Reducing One Amino Acid Could Increase Lifespan 286
John Bryson writes "Eating less of one amino acid might lengthen your life. There have been lots of previous studies showing that many species live long on highly restricted calories, but a lot of this benefit may be possible by only restricting one amino acid. Amino acids that have shown this have been tryptophan and methionine. A recent study, published online December 2 in Nature, a highly respected journal, may help explain some of the health benefits of restricted-calorie diets."
Yes, but... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Informative)
TFA directly addresses that point:
Piper and his colleagues don’t know what the correct amino acid balance might be for humans, and he says it would be a nearly impossible feat to adjust people’s diets to get just the right mix. Instead, the team is investigating how tweaking amino acid content in the diet affects cells. If the researchers can identify pathways affected by amino acid imbalances, they might be able to design drugs or other therapies that could give the benefits of caloric restriction without cutting calories.
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When I read that last paragraph, it seemed that they were saying that, rather than try to find the correct sort of diet, they were going to direct the research toward a drug therapy. Something a little easier to monetize, perhaps?
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
I want you to think about how expensive a drug to extend life would end up being. You think world and economic leaders want to see the lifespan of all humans suddenly extended? Regardless of the research and input costs involved in developing a longevity drug, I believe it would probably end up only available to, let's say, a certain "class" of people. I mean, we wouldn't want "those people" to have longer lives, which means they become more numerous, am I right?
Even a sudden jump of 10 years to human lifespan would cause some social disruption. 20 years or more and the ground starts to shift under our social institutions.
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Actually, doesn't research show that economic leaders - corporate CEOs, specifically, but judging by their behavior many large investors should be included too - have a very high incidence rate of psychopathy? A psychopath is missing what's usually termed "humanity"; consequently, I must question your assertion.
A psychopath i
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You'd put people to work 10 more years, and they don't even need 20 years of study and training, looks like a win-win situation to me.
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That was through reductions in child mortality, not extending the life of people who manage to live to adulthood. See this chart [elderweb.com] for specifics. Newborns have an extra ~30 years, but 65-year-olds only have an extra ~5, on average.
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That depends on whether we just get older or whether we also get healthier.
So far we've been busy finding ways to keep people from dying. This is, of course, quite costy. My great grandma was bedridden for the last 15 years of her life. Just extending that span will certainly put a very heavy strain on any social budget and the institutions supposed to care for those people. If that additional lifetime can be spent active because people also stay healthy and agile longer, the only ones who have to worry are
Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
A substance that would extend life by ten years for everyone would be enormously popular. Politicians that attempted to prevent its general availability would find themselves out of office, or find their lifespans shortened.
Most substances that have been found to enhance health and/or extend the life of people not suffering some severe disease are natural compounds or close analogs. When the formula or source is known, the same sorts of people that now make illegal drugs would be able to make the life extending compound(s). So if the compound is politically suppressed or made too expensive by a monopoly, the black market will step in and make it widely available.
Even now, countries outside of the country that develops a drug use the threat of manufacturing it themselves to force down the price. There's no reason this pratice won't continue
A widespread increase of lifespan by 20 years means people can be productive much longer. While greater widespread wealth can possibly be seen as disruptive, it's hardly something to complain about. A greater portion of old people will also cause a greater accumulation of wisdom (good), a balance toward political conservatism (mixed), and more old people trying to steal from the young by political processes (bad). Most of the "social institution" problems are government related, and it's a sure bet that politicians and "social scientists" are going to see and make more trouble than there is trouble inherent to increased lifespans.
Furthermore, "a sudden jump of 10 years to human lifespan" is absolutely impossible. Even if nobody dies, it takes ten years for lifespan to increase by ten years.
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
It's not politicians that would attempt to prevent the general availability of a longevity drug. It's much more probable that the drug company that held the patent would restrict it's use by keeping the price artificially high.
Look at the case of ulcer drugs. At one time, anti-ulcer medications were the top money-makers for drug companies. Even long after research showed that ulcers were caused by bacteria, and could be easily cured by cheap generic antibiotics, drug companies tried to suppress that research in order to maintain their profits. Even after it was widely known and accepted by health providers, drug companies spent tens of millions trying to convince doctors that this simple fix was somehow not in their patients' best interest. It's one example of how a profit motive does not favor the public good.
Currently, drug companies only fund research that is guaranteed to develop drugs that can be patented, ignoring completely commonly available substances that could be beneficial.
