First Successful Gene Therapy Against Human Aging? (geekwire.com) 244
An anonymous reader writes:
For the first time data may show that a human being has been successfully rejuvenated by gene therapy, claims Bioviva USA. "In September 2015, then 44 year-old CEO of Bioviva USA Inc. Elizabeth Parrish received two of her own company's experimental gene therapies: one to protect against loss of muscle mass with age, another to battle stem cell depletion responsible for diverse age-related diseases and infirmities." Bypassing America's FDA, the controversial therapies were described by the MIT Technology Review as "do-it-yourself medicine," saying it "raises ethical questions about how quickly such treatments should be tested in people and whether they ought to be developed outside the scrutiny of regulators."
"The treatment was originally intended to demonstrate the safety of the latest generation of the therapies," reports Bioviva's web site. "But if early data is accurate, it is already the world's first successful example of telomere lengthening via gene therapy in a human individual."
back to work ? (Score:2)
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the insurance company will probably pick up the tab anyway.
Which they'll pass on to their other clients.
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Pass on to the rest of us...
That is the universal argument of the haves vs. The have-nots.
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Okay... Feel free to answer the question then:
"Where do insurance companies get the money to pay for medical care, especially the elderly?"
Go ahead, try not to say "from their customers."
What's not to "buy" ? Insurance companies take money from all clients and distribute it to clients who are covered and get medical care. Nearly 100% of the cost of more-than-trivial medical transactions is "passed on to other clients".
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Ponzi schemes by their very nature eat up the money they take in and provide no benefit to their newer customers. By intention, they seldom last longer than a decade. Major insurance companies have been around for a long time, and accumulate capital.
"Nationalized health insurance" is worse than a Ponzi scheme because instead of taking money only from fools, it steals from everybody at gunpoint.
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the insurance company will probably pick up the tab anyway.
Which they'll pass on to their other clients.
Well that is how insurance companies work, whether you're 80 or 30 years old. But also don't forget about massive earnings they get from investing premiums.
Besides, how is it fair to denigrate the elderly making use of their insurance when they've probably been paying premiums for 40+ years? Shouldn't you be more upset about the 26-year old who just came off his parent's insurance plan, has paid a total of $200 in premiums, and then breaks his neck falling off one of those cheap "hoverboards" to the tune o
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If old people are going to stay around, they should consider going back to work too, otherwise it won't be affordable.
If it isn't affordable and the old people who want to stay around don't consider going back to work, they're evidently too far gone already. Obvious cat is obvious.
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Life extension, if it ever becomes real, will be for the very rich. The rest of us will live our normal lives of quiet desperation as we serve our life-extended masters.
I wonder if eating people who have has this therapy will extend the life of the eater? Hmmmm. One more reason to consider eating the rich.
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It is really and it is already only for the rich.
Heart bypass surgery, heart replacements, etc.... All only for the very wealthy.
Eating healthy extends your life and only the rich can afford that.
Living in a home not full of nasty crap or not living where the water has lead in it.... again only for the rich.
Being able to take vacations so that stress wont kill you early.... again only for the rich. Burger king employees dont get 4 weeks of vacation a year.
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You must be American, where junk food costs literallynothing but normal food is expensive and going to the hospital costs money.
Re: back to work ? (Score:2)
Ordinary Americans can't get heart transplants? Really?
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Re: back to work ? (Score:2)
Not judging by the rest of his post. I can't believe that anyone would support a system that deprives life saving operations from people just because they're poor.
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"It is really and it is already only for the rich.
Heart bypass surgery, heart replacements, etc.... All only for the very wealthy."
"Living in a home not full of nasty crap or not living where the water has lead in it.... again only for the rich."
Again, lead pipes have been removed in other countries as well, we knew that the roman empire fell because they all die
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The rest of us will live our normal lives of quiet desperation as we serve our life-extended masters.
I guess you haven't read today's headline.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/24/upshot/rich-people-are-living-longer-thats-tilting-social-security-in-their-favor.html [nytimes.com]
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See congress-critters for a counter-example. I think it the height of impropriety to consider letting these dinosaurs hang on this long after their well-done, burnt to a crisp, burger time.
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Yep, this is very bad news, human society isn't nearly mature enough for life extension technology. Hopefully the effect on lifespan will be minimal, because all this can do right now is exacerbate inequality.
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We weren't mature enough for mechanization and nuclear bombs either.
