Old Mice Grow Young Again in Study. Can People Do the Same? (cnn.com) 80
"In Boston labs, old, blind mice have regained their eyesight, developed smarter, younger brains and built healthier muscle and kidney tissue," reports CNN:
On the flip side, young mice have prematurely aged, with devastating results to nearly every tissue in their bodies. The experiments show aging is a reversible process, capable of being driven "forwards and backwards at will," said anti-aging expert David Sinclair, a professor of genetics in the Blavatnik Institute at Harvard Medical School and codirector of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research. Our bodies hold a backup copy of our youth that can be triggered to regenerate, said Sinclair, the senior author of a new paper showcasing the work of his lab and international scientists.
The combined experiments, published for the first time Thursday in the journal Cell, challenge the scientific belief aging is the result of genetic mutations that undermine our DNA, creating a junkyard of damaged cellular tissue that can lead to deterioration, disease and death. "It's not junk, it's not damage that causes us to get old," said Sinclair, who described the work last year at Life Itself, a health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN. "We believe it's a loss of information — a loss in the cell's ability to read its original DNA so it forgets how to function — in much the same way an old computer may develop corrupted software. I call it the information theory of aging."
Jae-Hyun Yang, a genetics research fellow in the Sinclair Lab who coauthored the paper, said he expects the findings "will transform the way we view the process of aging and the way we approach the treatment of diseases associated with aging."
While Sinclair is now testing "genetic resets" in primates, the article warns that "decades could pass before any anti-aging clinical trials in humans begin, get analyzed and, if safe and successful, scaled to the mass needed for federal approval."
But Sinclair suggests damage could probably also be repaired through healthy behaviors like exercise and sufficient sleep, social support and lower stress levels, eating less often and focusing on plants.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader 192_kbps for sharing the story.
The combined experiments, published for the first time Thursday in the journal Cell, challenge the scientific belief aging is the result of genetic mutations that undermine our DNA, creating a junkyard of damaged cellular tissue that can lead to deterioration, disease and death. "It's not junk, it's not damage that causes us to get old," said Sinclair, who described the work last year at Life Itself, a health and wellness event presented in partnership with CNN. "We believe it's a loss of information — a loss in the cell's ability to read its original DNA so it forgets how to function — in much the same way an old computer may develop corrupted software. I call it the information theory of aging."
Jae-Hyun Yang, a genetics research fellow in the Sinclair Lab who coauthored the paper, said he expects the findings "will transform the way we view the process of aging and the way we approach the treatment of diseases associated with aging."
While Sinclair is now testing "genetic resets" in primates, the article warns that "decades could pass before any anti-aging clinical trials in humans begin, get analyzed and, if safe and successful, scaled to the mass needed for federal approval."
But Sinclair suggests damage could probably also be repaired through healthy behaviors like exercise and sufficient sleep, social support and lower stress levels, eating less often and focusing on plants.
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader 192_kbps for sharing the story.
Take care of yourself (Score:1)
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You don't spend a lot of time talking to Boomers, do you?
Or millenials or Gen Z. All they want to do is stare at their phones.
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" I doubt most want to live forever."
Speak for yourself.
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" I doubt most want to live forever."
Speak for yourself.
Sure, but living longer, not to mention "forever", becomes a resource issue -- for the individual, society and planet. If you have enough personal resources (ie Money) you'll be fine, otherwise it's going to become less fun over time. With regard to all those, the movie "Elysium" (and I'm sure others) paint a imaginable picture of what things might be like -- even w/o available immortality on the table.
And, of course, all that assumes you can be/stay healthy throughout a longer life.
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If more people would get off their ass and take control of their existence I don't think this topic would be discussed. Healthy seniors live long enough; I doubt most want to live forever.
This is an important point, perhaps the most important point. This study points not only to helping people live more years but also living those extra years with the same health and physical/mental abilities as they had when younger. Ask people if they want to live extra years stuck to a bed with diminishing memory and mental abilities, and most/all will decline. However, ask the question differently where those extra years are spent with say abilities similar to a 40 year old, and many will accept.
Great Time to be a Mouse (Score:5, Funny)
Too bad none of it works in humans.
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Well that's assuming you don't become a control mouse.
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I didn't say they couldn't, I said you shouldn't (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is, should we do it? Of course, I don't want to age anymore than anyone else, but the question is, what will that lead to?