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Currently, drug companies only fund research that is guaranteed to develop drugs that can be patented, ignoring completely commonly available substances that could be beneficial.
They don't ignore the commonly available alternatives - as you already stated, they discredit, undermine or suppress the cheap alternatives.
The information is available on the internet, the hard part is finding genuine information amongst all the crap.
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Apparently you already have something similar in the sense that it's illegal for the US government to use its buying power to secure lower drug prices - as this would 'disadvantage' the drug companies. This is in direct opposition to the stated goal of healthcare.
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Actually, it shouldn't be too hard for vegetarians. Different plant food groups have different protein balances; for instance, beans (except soybeans) are deficient in methionine, one of the ones mentioned in the article. That's why vegetarians are encouraged to balance their protein intake by mixing different food types, eg. beans & rice (grains are deficient in a different amino acid).
All they'd have to do is restrict themselves to one plant protein source, and make sure they're eating just enough to
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Informative)
``Ideally, if giving up Trytophan is beneficial with no negative side effects, they'd create a pill that prevents your body from digesting it.''
Interestingly, there are actually pills that contain tryptophan. Tryptophan is an essential amino acid and is one of the precursors to serotonine. Serotonine is a neurotransmitter, and low serotonine levels are associated with such conditions as depression and anxiety disorders. So people take extra tryptophan (or, more commonly, 5-HTP, the direct precursor to serotonine) to boost serotonine levels.
Oh effing great (Score:5, Funny)
So what this essentially means is that we can choose between shorter lives and not wanting longer ones.
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So they say but not necessarily for all people. They discovered almost 30 years ago that low tryptophan diets duplicated the effects of caloric restriction (in lab rats). It's not so difficult to lower tryptophan in a vegetarian diet, for instance, if your primary protein source is yogurt.. This works because tryptophan and phenylalanine compete to cross the blood-brain barrier and you can easily identify which foods have the highest ratio of phe to try. I made it part of my life extension program
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Ooooh, so profound.
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Well, it's almost mandatory if you're doing any sort of iPhone development.
Living 150 years or more is needed to endure the process of creating an iPhone app, and then going through all of Apple's artificial hurdles just to get it released to the public.
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> Ooooh, so profound.
But so true!
Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oooh, so naive.
I don't know about you, but just about every old person I've known has reached a point somewhere or other where they have said "I'm ready to go, I'm tired, I've had enough".
Now I'm not advocating euthenasia or anything so extreme, but with age comes degeneration, both physical and mental, and for a lot of people, they are prisoners in their own bodeis, wracked with pain and only their daily cocktail of pills keep them functioning even to a limited degree.
But hell yes, Mr 23-Year-Old-I-Know-It-All thinks we should all "live forever". Wait till you've experience an elderly releative with Alzheimers who gets confused and frustrated because they can't remember what they were doing 5 minutes ago ... or takes an hour to get up because every joint is locked in pain.
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I'm not advocating euthenasia or anything so extreme
Many civilizations throughout history have not considered euthanasia extreme by any means. Just because our particular religious influence is somewhat more restrictive than those of other civilizations doesn't mean that their practices were barbaric. It's entirely possible that once all this Christ nonsense dies down, people might have a much more reasonable view of what constitutes "extreme."
I am advocating euthanasia. Or, more precisely, assisted suicide. Adults of sound mind should have the option while
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Ol' Dad was 92 when the cancer got him, and I still feel the humiliation of that last time we went hiking, when he left me behind, dizzy and panting, on the climb back to the car. He was a moderate with his eating, (coffee, bacon, and eggs every morning) and refused medication up to his last days. I don't know how much is genetic, but the Kentucky Mountaineer lifestyle, minus tobacco, seems to have been beneficial.
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They are getting pretty good at producing organs from stem cells in the lab (animal tests, see last week's rabbit penis article). So that could solve a lot of problems, such as arthritis, cancer caught early, heart disease... there is probably a pretty long list. They are making good progress with lab grown skin too, so you might even be able to look young. Autoimmune disorders are a problem, as are systemic diseases like leukemia, and as you pointed out diseases of the brain are still a huge problem.
Ther
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The poor ones will still eat at McD, smoke etc, get obese and die young.
I'm sure the rich smart elite have long figured out that it's not such a bad thing for the rich, really.
