New Research Could Slow Human Aging 180
schliz writes "A team of scientists from Japan and New Zealand have helped baker's yeast live 50% longer than usual by artificially stabilizing a genetic sequence called ribosomal DNA. The study's authors say that rDNA is a 'hot spot for production of the aging signal.' Because rDNA genes are very similar in yeast and humans, they say their experiment is a first step towards anti-aging drugs."
How does that work? (Score:5, Funny)
So, by doing new research, I won't age as fast?
Re:How does that work? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does that work? (Score:5, Funny)
Well, remaining mentally and physically active has been linked to prolonged life spans . . .
And vice versa, confirmed by a recent study on a large group of scientists with the control group being the local cemetery.
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over active people also wear out their body parts with the exertion. there is a happy medium though and i think that it just needed to be clarified. if you run several super marathons every year its going to kill you early... if you run a 5k it's all good.
Re:How does that work? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think more studies are showing that intermittent interval sorts of exercise are the best.
You do explosive runs for short bursts...and then do slow walking, lower activities in between, but these short intense explosions of activity mixed with low intensity activity seems to have the best effect on the human body.
At least from what I'm reading these days...
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This was also the kind of excercise that lead to the BBC's Political Editor having a stroke so YMMV.
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Well, remaining mentally and physically active has been linked to prolonged life spans . . .
Right. So if I work hard, exercise and deprive myself of good food, I might live long enough for them to slow down my aging process to 1/10th of normal. And I'll have a chipper 4 more years until death, instead of several weeks.
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Re:How does that work? (Score:4, Insightful)
And as this study shows, genetics can play an even larger part. But try convincing my 84 year old mother that, she's convinced eating right and getting exercise was why she's old and healthy, despite the fact that she's the baby of the family and almost all of her siblings are still alive. One is 99 and owned a bar when she was middle aged, my guess from knowing bar owners she was far from a teetotaler.
Now I understand what part of my DNA had the health screeners say my vitals showed a healthy forty year old and excellent for someone 61. They thought I must work out, but I get little exercise and eat a lot of junk food, drink a little beer and have smoked pot for four decades. Most people are amazed that I'm over 50. Of course, my rDNA won't keep me from staggering in front of a bus or something.
If all your grandparents died of natural causes before age 60, no amount of diet or exercise will keep you alive past 70. But perhaps this research will come up with something that will.
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Yes, everything you say is so. If your grandparents all died of heart disease, we now have stents, transplants, etc.
I had a great uncle like your relative. Started smoking at age 12, quit at 82 and died at 92. Might have lived to well over a hundred without the tobacco.
Re:How does that work? (Score:5, Informative)
Well, remaining mentally and physically active has been linked to prolonged life spans . . .
not just linked. there's a concrete relationship: 100% of dead people are neither mentally nor physically active.
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Well, remaining mentally and physically active has been linked to prolonged life spans . . .
not just linked. there's a concrete relationship: 100% of dead people are neither mentally nor physically active.
Exceptions: zombies, vampires.
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So, by doing new research, I won't age as fast?
Perhaps you may not age as fast, but if you enjoy living less (somewhat how I hear marriage goes) what's the point?
two liters of wine a day doesnt work??? (Score:2)
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will I also be able to convert starches into alcohol and C02?
Most likely you will continue to produce CH4.
But (Score:4, Funny)
Re:But (Score:4, Funny)
Even at 900, spell better than you Yoda could!
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His keyboard is 370 years old and the R doesn't work any more.
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It's a Northgate Omni, huh?
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Not until we figger out regeneration.
Challenge Accepted!! (Score:2)
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcR-aqymxfVrmDVuQcXDaMpljS1I-9zIJ2MHPW0ryWYTWhxAAZTIBw [gstatic.com]
What exactly is slowed? (Score:5, Insightful)
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TFS says they tested that in yeast, thus you either didn't care enough to read it, or is asking if the yeast mental activity was degraded.
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According to TFA, genetic damage during cell division is slowed. Brain aging would be affected little, at least directly. So few new neurons are produced during adulthood that for a long time, it was thought that all the neurons that a human would ever have were present at birth. Still, having a healthier support system for the brain should reduce cell death.
Further, there is still the potential for other advances to add the ability to generate new neurons. There is no particular reason why aging needs
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Loss of brain function isn't a normal part of healthy ageing - it's the symptom of a DISEASE (usually alzheimers that affects 50%+ of 80 yr olds) and will eventually be cured through medicine like other diseases.
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There have been some studies, and I'm sorry that I don't have a source on hand, that losing mental capacity is more a matter of not using it than natural degregation. Barring diseases (and a lot of diseases are pretty synonymous with your body falling apart) if you don't stop exercising your mind you'll stay mentally sharp. Too many people retire, get put in a home, and simply "kill time" all the while they rot. Look at cultures where the elderly are still needed and for lack of a better word, still work.
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The only reason most of the elderly are not "firing on all mental cylinders" by age 70 is because they haven't needed to
Do you need to and if so why? Does someone have a gun to your head making you solve tensor calculus equations or something?