We'd probably end up with a very static world. A world that will not change. Ever. Because new ideas also need new perspectives. They need someone who didn't experience something that made them certain this is the best he could get.
Imagine growing up in the 1400s. With the mindset of the 1400s. And you live forever. Do you think we'd have seen the age of enlightenment? Do you think we would have shed the idea that your birth, not your merits, should dictate your position in society? That you're not second class because you were not born noble or at least born in a different country? That you are unfit to govern because you were not born the son of a king?
There are things my grandfather took for granted that I couldn't imagine supporting. And I'm fairly sure that I adhere to principles and beliefs that someone born today would consider backwards and completely, outlandishly uninformed, if not outright offensive to humanity itself.
We're moving forward, to no small part because we don't live forever. And while I, and pretty much everyone else who is alive, don't really enjoy the idea that my life will eventually end in death, I think we wouldn't do humanity itself a service if we tried to change this.
Predictions, predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is, should we do it? Of course, I don't want to age anymore than anyone else, but the question is, what will that lead to?
We'd probably end up with a very static world. A world that will not change. Ever. Because new ideas also need new perspectives. They need someone who didn't experience something that made them certain this is the best he could get.
In your prediction.
In reality, we really don't know what changes the future will bring, and in any event a prediction of bad results also has to be weighed against the possible benefits.
The most obvious benefits I can see is the longer availability of expertise. We can point to lots and lots of people who have accrued a lifetime of expertise in their chosen field - from higher mathematics all the way to plumbing and mail delivery - people who know the ropes, who know what to do and why to do it, and are confident in their knowledge.
Personally, I'd rather be operated on by a doctor with lots of experience than one just starting out. I'd rather new pilots be paired with an old hand who knows all the ropes and maybe been in a few tense situations, and kids taught by teachers with decades of experience.
Lots and lots of people are at the end of their life, have amassed enough wealth to retire, and would go back to school if given the chance. School requires a ton of effort that you just don't have when older - those people who would find taking up a new career interesting should be allowed to do that because it would enhance society.
Predictions of the future are only just that - predictions.
Without a probability assessment and pilot programs to verify, we don't know what the future will bring.
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Lots and lots of people are at the end of their life, have amassed enough wealth to retire, and would go back to school if given the chance. School requires a ton of effort that you just don't have when older - those people who would find taking up a new career interesting should be allowed to do that because it would enhance society.
Very true.
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This has also been addressed in science fiction. I'm thinking of the Red Mars series. They had to limit reproduction to one child per couple (half a child credited to each adult), which would allow the population to double (it's a simple infinite series: 1+1/2+1/4+1/8+... = 2). Then there was the problem that accumulated wealth and power never got passed down to younger generations.
It would likely be best if the ability to stop or reverse aging became available slowly, so that society had time to adjust.
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I don't have a source for this, but I recall reading an assertion that a current level of technology (this was probably in the 90's) a person that did not age would have an average lifespan of 439 years with a fairly wide standard deviation.
The 2017 numbers were that accidents killed 6% of people in the US and suicide took almost 2%. Add diseases unrelated to aging to your consideration and it's fairly clear that not aging != immortality.
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Interesting to put some initial numbers on it. But would knowing you didn't have a cap on your lifespan change how you live your life? People might be a lot more conservative about avoiding some risks, but then again, younger people feel like they will live forever, so they do more risky things. When you start getting age-related issues, you tend to stop activities like skiing, but you also tend to reduce exercise in general, causing more issues.
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No. Static news is not an issue. You guys make like experience is bad.
I don't want stupid ignorant know nothing children making societal decisions for older experienced people who have already been there done that and got a dozen T-shirts.
Where does this idea that older people are static come from? Especially in a work environment. My experience has been that new kids want to repeat all the mistakes that have already been made. Their "new" ideas are usually shitty old ideas.
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I hope this is some kind of sarcasm that just went over my head. Weakening the power of any person based solely on a biological factor is always a terrible idea, let alone suppressing the voice of society's most experienced citizens. If you were serious, then perhaps I can facetiously suggest counting elderly votes at 3/5 so that the historical relevance can demonstrate just how oppressive your idea is.
Re: I didn't say they couldn't, I said you shouldn (Score:2)
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It changes the brain too, though. Maybe it makes it more plastic.