Here's something to think about:
The infamous US Food Pyramid is not by the FDA or the US Department of Health. It's by the US Department of Agriculture. Same goes for its replacement "pyramid".
Re:Yes, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Hah, that's fucking stupid (no offense). You are talking about people that don't have a choice in the matter, you are talking about acceptance. You are talking about a brave face in front of family. You are talking about a lifetime of preparing for this eventuality.
If there were a pill that extended their life 10years and increased the quality of life. They'd be fucking horrified of not having that pill. Proof? If they really wanted to die they wouldn't be such pussies about it (srsly, old people are not pussies), and they'd end it themselves. Old people have tons of drugs they could do themselves in with in their sleep.
You are assuming a 95yrs old extensions. That doesn't have to be the case, might be that 35yrs lasts 5yrs more. I understand that it is easier to deal with death by saying it was his time. Or that he lived a full life. But people in the 1500s said 'he lived a full life' to people dying in their 20s (in the bronze age, a mere 15 yrs old). So our definition of a full life is pretty damn flexible.
What you are experiencing isn't rational, it is a rationalization, a way of handling with death. Don't use it to make decisions for the future please.
Hunter-Gatherers were better off in some ways (Score:3, Insightful)
By the way, there is one pill these days that can help a lot with life-extension for most US Americans. Vitamin D3 gelcaps 5000 IU, with this treatment protocol including blood testing:
http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/treatment.shtml [vitamindcouncil.org]
Human lifespan in hunter-gather times past infant mortality might have been into the 60s or older.
The following is from something I wrote elsewhere:
http://www.pdfernhout.net/reading-between-the-lines.html [pdfernhout.net]
Humanity used to live in relative abundance wit
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And the abundance thing is true in some places... In places where we still see hunter gather societies they haven't grown because their food is such a pain in the ass to get it sucks up all their time. And the reason hunter gather groups were LIMITED to sizes of about 50 people was because of scarcity. If food were less scarce larger populations could have been supported. Perhaps there was a good food:human ratio but like starving people in africa prove. Food existing doesn't m
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Except today's hunter/gatherers are the ones who have been pushed onto the most marginal lands with the least natural productivity. The agricultural empires in general took over the best land (including using bronze weapons). If you look at Marshall Sahlins wrote, in many productive areas, hunter/gatherers spend maybe two hours a day on food related work most of the time -- and it is mostly fun and interesting and engaging work. It is things like fishing to catch just one big fish. Or collecting ripe fruit
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The reason human populations exploded after farming was invented is because farming provides a LOT more food. Farming is a much more stable food source than hunting and gathering. A couple of bad winters would wipe out h/g's or force them to move and fight. H/g's could meet their dietary needs easily when they lived in lush area's with very low population densities.
Spending less time hunting, some days, than I spend in the office does not tempt me to live the stone age lifestyle. The high population dens
Re:Yes, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
"But people in the 1500s said 'he lived a full life' to people dying in their 20s (in the bronze age, a mere 15 yrs old)."
Where's the evidence of this? I know that in Iron Age Greece males in their teens and even early twenties would be called ephebes -- not quite fully grown men. Plato suggested in the Republic that only people over 50 years old should rule, and that women should breed from 20-40 and men from 28-55, because these are their "prime" reproductive years. Was he expecting almost no one to breed? He himself lived to 84 years old, and there was nothing particularly spectacular about it. I doubt the Bronze age would be much different.
Perhaps you are confusing average life expectancy with what is regarded as a "full" life span?
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But hell yes, Mr 23-Year-Old-I-Know-It-All thinks we should all "live forever". Wait till you've experience an elderly releative with Alzheimers who gets confused and frustrated because they can't remember what they were doing 5 minutes ago ... or takes an hour to get up because every joint is locked in pain.
Really, it depends on how it extends life. If aging progresses as now, but the diet gives you longer at the end of the scale, many might decide to stop. If it delays the decrepitude as well, people might well enjoy an extra decade or two, then stop when it catches up with them.
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The point is that it's very possible (in the long long term) that extending lifespans might eventually be necessary to maintain a certain global popu
No Turkey for you... (Score:4, Funny)
Tryptophan, isn't that the sleep inducing post Thanksgiving Feast drug of the ritual Turkey meal?
What's methionine found in? Don't tell me, pumpkin Pie...
Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:4, Informative)
Tryptophan also naturally occurs in bananas. It metabolizes through a few stages into serotonin.
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What's methionine found in?