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What's the gain in living to be 150 if your brain stops functioning at any sort of useful level at age 70?
Who cares? (devil's advocate) Massive market potential for the pharma industry - esp if the 100+ crowd are relatively weathly or government is willing to pay medicare costs for them... easy to think like a post-human "health" industry CxO.
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Does this sort of thing cover both the aging of the body and the brain?
Does it cover both the aging of the body and the heart? Both the aging of the body and the liver? Both the aging of the body and the third toe on the left foot?
I know what you meant, but I get really tired of people acting like the brain and the body are something separate. The brain is part of the body; a complex and unique part, to be sure, but essentially it's just another organ. So if we can slow down aging generally, most likely our brains will benefit just as much as the rest of our bodies will.
Yes (Score:5, Funny)
.... because people's brains are just like baker's yeast.
Or is it that most people's brains seem to function like they are made up of baker's yeast?
Anyway 50% more of that doesn't sound particularly wonderful.
Oh, good... (Score:2)
Just go fasrer (Score:2)
much faster
Like .99999 c
People forget the most important reason.. (Score:4, Interesting)
Forget vanity, we need to stop aging for one simple reason...
Space Travel
We still haven't created engines that can go 1/10th light speed. So even at best, a 40 light year trip to Alpha Centari will take 400 years even at that speed. OK forget other solar systems, just colonizing mars is going to require us to get the most out of the humans lifetimes we send there.
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I'm no expert on space travel
That is becoming clear.
but surely we have invented engines capable of going more than 1/10th of light speed?
The problem is the lack of fuel or alternatively the impractically large size and mass of the fuel necessary to accelerate to a useful speed. So effectively we have not. The best we can do with curent tech is probably less than 0.1c and we are talking very, very large numbers of nuclear bombs and kilometer scale ships. Of course nuclear pulse ships might scale upward such that a 100 kilometer ship is capable of 0.25c etc but since we haven't yet manufactured even one it's hard to know
I'm 18 (Score:2)
I promise that I really am 18!
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fresh water supplies at crisis levels and extreme weather happening more often... worst idea evar!
Yea, this - just what we don't need, more and more old and infirm people doubling the amount of resources they use up while providing no net benefit to the rest of society.
I mean, if we're talking about a system that will stop the aging process at, say, 30, and leave you with that body for the next 60-100 years, OK then; but we all know that's not going to be the case.
Re:With a world population of 7 billion, (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't be silly. The poor won't get to stop aging at 30. They will get screwed just like they always have. Only the ultra wealthy will have access to this stuff. Only a small subset of the population will get to stop aging at 30. The rest will get shortened lifespans if anything.
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This isn't going to make you stop aging at 30, it will simply slow the aging process. Have you not noticed that some people at 50 look 70 and some 60 look 50? Some people simply age faster than others and this study shows why.
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Yes, obviously EVIL CORPORATIONS making anti-aging drugs will refuse to sell them to poor people, because EVIL CORPORATIONS like not making money where they can.
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You live in a capitalist society, and yet you completely fail to understand what it's based on.
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Re:With a world population of 7 billion, (Score:5, Insightful)
longer life expectancy correlates with smaller population growth.. just saying.
btw if you want to buy some fresh water I got plenty to sell. it's not running out. moving it to where people for some stupid historical reason want to live is the problem...
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So.... by that logic... are you suggesting we shorten the lifespan of the everyone? Does that seem like a good idea to you?
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How in the hell do you equate extending life is a bad idea with contracting life is a good idea? Aren't /. readers supposed to have a higher-than-average level of intelligence?
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It's called "the inverse" [wikipedia.org].
If A then B. So.... If !A then !B?
Come on dude...
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You're assuming the binary solution set of "increase" and "decrease" instead of the trinary "increase", "static" and "decrease".
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Correct. I'm presuming that a small change in life expectancy will have a negligible impact on world population, and thus can be approximated to be "static".
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Ah, in that case, the correct response would be along the lines of:
"No, I like things the way they are now."
Which, glancing at the current trend, still doesn't seem like a grand idea.
Perhaps if you take into account the hope of India and China becoming first-world nations and following the trend where their birth rate decline.
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Ah, in that case, the correct response would be along the lines of:
"No, I like things the way they are now."
Wow, you really can't perform logical analysis.
I've made no such indication in these comments that I'm happy with the world at 7 billion. If you think I have, please point it out.
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How in the hell do you equate extending life is a bad idea with contracting life is a good idea? Aren't /. readers supposed to have a higher-than-average level of intelligence?
Higher-than-your-average-news-site-commentator, but that isn't really saying much.
OTOH, perhaps it's an indication that even the more learned among our species still struggle with issues like cognitive dissonance, false equivalence, and faulty reasoning.
Option 3 is that maybe he knows what he's saying, and is just being a dick.
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That's pretty funny coming from someone with a 7-digit UID who uses G+ to log in.