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I think we already have enough plastic on this planet.
Re:I didn't say they couldn't, I said you shouldn' (Score:5, Insightful)
The question is, should we do it?
Society where you plausibly live 1000 years would have drastically different approach to things. For example, 2C warming over 100 years now becomes YOUR problem that YOU ought to do something about or have real problem in your 300s.
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The question is, should we do it? Of course, I don't want to age anymore than anyone else, but the question is, what will that lead to?
We'd probably end up with a very static world. A world that will not change. Ever. Because new ideas also need new perspectives. They need someone who didn't experience something that made them certain this is the best he could get.
Imagine growing up in the 1400s. With the mindset of the 1400s. And you live forever.
Remember this breakthrough, if it lives up to its full potential, brings significant life extension, not immortality.
People will still die, bodies will even break down, just not as quickly as they do now.
Do you think we'd have seen the age of enlightenment? Do you think we would have shed the idea that your birth, not your merits, should dictate your position in society?
Sure, it would have taken longer, but there also would have been fewer wars along the way (assuming longer living old timey folks adjusted their reproduction downward to achieve the same population).
We're moving forward, to no small part because we don't live forever. And while I, and pretty much everyone else who is alive, don't really enjoy the idea that my life will eventually end in death, I think we wouldn't do humanity itself a service if we tried to change this.
Remember that menopause also evolved. There's value in the elderly in wisdom and social cohesion they can pas
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those are some possible inconveniences, but we will have bigger problems because we simply can't have everyone living forever, this is a treatment for the elite and consolidating that privilege will radically divide society and that will no doubt be bloody and ruthless, with many of today's generally accepted moral constructs going out of the window.
paradoxically, it will make human life way too precious as to become bland, not just static but paralyzed: the selected few will be extremely risk averse people
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When the average lifespan went from low 30s to now over 70, more than doubling, did society suddenly collapse into a dystopia?
Or did we suddenly have the time to do the things we enjoy after spending most of those years working hard?
You're making an argument to bring in a Logan's Run style society where we just off people at 35.
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And you can bet that these would also be the first to do anything to stay alive.
That alone is enough of a reason to oppose the whole idea.
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So instead of term limits we need to all die earlier and miserable.
Let's just do term limits instead and enjoy our healthy longer lives.
Re: I didn't say they couldn't, I said you shouldn (Score:1)
Not sure people want to live like Biden or Pelosi for a long time, regardless of time limits.
Pelosi still has a lot of power behind the scenes as do the Bidens and the Clintons but all of their brains are clearly aging quickly.
Dementia is an information loss process that seems to be independent from cell regeneration. Imagine power brokers like Pelosi that are pulling the strings for hundreds of years but with just a 50 year memory.
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I'm not going to have a shorter uglier life so we can swap pelosi for some other power broker.
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Well, how about staying alive and changing perspective due to improved brain function? I sure am capable of that even with my current brain function, dunno about other fools though.
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Well, no. That baby will eventually compete with me for the job that they provide, and they want that competition.
The wealthy and powerful never wanted fewer subjects. They always wanted more.
Re: I didn't say they couldn't, I said you shouldn (Score:1)
This idea itself rooted in past-world thinking where mortality is a given much like the idea that only a few computers should ever be needed in the world as a whole.
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Static world?
I'd say the opposite. After a dozen startups under my belt and seeing every single one make the same mistakes and bad decisions it would be nice to get into a #13 where everyone had already been there, done that, and doesn't reinvent the same broken wheel, mistakenly believing they're the first to ever come up with their bad ideas.
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That's of course true, too, but imagine you succeed with number 13. Wouldn't you want to do exactly the same again with 14 because you know it works? And with 15? and with 115? Even though it's now 100 years later, the world is vastly different and you're wondering why your new startup doesn't run so well, it always did, so I guess the world must be wrong?
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I see your point. I'm mostly talking technical issues like "all devs get production root access" or "I should be able to access prod from dev" or "the vpn is hard to use, just open the fire wall" or "fotw language will solve everything, let's waste 6 months rewriting the entire code base" or "we don't need QA people, the devs QA their own stuff" or "just run this cross over cable from the firewall to the database" or "give the overseas contractor developers access to push directly to prod".
