesting ideas (interesting to people here, at least) but perhaps just one guy among thousands working on anti-aging ideas. I wish anyone well who is devoting time and attention to reducing the harm of aging processes in human beings, but I try to cast my net searching for information more in the waters of medical reports than among people with a famous online presence as such. Thanks for the follow-up, and for letting me know what you really think about the unedited version of my comment, which still appears at the top here.
- exratione 13y agoThere has been a fair amount of research into the effects of manipulating hypoxia-inducible factor 1 (HIF-1) in lower animals, mostly nematode worms I believe. Interestingly this is one of the few manipulations in which either reducing or increasing levels of the protein in question can increase longevity. This is a sign that there is probably significant complexity involved in this outcome, such as in relationships with other mechanisms or that the effects of changes are tied to specific tissues in the body or locations within cells. So this is, I think, an overhyping of otherwise interesting new research into a way to manipulate HIF-1 via NAD levels that is apparently an offshoot of past and ongoing research into sirtuins and aging. When considering the source of the wor - the Sinclair lab - the overhyping is perhaps less of a surprise than it might otherwise be: this is a group with a very large sunk cost behind them and little to show for it. Deep pockets nonetheless still back continued efforts, and they have a lot of experience with the press. This is a formula that leads to breathless press materials touting rejuvenation. The people who are really, actually working on rejuvenation are more restrained these days. So I disagree with the tone of the publicity for this work; it's a great example of the mindless attention machine being manipulating into seizing on something that has little relevance compared to other far more deserving work. I think that (a) these researchers have found an interesting set of interactions to help explain why manipulation of HIF-1 can affect longevity, and (b) the changing levels of that and various related proteins with advancing age are responses to accumulated cellular damage. Perhaps the most relevant damage is mitochondrial, given that cycling of NAD is involved in the chain of unpleasant results that unfold when mitochondrial DNA becomes damaged, or perhaps it is something else. So to my eyes what they focus on isn't a cause, it's a consequence. The fastest way to see what causes what at this point is to work on repairing the known forms of damage rather than tracing back all of the myriad complexity of relationships and feedback loops in the cell - a task that would take substantially longer than just building means of biological repair for our cells and other small-scale structures.
- malandrew 13y agoHow is nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NAD) synthesized, such that their estimates for cost are "about $50,000 a day for a human."? I would expect that any such estimates on cost would be based on the predicted cost at scale and not the cost to produce it one off for lab experiments. Is this a PR ploy to start staking a high price, so that people view it as a bargain when it is released at some absurd price like $1000/day.
- obiefernandez 13y agoThey must have some special version of it. NAD can be gotten online for considerably less http://www.herbspro.com/co-e1-nadh-tab-76057.html http://www.herbspro.com/co-e1-nadh-tab-76057.html
- Tycho 13y agoIt's interesting, even if we halted aging so that people could theoretically live forever, we would as a culture have to embrace a sort of 'death by probability.'
- Filligree 13y agoNot for long, I bet. We'd find ways to make backups.
- yawz 13y agoHmm... As I'm new here I'm a little confused. I posted the same article yesterday but this one posted by Mizza got picked up quite heavily. Does the poster's "karma" have something to do with it? Or is it just a coincidence?
- tokenadult 13y agoThe article reports, "Turner said a 'magic pill' that reverses ageing is several years away, partially due to the cost of the compound, which would be about $50,000 a day for a human." That suggests several things. The clinical trials will be small in the beginning, and thus the small-n studies will not have much statistical power. There will be some kind of patent scramble related to any patentable technology that can reduce the cost of producing the chemical in a dosage form appropriate for human medicine. And (if and only if this preliminary finding in mice translates into a safe and effective human medicine) there will be immense political pressure for a public subsidy to make treatment like this available to more patients. The HN participant who kindly submitted this interesting story found a news source with a nuanced headline, "Anti-ageing compound set for human trials after turning clock back for mice." That doesn't overpromise, and tells what stage the research is in. The news report mentions that the researchers have a peer-reviewed journal publication in Cell http://www.cell.com/retrieve/pii/S0092867413015213?cc=y http://www.cell.com/retrieve/pii/S0092867413015213?cc=y on their findings, and I suppose many scientists will be looking at that publication and thinking about their study findings. That too is better than the usual submission to HN. Many, many submissions to HN are based at bottom on press releases, and press releases are well known for spinning preliminary research findings beyond all recognition. This has been commented on in the PhD comic "The Science News Cycle,"[1] which only exaggerates the process a very little. More serious commentary in the edited group blog post "Related by coincidence only? University and medical journal press releases versus journal articles"[2] points to the same danger of taking press releases (and news aggregator website articles based solely on press releases) too seriously. Press releases are usually misleading. The most sure and certain finding of any preliminary study will be that more research is needed. All too often, preliminary findings don't lead to further useful discoveries in science, because the preliminary findings are flawed. The obligatory link for any discussion of a report on a research result like the one kindly submitted here is the article "Warning Signs in Experimental Design and Interpretation"[3] by Peter Norvig, director of research at Google, on how to interpret scientific research. Check each news story you read for how many of the important issues in interpreting research are NOT discussed in the story. [1] http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 http://www.phdcomics.com/comics.php?f=1174 [2] http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/related-by-coincidence-only-journal-press-releases-versus-journal-articles/ http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/related-by-coi... [3] http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html http://norvig.com/experiment-design.html
- evincarofautumn 13y agoNAD is an interesting chemical anyway for its electrical properties. I had an idle thought once upon a time that you might be able to make some kind of liquid binary computer with it, given how readily you can “toggle” it between NAD+ and NADH. I don’t know nearly enough about it, though.