In recent news, the United States government has outlawed the sale of items containing "methionine" on grounds that the first four letters are identical to those found in "methamphetamine." Carol McIdiot, a noted FDA scientist, was quoted as saying "for God's sake, we must stop this contamination at once. Won't someone think of the children? Have you no soul!?!?"
Film at 11.
Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:5, Informative)
The sleep inducing factor in your favorite November holiday is actually the fact that you stuff yourself. Eat four pounds of chicken and gravy, and then we'll see if you stay awake.
Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:5, Funny)
Eat four pounds of chicken and gravy, and then we'll see if you stay awake. :)
I accept the terms of your challenge.
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I don't know. Four of each, or four combined?
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Maybe it is not the tryptophan
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Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:5, Informative)
anecdotes =/= science
Not sure what your point was. Were you saying that there isn't any science in your post?
I found the answer in a wikipedia link [wikipedia.org] provided in another message. The link suggests that the sleepiness is not caused by tryptophan alone. Rather, carbohydrates trigger the release of insulin. Insulin causes muscle to take in LNAA, but not tryptophan. This leaves a larger ratio of tryptophan in the blood to be taken across the blood-brain barrier into the central nervous system. There it is converted into serotonin. The serotonin is metabolized into melatonin. Melatonin makes you sleepy.
So, tryptophan by itself does not make you sleepy. However, tryptophan combined with carbohydrates leads to the right conditions needed to make you sleepy. It has nothing to do with stuffing yourself. Nor is tryptophan's involvement a myth. It just needs the right conditions. Skip the mashed potatoes and you shouldn't get sleepy from turkey.
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Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:4, Insightful)
Nor is tryptophan's involvement a myth
The myth is not that tryptophan is involved. The myth is that tryptophan is the cause, and that Turkey causes sleepiness because of it. The fact that there is a small grain of truth in the myth does not make it any less of a myth. The common everyday belief is incorrect.
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Sure, but science often happen when a chance observation (an anecdote) leads to curiosity and experimentation.
Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:4, Funny)
the conversation ?
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The sleep inducing factor in your favorite November holiday is actually the fact that you stuff yourself. Eat four pounds of chicken and gravy, and then we'll see if you stay awake. :)
I don't believe you; it might not be Tryptophan, but it is definitely something in turkey. We roadkilled a young hen last year or so, and on our way back found her lying dead in a vineyard, so we brought her home and made stew out of her that ended up being like a sleeping pill. One bowl and you were ready for a nap; two and you'd pass out. And I'm not talking mixing bowls here, either. We don't normally eat Turkeys in that season, but whatever it is was far more than usually pronounced.
Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:4, Funny)
All I saw was "blah blah blah, we eat roadkill."
This is probably unfair, but I feel that that aspect of your story diminishes your credibility.
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This is probably unfair, but I feel that that aspect of your story diminishes your credibility.
Only to those people whose opinions don't matter, and I will be making no apologies for that statement. I knew the animal hadn't been lying out long enough to be dangerous. NOT eating the animal would be reprehensible, and anyone who thinks otherwise is the one with the problem. Here in Lake County, California we just basically eliminated Animal Control (in spite of having one of the highest per-capita concentrations of police in the nation, we apparently can't fund animal control) so people are being told
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Re:No Turkey for you... (Score:5, Interesting)
However, there is still a twisted nugget of almost truth if you follow one of the current theories on postprandial sedation. The whole chain goes something like this:
Eating large amounts of starchy food -> increased blood sugar levels.
elevated blood sugar -> insulin release
elevated insulin levels -> increased absorption of long chain amino acids into muscle tissue
increased absorption of long chain amino acids -> decreased blood serum levels of long chain amino acids
decreased serum long chain amino acid levels -> increased serum ratio of short chain/long chain amino acids
tryptophan is a short chain amino acid, and higher serum ratios of tryptophan lead to increased production of seratonin and melatonin, leading to sleepiness.
So yes, there is some tryptophan in turkey. And tryptophan supplements can induce sleepiness, but they need to be taken on an empty stomach to do so. That is because digesting pure tryptophan will also increase the serum ration of tryptophan to other amino acids. However in a traidional thankgsiving feast, it's the massive overload of carbs in the stuffing, corn, bread, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, sweet potatoes, cranberry marshmallow fluff, pie, whipped cream and even gravy (it's thickened with starch) that lead to the sleep inducing increased serum ratio of tryptophan. Some of the sleepiness can also be blamed on redirecting a good portion of blood flow to the digestive system to tackle the huge meal just consumed. A glass of wine or two can provide enough alcohol for the final KO providing the need to sleep.