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This place has definitely changed. I was on here for a couple years before I decided to make a UID and stop being a Coward :P
Every so often you will see a nugget of brilliance from someone but then I see some tea party poster get modded to +5 and have to wonder what happened.
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fresh water supplies at crisis levels and extreme weather happening more often... worst idea evar!
Age-related mortality has a certain special flavor to it, by virtue of being inevitable; but suitably motivated humans can trivially breed substantially above replacement rates even when living rather shorter lives than they do now (and, particularly when talking about women with dubious access to medical care, they often do live substantially shorter lives when breeding well above replacement rates...)
Old people who just won't die, damn it, will present problems of their own; but birthrate is the name o
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And if you hadn't noticed, birth rates are dropping precipitously in those countries where poverty rates fall -- China and India are showing this today, just as many of the asian tiger countries did 20 years ago. So much so that we're going to be having real problems in 20-30 years in the developed world, because (aside from the
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We will level off around 10B.
That's still too many for a highly mechanized world.
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Is this the "saddle makers found jobs making cars", thus every bit of manufacturing automation will therefore lead to jobs for the displaced workers defense?
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Well, I *did* make an assertion.... which I figure raises the saddle maker hackles of technophiles everywhere who believe in never-ending upward progress.
(I think that just like liquids can become saturated with dissolved solids,, human society can -- has -- become oversaturated saturated with automation, and thus -- breaking with the saturation analogy -- there's not enough work for many people to do at a "middle class" wage.
Sure, I might be wrong, but the evidence before me convinces me of the correctnes
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Other social aspects will be affected too — such as bosses not retiring for longer, thus slowing down careers of the underlings.
Most everyone's careers would get slowered by that, perhaps proportionally to the lengthening of the active phase of life. But is that a bad thing? It would generally mean that people who get into higher positions would have more experience at average.
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I am pretty cynical when it comes to politics, but that's way out on a limb.
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The current PM of New Zealand was raised on welfare.
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get raised on welfare and turn out a politician? disgusting.
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As I was writing that, I was unsure if I was making a positive comment about people on the benefit or a negative one.
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My neighbour downstairs is 29 with a 13 year old daughter and is on social security (called the dole in Australia) - never worked.
At least, if your neighbor lives to 150, she'll have time to turn her life around. And if she's raising a daughter, she's worked - just never been paid for it.
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I suspect that it hinges more on 'lengthening lifespans' vs. 'slowing aging'. Weak, sick, old people are not something anybody with medical or pension obligations really want living longer. If people became weak, sick, and old more slowly, though, you'd score more person-years of post-childhood, post-education, experienced labor (and, given most people's pre
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Of course! This is why I said, it will be ultimately useful to society. However, it would require delaying the retirement, which is a difficult thing to do politically.
A 67 year-old may — thanks to some miracle treatment — be hale and healthy, but he is still legally entitled to pension.
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Re:Are governments interested in long lifespans? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree that this would create massive social issues.
However the idea that delaying the retirement age is politically difficult is only valid in the current context. In a society where people live 50% longer I think there would be great political will to adjust the retirement age to compensate.
It's been done before in response to much weaker motivation.
It may ultimately have big economic advantages. For example:
1. Increased incentive to take care of one's health.
2. Better return (over a longer lifetime) on the costs of raising and educating a child.
3. Increased incentives to save.
4. Better depth of experience for making decisions by adults.
The bad side:
Without term limits we could end up with some really fucking old Congressmen and members of the Supreme Court.
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— aren't particularly interested in lengthening the lifespans
... of the common folk. For themselves they are all for carefully regulated longevity.
There is a useful book about this: "Assignment In Eternity" by Robert A. Heinlein. Lost his wits toward the end, but he was ill. That part needed a second book and better treatment. Still a good read.
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I suspect, it is too late for the people already in power to be getting any sorts of treatment. Thus, they have no prospect of benefit for themselves...
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What? Everyone only lives till age 21?
(from the original book, much better than the lame movie).
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There is no sanctuary
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Let me guess... You were offended by my questioning the wisdom of our letting the government decide, what aspects of medicine should be helped with our dollars?
Wow... The big-government fans are certainly easy to degrade into name-calling...
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I wouldn't, of course. Unfortunately, Socialism has this sort of appeal to the "low-information voter".
Any question like: "Would you like the government to help research life-saving medicines?" — gets a resounding "yes" from many people. Without it occurring to most, that it means, the government officials — the same omniscient and benevolent folks, who have already given us the Department of Motor Ve
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Great news for Interstellar travel!
I suspect that it's deep hibernation or nothing (unless you are talking world-ships on a scale that would give most Kuiper belt objects inferiority issues) in that area. Replacing humans as they wear out has never been a huge problem, dealing with upkeep on the functional ones definitely has.
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I don't even know that hibernation would even be enough. We'd still have to contend with protecting the bodies over time scales that dwarf anything we've designed and built to date. I think the only real hope is in figuring out brain to machine transfers, and possibly a transfer in the other direction eventually if you wanted. Even then we'd still have the issue of building a ship capable of maintaining its functionality over time scales that are again longer than we've ever done.
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