Those are timele
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I admit I have never worked for a single company that did any of these things. Maybe that's why all my ex-employers still exist (except one, but there, the boss and company owner died which led to the dissolution, but that was long after I left).
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Have you ever been an early hire at a startup? Like, first 50-100? Or earlier? My lowest employee ID in other people's companies was 8. I was 32 at one of the successful ones. I've also worked for much bigger places and the government where those things don't happen. Those places drown in fiefdoms and politics rather than pure technical stupidity. One of my successful ones the CEO personally stepped in and slammed anyone being political so we could get shit done. The way that played out was usually
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Number 13. Consider me the lucky guy. It still is pretty successful.
The trick is to put people who know their shit into the relevant positions that don't come up with harebrained ideas like that. Also, in startups (or any small business for that matter), your chance to be heard when you tell them that they're about to do something extremely stupid is far higher than in large corporations.
Even if you're just number 13.
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13 that's great and yes the having a voice is why I do startups.
Getting the not-knuckleheads is the hard part. Maybe the first 20-30 are smart and driven but after that quality starts to sink. Once they start hiring execs and senior tech folks because they have certain large companies on their resume is the marker for the beginning of the down slope.
I can't even recall how many shitty execs I've seen hired solely because they came from fang or salesforce or some other well known name, not understanding th
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I did not get the impression that the advances in this field are going to generate immortality any time soon, just that you could spend more of your life in an active and healthy state? That would solve a lot of problems, rather than create them as we may be living longer than our ancestors but increasing resources are required to keep us in that state due infirmity.
If you could only live to 100 but the last 30 years were like teenage ones, that would be a good start!
"It'll take decades to test" (Score:2)
No, it won't.
Some lab in China is probably ramping up production, and they'll test it on various old people who aren't useful any more, because China is staring their demographic catastrophe in the face. They've got about ten years to deal with their aging population, and their options are "make them younger" or "make sure they stop aging the old-fashioned way."
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Yes, so? They 'get' to use the earlier experimental expensive version and get cancer but funding the rest of us to get the better v2.
Re: "It'll take decades to test" (Score:2)
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what are you talking about? china has some shortage of women due to the asinine and disastrous 1-child policy, and has an aging population problem like most of developed countries. but they have no "demographic catastrophe in the face" whatsoever. other than that their age pyramid isn't the worst at all:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... [wikimedia.org]
what's catastrophic level of dumbfuck must be the "news" you have been chowing down to spurt that nonsense. you might want to check this, this is really fucked up demographic
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https://www.census.gov/content... [census.gov]
correct link: https://www.census.gov/content... [census.gov]
david sinclair (Score:3)
always be skeptical when his name is mentioned. he's a supreme bullshitter
https://twitter.com/CharlesMBr... [twitter.com]
Re: david sinclair (Score:2)
Keep the birth rates declining (Score:2)
If it worked, what would they say? (Score:1)
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If you read the article, they were able to reverse aging in particular body parts, tissues both in a culture and in a living creature. From what I gather, they did it by injecting stem cells in a certain way (the paper is behind a paywall, so details are fuzzy). It seems maybe the old cells were killed and the new stem cells replaced them.
Their next goal is to reverse aging in the overall organism. So there's no guarantee that they will be able to do that.
Where we are going, we donâ(TM)t need clinica (Score:1)
That's like, pre-Covid man!
After Operation Warp Speed, clinical trials are a thing of the past.
Genetic therapies are now tested in production, just like Dr. Mengele intended.
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Either way, it's not decades. 5-10 years is typical approval time for a new drug depending on what it is but yes more heavily on the 10 side. That's still not decades. The author lives in a no-information fantasy world.
Regardless of what happens... (Score:2)
I think this is a dupe (Score:1)
but my brain is too aged to remember, just like the /. editors'.
There is another problem with prolonged life... (Score:4, Interesting)
I remember in my 20s I wanted to live forever, I could not even imagine wanting to die.
But I'm in my late 50s now and my idea of life is a bit different, still don't want to die - but life doesn't exite me the way it used to anymore, I am relatively healthy for the age I'm at, but there's a thing that makes me less exited about living forever:
We run out of things to do and to be passionate about.
I've done a lot in my life, visited more countries and lived in more countries than most people ever have or even will. I've been doing everything from building robotics to farming plants, electronics, music production, movie production, baking, creating, painting, building - and almost everything under the sun.