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Okay, here's an example:
Let's pick a food with much higher tryptophan than turkey. Let's pick eggs, which have 1g tryptophan per 100g eggs, which is 3-4 times more than in turkey.
Let's pair them with some "starchy" foods. Maybe, pancakes. Or Waffles. Maybe cereal, or hashbrowns. I like eggs mixed into my hashbrowns, so I'll pick them.
Clearly, this intense dosage of tryptophan and carbohydrates should knock me out cold. Several sittings may be necessary to determine an accurate effect.
Fortunately, I eat this
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emphasis on "postprandial Thanksgiving sedation may have more to do with"
There's a lot of anecdotal evidence...
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There is more tryptophan in a glass of milk than a serving of turkey
Is that why the myth of "drink a glass of warm milk to help you sleep better" appeared? I have no idea.
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Darn, I knew I shouldn't trust wiki!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tryptophan [wikipedia.org]
turkey 0.24 [g/100 g of food]
milk 0.08 [g/100 g of food]
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Why do people buy 2% milk? Regular milk is 3% (hence why 2% can no longer be labeled "low fat").
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For the same reason one buys "low fat" food that has 300% the sodium content.
The answer? People are idiots.
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Because it has 33% less fat than regular milk, but still tastes about the same?
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What's methionine found in?
From wikipedia: Methionine is one of only two amino acids encoded by a single codon (AUG) in the standard genetic code (tryptophan, encoded by UGG, is the other). The codon AUG is also the "Start" message for a ribosome that signals the initiation of protein translation from mRNA. As a consequence, methionine is incorporated into the N-terminal position of all proteins in eukaryotes and archaea during translation, although it is usually removed by post-translational modification.
Wild speculation on my part
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I've never said this before, but somebody mod this up, it's useful data even if the speculation isn't (or is) shown to be the case.
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No tryptophan in TFA (Score:5, Informative)
I am the one slashdotter that reads TFA (the full article) before posting. I even did a search for tryptophan. Nope, it's not there. Maybe the submitter forgot a link, but tryptophan is never mentioned in the sciencenews.org article.
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If you are interested, here is a list of food products containing high levels of methionine:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/foods-000084000000000000000-w.html [nutritiondata.com]
And tryptophan:
http://www.nutritiondata.com/foods-000079000000000000000-w.html [nutritiondata.com]
Good news for kids (Score:2)
Reducing amino acids? (Score:2)
One simple rule (Score:5, Funny)
Now I can live longer and get a flat stomach by following ONE simple rule.
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tryptophan (Score:2)
> Amino acids that have shown this have been tryptophan
couldn't they have told us this before thanksgivig?
tryptophan (Score:2)
Link to actual study (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature08619.html for the actual study
Amino Acids (Score:4, Interesting)
So... what they discovered is that limiting diets reduce reproduction at the expense of lifespan?
Color me skeptical, but this is not exactly new. It's well known that limited diets reduce reproductive metabolism in favor of survival. After all, what good is reproduction if you don't live to do it.
Now, I'm not saying this is all bunk. I don't know. What I am saying is that all this really proves is that methionine is necessary for egg-laying and lifespan in Drosophila. That's a far stretch from saying that reducing methionine increases lifespan in well-fed humans. In fact, what TFA says is that there is a discrepancy in studies. In fact, TFA doesn't even mention tryptophan, so I don't know where the submitter got that.
Unfortunately, I can't access the Nature article right now. However, I'll definitely be taking a look at it tomorrow, because I am extremely skeptical of these claims.
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It's well known that limited diets reduce reproductive metabolism in favor of survival. After all, what good is reproduction if you don't live to do it.
While that may be true, I think it is more of a case of: what good is reproduction (which requires a lot of resources from the mother before birth) when there is not enough food to go around even without extra mouths to feed. Better save the expense of pregnancy for times when there is better chance for the baby to actually have enough to eat.
"A highly respected journal" (Score:4, Insightful)
As a subscriber to Nature I find it interesting that when we're talking about amino acids Nature is a highly respected international weekly journal of science but.... when we're talking climate science it's the nexus of an evil, duplicitous, Socialist, Marxist, environmentalist cabal bent on destroying the fabric of American society.