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There probably should be a maximum age limit for serving any role in elected government. Things are already too full of stagnant old people in the halls of power.
This... (Score:2)
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Other people would pin it on basic numeracy.
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Oh good, I'm not the only one who noticed 65+75 != 120.
I wrote it wrong by not mentioning my current age. I'm 45 and plan to live another 75 years. That's 45 + 75 = 120. Retiring at 65 seems unrealistic.
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Do you actually think that if life extension technology becomes real, anyone but the super rich will be able to afford it?
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It would become a reality for most of the middle class. They will finally live long enough to pay off their student loans. Who would have thought that underwater basket weaving would have such a tiny market.
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Outliving retirement funds will be a serious problem for most people in the future.
A problem easily solved by saving or working more.
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You can't really solve the problem of an ageing population by saving more.
And you have a reason you say this?
You also need young people to do the work,
No, you don't. Much has already been made of the growing productivity of workers. And older workers who don't choose to save enough can still work.
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And you have a reason you say this?
Imagine an isolated island with a population of young but sterile people. Everything is going great, and they are saving money (made from seashells) in a big box to pay for their retirement. Do you see the problem ? Money does you no good if there are not enough workers. You'll simply get inflation.
Much has already been made of the growing productivity of workers
Exactly. So it's not a matter of solving the problem by "saving more". You solve the problem by providing more worker productivity.
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Imagine an isolated island with a population of young but sterile people. Everything is going great, and they are saving money (made from seashells) in a big box to pay for their retirement. Do you see the problem ? Money does you no good if there are not enough workers. You'll simply get inflation.
That's not the world we live in. It's not saving as we actually do it. It doesn't cover technological advances. And it ignores that most people don't actually save enough for their absence from the workforce to matter.
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That's not the world we live in.
I know. It's a story to help explain the problem. Money is basically an standardized IOU. It doesn't do you any good to put an IOU in a box, and get it out 50 years later, when the counterparty isn't able to work any more.
It doesn't cover technological advances.
Exactly, but that wasn't the point. The point was that "saving money" is no solution. That doesn't mean that there can't be any other solution, such as higher productivity, robots, or more efficient caretaking.
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Robots. We need robots to do the work. The Japanese figured this out a few years ago:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/ne... [japantimes.co.jp]
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Robots. We need robots to do the work. The Japanese figured this out a few years ago
Robots could help, but we're still not anywhere near the point that robots can take over a significant part of the work force. Also, society still needs resources, including fertile land and clean water, as well as energy.
Re:This... (Score:4, Interesting)
Probably, but I doubt that that will be her problem. Teleomere shortening is one of the body's defenses against cancer...and she's apparently turned that off. There may also be a similar reason for stem cell depletion, though I've never heard of one for certain, only a couple of things that suggest that stem cells are more likely to turn cancerous than other cells. And the word is suggest, as there are other findings that suggest that senescent cells are the ones most likely to turn cancerous.
Re:This... (Score:5, Informative)
Teleomere shortening is one of the body's defenses against cancer...and she's apparently turned that off.
The articles are sadly lacking in detail as usual but my impression is that they have performed a one-off lengthening, not turned off shortening. Also, it seems it was only done to her leukocytes not every cell.
there are other findings that suggest that senescent cells are the ones most likely to turn cancerous.
There was a recent result in mice where they managed to eliminate all senescent cells. So do that first, then lengthen the telomeres periodically and who knows how long you might last.
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We don't use stone knives anymore, why do we still use antiquated concepts like money and scarcity?
Very good question. Why can't we all have 10 acre beachfront properties in a nice climate ?
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Why do you think everyone would want that?
Obviously not everyone would want that. It's a bit crowded. Maybe 1000 acres ?
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Well, scarcity in most scenarios is far from imaginary, and hypothetical immortality wouldn't exactly help matters on that front.
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Yes, because the ancient concepts of "money" and "economy" will survive the coming years...
They may be ancient, but they're also state of the art.
We don't use stone knives anymore, why do we still use antiquated concepts like money and scarcity?
Scarcity won't go away, not even in the so-called "post-scarcity" world. And money is a huge algorithmic improvement over anything else that has been proposed as a system of trade.
I think it's telling that critics of such things have no alternatives that are not money or economies in disguise.