- roadster72 13y ago>researchers confident that side-effects will be minimal due to the fact the compound is naturally occurring. There are a lot of naturally occurring poisons too. I'm curious, how does the substance being naturally occurring have anything to do with the side-effects?
- DennisP 13y agoThey mean it's naturally occurring in the human body. And I'm not sure but I think they're not boosting it much beyond natural youthful levels.
- CWuestefeld 13y agoThat's great. So my mom doesn't have to put it on her list of things to avoid because they "contain chemicals".
- teh_aimee 13y agoSome seriously interesting comments here, on a very interesting piece of research! If any of you wanted your comments to be a part of the post-publication review record for the paper (either as reviews or as discussion points), you can head over to the Publons website at https://publons.com/p/3318/ https://publons.com/p/3318/ to leave them! Disclaimer - yep, I currently help out at Publons :)
- lowkeykiwi 13y agoProfessional athletes will love this.
- DonGateley 13y agoI wonder why the study has nothing to say about the longevity of the treated mice compared to controls. Maybe it costs too much for experimenting with extended effects and maybe they want something for their next paper. The biggest problem of course is sociological with only the top tiny% able to afford it. The psychological divide between have and have not will grow in ways completely unacceptable to the (100-tiny)% and could stimulate revolutionary tendencies among the masses to even things out. The top tiny% really should be considering pouring lots of their money into making the treatment cheap enough to not create a divide so intolerable that it will perish under its own weight.
- sifarat 13y agoQuestion is, would it make one, 'young at heart' too. Possibly No. And this is all what matters. As for $50K/Day price tag, it makes it loud and clear, this drug is for the filthy riches at least for couple of years, my average joe and jenny will remain old and ugly. :/
- mattsfrey 13y agohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_and_Tomorrow_and_Tomorrow_(short_story) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomorrow_and_Tomorrow_and_Tomor...
- stmartin 13y agoThis is going to blow up so fast and so hard when it's released for humans, it will be the biggest fiasco since the exploding silicone in boob jobs. Said it here first.
- espadagroup 13y agoYou can get NADH (which is interchangeable with NAD) pills pretty easily on amazon for like $30. My question is what is the difference between those pills and the $50K substance/solution they came up with?
- ballard 13y agoHow might this compound compare to HGH, etc. by getting in top physical shape by working out (a lot), healthy diet and sleep?
- drhouse_md 13y agohttp://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-20/scientists-develop-anti-ageing-process-in-mice/5168580 http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-12-20/scientists-develop-ant... I found this article on the subject more informative, it contains 2 media clips, 1 video, 1 audio, with the scientists involved with the study.
- Giftbags 13y agoThanks, you have done well.
- roschdal 13y agoPeter Thiel, you know where you should invest now. This is a product every human being will pay for.
- nnnnni 13y agoIF this is true and IF this really works in humans, you know that the only people that will ever be able to afford it will be the "1%".
- X4 13y agoOkaaayyy... Can I buy NAD+? Or is the magic in using sIRNA[1] to inject NAD+ into the pathway? I have read on Wikipedia that our body can generate it. Moneyquote: "In organisms, NAD+ can be synthesized from simple building-blocks (de novo) from the amino acids tryptophan or aspartic acid. In an alternative fashion, more complex components of the coenzymes are taken up from food as the vitamin called niacin. Similar compounds are released by reactions that break down the structure of NAD+. These preformed components then pass through a salvage pathway that recycles them back into the active form. Some NAD+ is also converted into nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide phosphate (NADP+); the chemistry of this related coenzyme is similar to that of NAD+, but it has different roles in metabolism." [2] And: "This NAD+ is carried into the mitochondrion by a specific membrane transport protein, since the coenzyme cannot diffuse across membranes." Link: http://www.jbc.org/content/281/3/1524 http://www.jbc.org/content/281/3/1524 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16291748 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16291748 I can buy Tryptophan [3] and D-Aspartic Acid (DAA) [4] pretty easily and legaly. Would an overdose in Tryptophan have the same effect? UPDATE: http://aminoacidstudies.org/l-tryptophan/ http://aminoacidstudies.org/l-tryptophan/ Yes, Tryptophan overdose is bad! I'm sorry, I'm pretty good at absorbing all kinds of scientific materials, but I am really not familiar with all the "body science". That's why I'm asking you, if you know what would happen with regular Tryptophan overdose. I know that DAA can destroy Neurons when overdosed and should only be used according to the RDA. I don't buy that it's sooo expensive. That's either because researcher's monthly wage is astronomers, or the lab equipment they think is needed is too expensive. I am sure it can be done much much cheaper without the advantages of mass production. You and I currently synthesize the NAD+ thing for free!! The problem they solved, should be repeatable with cheaper equipment or even at home. I would like to have a cat, dog, hamsters or fish that live longer. (Parrot's already live pretty long, but I guess they'd be funnier with more NAD too) -- [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_interfering_RNA http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_interfering_RNA [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_adenine_dinucleotide http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_adenine_dinucleoti... [3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan [4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-aspartic_acid http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D-aspartic_acid