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Nature journal /is/ "the nexus of an evil, duplicitous, Socialist, Marxist, environmentalist cabal bent on destroying the fabric of American society", regardless of scientific disciplines.
With apologies (Score:2)
Well we all know nature has a liberal bias. ;-)
(sorry, couldn't help myself )
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When talking about computers I'm a respected person of knowledge but when we're talking about hair styles I'm pretty useless.
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This is one of the many issues which peer review is designed to overcome. As far as I can tell it works extremely well. There's certainly no evidence that it works wonderfully in my field but breaks down in other fields.
Re:"A highly respected journal" (Score:5, Insightful)
Neither of the two, actually.
Nature is a magazine, edited by humans, who have their own collection of baggage and biases. In general, these don't interfere with a generally good job of presenting relatively objective information on science.
As far as anthropogenic global warming is considered, they're as likely as anyone to fall for the popular hysteria, particularly when it's driven by their own peers.
Now, you might dismiss this was "ah, he's a denier, he's just parroting his viewpoint" and in a sense I am - a believe global warming is probably a systemic change maybe/maybe not tipped by human activity, and that in any case it's extremely unlikely that it's driven by CO2, or limitable in any meaningful way without genocidal levels of population reduction. There, that's my bias, all clear and present.
But I'd look directly at Nature and ask when they've made any such clear statement? Clearly, they have a non-challenging editorial stance when approaching the laughable 'science facts' in an Inconvenient Truth (not a whisper from Nature as far as I can recall). Nature IS a respected science journal, that would be a perfect place for the fallacies of the AGW hypothesis to be dissected and the valid conclusions reinforced. But no, instead they seem to prefer the role of mandarins, defending an established dogma without really every looking at it critically or questioning it honestly.
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Not to say nature is disreputable on either, but there is nothing wrong with saying reliable at one thing and maybe not so much in another domain. its a common enough situation in life.
A scientific journal is either respected or not. You can't just pick and choose the articles you like and then say "Yeah, Nature is a great journal, but it sucks in fields X, Y and Z.". If it actually does suck in certain fields but is publishing papers in those fields, then it isn't a great journal, is it?
Of course, the real problem is people who decide that a 140-year old science journal, widely considered to be one of the most prestigious in the world, is bogus because the papers it publishes conflict wi
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Not quite. JAMA is highly respected journal, but if it carried an article an article on the gusset plate failure that caused the bridge collapse in Illinois I would give it as much weight and authority as an internet posting. It's not quite so simple to say if it's respected that it can do no wrong and all articles are good, you could say it's respected in the field of medicine and therefore it's medical articles have authority. The same applies to Nature, Nature has published articles outside their normal
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O_N_L_Y in a Complex System (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps one should consider that in complex systems there is no such thing like 'only'.
CC.
Bad summary (Score:2, Insightful)
If anything, TFA says that you should restrict all amino acids except methionine. If you are fruit fly, that is.
TFA also says nothing about tryptophan in particular.
Or am I totally confused?
Tryptophan? (Score:2, Informative)
The summary mentions tryptophan but it isn't anywhere in the article. And I wonder if the decreased longevity is due to the excessive methionine itself or a result of its byproducts such as SAM and homocysteine.
The aliens worked hard to (Score:2)
Like an admin on holiday, when they get back its personal.
If that amino acid is delicious, I'm dying early (Score:3, Insightful)
We all know how this goes. If it feels good, we do it. If it feels bad, we don't do it or we avoid whatever causes it. Salt? Good... what does it matter that too much causes health problems? Sugar? Good... what does it matter that...? You get the idea.
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Salt tastes good? Your tastes must differ completely from mine. I think it's a developed thing from many years of not eating salt with everything.
Live longer, or live better? (Score:2)
I, like many people, welcome the idea of living as long as I can be productive and maybe a bit beyond -- but I have no wish to live indefinitely if that life is one of immobility, pain, and humiliating dependence both physically and financially.
If this, or any, treatment results in an increased healthy lifespan by somehow allowing my body to repair itself as it did when I was in my twenties or even my early thirties then I'm I'm for it. Of course, t
Re:Prolong life as a what? (Score:5, Interesting)
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How I read it. Long life. No sex.
*eat banana and 4 eggs at same time*
Re: (Score:2)
Actually, you might just find that eating any kind of meat in overly large quantities shortens your expected lifespan.