The thing about living forever is that it is eventually going to be boring, in fact so boring that you'll ask yourself "why?" all the time. Then you have the burn-out issue. If you keep at it with the same stuff over and over again you'll experience burn outs, and then you basically lose passion for everything, you basically end up thinking "done that - been there" why even bother?
Sure - there's a million inventions to be invented, there's research to be done - but you gotta have the passion for it too. There are certain autistic types that can keep at it with the same research slowly for 30-50 years without a dying passion for it, good for them - maybe they could be of use for our future generations if they lived longer, god knows we need the research against all kinds of diseases.
But the problem remains for most of us, and if you're in your 20's it can be REAL hard to see when you feel like you're on top of the world and would want to live that life forever. But the more you know, the more you discover - especially in regards to human nature, history repeats itself and everything becomes eerily predictable, and I can tell you that's no fun at all.
So I'm a bit on the edge about that whole "live forever" thing. I'm all for that we can reduce ageing related problems, that would remove a lot of the pain people are experiencing, and ofc. there's something to be said for being 20 with the experience of a 50 year old etc. How many times haven't we asked ourselves - Oh i wish I knew that when I was younger? Right?
But there is other things that comes with experience, corruption! We gradually become more and more corrupt, even though we can be old and experienced and hence forgiving of nature because we have all been there - made the mistakes we wish we didn't, but that experience grows old and like a tumor it grows ugly and we see it far too clearly.
So if we had a RESET button to come with that youth-serum, maybe then it would feel better and more inviting to become young again, because if there is ONE thing I wish I had more than actual physical youth - is the innocense of experience, meaning there are things I could live without...such as knowledge about the human nature and the evil within.
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> tissue in their bodies.
I have a slightly differrent question. In the realm of justice, what would "life without parole" mean anymore? If a convict's life can be extended indefinitely, due to this new technology, what DOES a "life without parole" sentence mean then? Will it be considered a "cruel and inhumane" form of execution if they are not allowed to live indefinitely while everyone else can? Or wo
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It's not that there are no longer things to be excited about, it's that you've become a boring person. Change that.
There are things in the world to get excited about for many many millennia.
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I would love to start completely anew every 30 to 50 years -- a new identity, a new career path, learning a new language in a new country with a new life. Not just visiting places or dabbing in things, but live the actual life of a German engineer, a Brazilian actor, a Chinese writer, from an inexperienced apprentice all the way to a seasoned professional, and in the same vein, from a rock star to a politician to a prisoner serving a 10-year term (wrong convicted obviously)...
And that's only on this planet,
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You sound depressed. Honestly. I'm in your age range and joyously wake every morning happy to have one more day on this planet. I'm not trolling or trying to be offensive. You should consider seeing someone to help you snap out of it.
It says "In Mice" (Score:2)
It’s just in mice! This scientist is calling out hype in science reporting [statnews.com]
Lots of problems if humans can reverse aging (Score:2)
Also the longer you live, the more likely some black swan event will wipe out your retirement account. The more likely you end up homeless.
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Go back to the dark ages and average life span is less than half of now. Now that we live to our 70s, mid career is after what used to be the average life span. At 30 you're a kid now.
When everyone lives to 300, 150+ will be mid career.
Society will adjust.
Frankly if we lived to 300 then someone under 100 would be early career so maybe we'll see 80 year olds having a hard time finding satisfying work because they're too young and lack experience.
Fake news. The study is not about aging at all! (Score:2)
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Sinclair is the current authority ... (Score:2)
... in anti-/counter-aging and his findings where proven and pushed through against severe lobbying and assault of integrity by big pharma.
Continous Intermittent Fasting and supplements of common and rare B vitamins such as NMN (not cheap) have been proven to reverse aging including restoration of quality of eye-sight and cognitive performance.
As a result I'm ramping up my regime of intermittent fasting, regular daily exercise, no sugar paleo diet and supplementing with vitamins, minerals and NMN in particu
They need to hurry up! (Score:2)
At this rate, Elon Musk might die from natural causes before he can live forever.
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At this rate, Elon Musk might die from natural causes before he can live forever.
If I had mod points = +1 Funny
The three blind mice (Score:1)
will outlive the farmer's wife.