For example, someone has recently been pushing some concept which is labeled "technocracy" [technocracy.ca]. It claims to do away with notions of money and scarcity, but a cu
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As long as you only live off the interest, you'll never deplete the principal.
Problem is that interest (minus inflation) comes from economic growth, and there won't be continued growth if growing parts of the population are retired.
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Shouldn't be. As long as you only live off the interest, you'll never deplete the principal.
Perhaps you didn't notice the Great Recession that halved the value of stocks in many retirement plans. Those who panic by selling their stocks on the way down lost money. Those who stayed pat saw their value returned eight years later. (Thanks, Obama!) Those who lived on dividend payments from these stocks during the last eight years watched their quarterly income get smaller and smaller. An IRA or 401K is not the same as a pension.
BTW, The average American only has $1,000 set aside for retirement. Try str
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The average American is an idiot too.
Based upon the 2016 presidential election cycle, most of them are voters too.
Re:This... (Score:4, Interesting)
And pensions are for people who are in unions. You think companies just all of a sudden decided to give retiring workers money? Pensions were something that were fought for through labor organizing.
You can thank Ronald Reagan and trickle-down economics for pensions where people can live with dignity in old age to 401k plans (if they're lucky) that are nothing but piggy banks for Wall Street to play with.
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You thank Obama for slowing the recovery?
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You thank Obama for slowing the recovery?
No. I blamed the Republicans for slowing the recovery. In fact, the Party of No has made Obama one of the most powerful presidents in peace time.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2016/04/barack-obama-gop-most-powerful-213814 [politico.com]
44? (Score:2)
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Good Literature Recommendations (Score:3)
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Can't say it's a good book because I only read the sample so far, but check The Cicada Prophecy by J.R. McLeay. It looked interesting at least.
Re:Good Literature Recommendations (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Good Literature Recommendations (Score:4, Informative)
Elizabeth Moon wrote several novel series that indirectly touched upon this issue, where "rejuvenation" kept older people living longer in key positions of business and government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Familias_Regnant_universe [wikipedia.org]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vatta's_War [wikipedia.org]
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Red Mars and the sequels spend a lot of time talking about this kind of thing.
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I liked it. I like pretty much everything he's written though.
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The Immortal, by Jorge Luis Borges.
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Almost anything by Larry Niven, but the Ringworld series for sure.
Both of his main protagonists, Louis Wu and Beowulf Shaeffer do many of the things they do to deal with extended life.
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Heinlein's Methuselah's Children had that as a sub-plot element. It's a bit dated, but pretty good. Long term effects are discussed in the sequel "Time Enough for Love", but that needed a better editor.
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The main character is dealing with the side effects of medical age reversal. The youth have determined that the rate of medical advancements will increase lifespans at the same rate they are aging.
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The Takeshi Kovacs trilogy by Richard Morgan. The first in the series, Altered Carbon, is particularly relevant. People can effectively live forever by transferring their minds to new bodies.
Not really relevant... (Score:2)
There the life extension is through the ability to transfer minds into implanted mind-hard-drives.
Which should in any logical universe lead to permanent youth for everyone AND elimination of poverty cause everyone could basically live off of interests on their savings, while sleeping for centuries in between, right?
Or buggering off to new frontiers and living happily forever there, right?
OR... and check this out... NEVER HAVING AN ECONOMIC PROBLEM ON ACCOUNT OF FASTER THEN LIGHT INFORMATION TRANSFER.
TIME TR
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People don't want to just put themselves in storage for 100 years while their fortune amasses. That's actually the punishment they use for criminals. Apart from being attached to other people in the here and now, if everyone started doing that it would cause massive economic problems by itself. Chances are that would have to be protected against by savings taxes. In fact, the rich might insist on it.
Also, everyone has a big expenditure periodically as they need a new body. That is stated to be very expensiv
Only 7 months (Score:4, Insightful)
She only took the treatment 7 months ago. How much could we really know about it's efficacy in such a short period? Unless she reverted to looking like a 20 year old person (she doesn't), then I have a hard time believing that it's really working. Also, we don't know how it will effect her long term.
Re:Only 7 months (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Only 7 months (Score:5, Informative)
How much could we really know about it's efficacy in such a short period?
We now know that this treatment isn't 100% fatal on a 7 month timescale.
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They are claiming that they have data showing the therapy lengthened her telomeres. That wouldn't make her look 20, but it would help stave off many of the health effects of getting old.
150 years (Score:2)
Here's where I stopped reading (Score:2)
http://www.geekwire.com/2016/b... [geekwire.com]
For one thing, the findings haven't yet been submitted for peer-reviewed publication.
Re:Here's where I stopped reading (Score:5, Insightful)
Successful? (Score:2)
Reckless, but progress calls for it (Score:2)
Unbiased? (Score:2)
The woman is the CEO of the company making this so-called anti-aging treatment. AND she located the company outside the US to escape FDA requirements that a therapy be proven to be safe and effective. Could it be true? Maybe, but it looks more like snake oil to me.
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Telomeres isn't a buzzword IMHO. But all recent research I've seen (note: not my field - but I do try to keep up to date) indicate that telomeres isn't too significant for cell aging, not completely irrelevant but not a priority either. Increasing telomere length without taking care of the aging on a cellular level will mostly increase cancer...
Great (Score:2)
Double life expectancy and effectively double the population. I'm sure the Earth is up for that.
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You could always start a large war or convince all the young people to have abortions because it is their health and choice or some other reason. You could also stop the negative connotations of homosexuality and convince half the population to become queer to save the world.
There are a lot of things you can do to alleviate your fears of overpopulation that doesn't involve using science and technology to deal with issues as the rise up.
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just FYI: one can't convince people to be "queer" (I guess you mean homosexual), it isn't a choice.
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All sex is a choice else rape wouldn't be illegal- it would be a fact of existence just as eating and using the restroom is.
As for the difference between queer and homosexual, there is no real difference unless someone has changed the definition to feel better about themselves but that is not my problem.
A bubble that doesn't pop? (Score:4, Insightful)
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>When real anti-aging therapies become available they are going to be priced out of this world...literally priced for billionaries.
That's one reason Parrish went outside of the US to do her trial. By doing so, she bypasses regulations and fees that the FDA requires that can make the cost of bringing a brand new drug to market today roughly around a billion dollars. So of course in order to recoup the cost of research and go through the lengthy gauntlet of FDA approval, pay their overcompensated CEO's, an
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The LAST thing in the world your health-insurance is likely to underwrite is something which will extend your natural lifespan to something preternatural.
Huh? This doesn't make any sense at all. Health insurance companies have to pay out when you get sick. As happens when you get old. Indeed, what really ends up killing people is the inability to pay for the meds which are keeping them alive. They don't want you to get sick. They want you to keep paying them.
Life insurance companies would LOVE this. They are betting that you DON'T die soon. If you have life insurance, you are betting that DO die sooner rather than later. You know, just in case.
Can you imagine the impact of such a move, were it to occur, on the broken pension/SS/medicare system and the negative interest rate economy in general?
Yeah, peo
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Would you, as a voter, accept that scenario meekly?
Voting only works if there's a credible candidate that does what you want.
What ethical problems? (Score:2)
Pasteur himself was absolutely fearless. Anxious to secure a sample of saliva straight from the jaws of a rabid dog, I once saw him with the glass tube held between his lips draw a few drops of the deadly saliva from the mouth of a rabid bull-dog, held on the table by two assistants, their hands protected by leather
This is trouble (Score:2)
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Two words: Soylent Green.
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Strain the food supply? No, it won't. That's exactly the same argument people made in the middle of the 20th century about how human population growth will drain all of our resources by the end of the 20th century. Why did it not happen? Because of a mix of technological and economic reasons. I don't need to explain the technology part, but the economics part made sure that people decided to have less babies.
Put it simply, if each pair of parents only had one baby, soon we will have 0 population growth, eve
Hero (Score:3)
"itâ(TM)s going to take 15-20 years to get a drug through, but 100,000 people are going to die today! Weâ(TM)re so detached, how do you say that without feeling emotional? Thatâ(TM)s it, their value to this earth is gone. And itâ(TM)s real to them, itâ(TM)s very real to them. To us it seems like fantasy, but to them theyâ(TM)re facing their last moment, and we shouldnâ(TM)t feel comfortable with that."
We don't need that (Score:2)
Gene-theraphy likely causes cancer (Score:2)
Give this a decade or so and maybe there actually is something to it. Before, it may just result in a net loss of life-expectancy. It will surely result in a significant loss of money to anybody that wants to risk it. Hey, maybe we can have Ray Kurzweil try it?
How's religion going to deal with this? (Score:2)
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