Aging / Life extension/ Future Regenerative Therapies

sxt

Just watched an interesting cnn video where an expert in Gerontology, Aubrey de grey ( guy with beard) puts forwards thoughts regarding regenerative therapies being possible in the next 25 years...

He believes that the first person to live to 1000 years is alive today. An idea that most people would rubbish without giving a thought to.

Does anybody believe that techonlogy will advance to a stage where aging will be controlled? I think that it is very likely to happen eventually whether it is 50 or 500 years from now based on accelerating technology advancement

He is the only outspoken scientist on this topic as far as i am aware, He believes that it is firstly important to prove a conclusive impact on the rejunative lifespan of mice , which would be a major fundemental tipping point, resulting in public pressure to look for the same results in humans

Any any thoughts on this topic?

sink

I don't know enough to really judge but I would like to think so.

Evolution by natural selection seems to determine a species life clock, favouring longer and shorter life spans for different organisms. Why has it never favoured an infinite life span (or has it)? Is death is an essential component of evolution?

If that is the case, what are the implications if we are to live forever?

rockmongrel

The idea of living forever sounds dreadful, just my two cents.

cooker3

sink wrote: »

I don't know enough to really judge but I would like to think so.

Evolution by natural selection seems to determine a species life clock, favouring longer and shorter life spans for different organisms. Why has it never favoured an infinite life span (or has it)? Is death is an essential component of evolution?

If that is the case, what are the implications if we are to live forever?

I heard a case recently about a jellyfish which can theoretically live forever. It can transform itself and its cells to a younger state. It 'remakes' the telomeres so they are as new as they would be at birth. My brief knowledge of this field is that 1 of the huge reasons for aging in the body is the telomeres which are at the ends of the chromosomes get shorter and when they run out the chromosome deteriorates and cell division stops.

But I am getting this from memory and for the life of me can't remember where I read/heard it.

Bottle_of_Smoke

sink wrote: »

I don't know enough to really judge but I would like to think so.

Evolution by natural selection seems to determine a species life clock, favouring longer and shorter life spans for different organisms. Why has it never favoured an infinite life span (or has it)? Is death is an essential component of evolution?

If that is the case, what are the implications if we are to live forever?

What's really happening is the genes are being favored in the form of an individual. the genes don't need a the individual to live forever to pass themselves on.

liamw

Ye I was going to mention telomeres

OP, theoretically I don't see why we shouldn't be able to control aging, once we can fully understand and control the body's biochemical processes.

Daftendirekt

cooker3 wrote: »

I heard a case recently about a jellyfish which can theoretically live forever. It can transform itself and its cells to a younger state. It 'remakes' the telomeres so they are as new as they would be at birth. My brief knowledge of this field is that 1 of the huge reasons for aging in the body is the telomeres which are at the ends of the chromosomes get shorter and when they run out the chromosome deteriorates and cell division stops.

But I am getting this from memory and for the life of me can't remember where I read/heard it.

Wiki wiki.

I don't know how far we are from developing the technology to prolong our lifespan, but cases such as the above seem to suggest it's at least theoretically possible.

CerebralCortex

www.fightaging.org
www.longevitymeme.org

The above sites contain pretty much everything you need to know about the current state of life extension research.

hiorta

This would be disasterous for humanity, should it ever become possible.
In no time at all the planet would become 'standing room only' - grossly and unsustainably over populated, not enough water, no crops and rampant disease, exacerbated by no funerals to make sufficient living room (quite literally).
On the plus side though, we would all go mad and find new ways of dying, thus restoring both balance and sanity.

Perhaps Nature knows best?

sonicthebadger*

hiorta wrote: »

This would be disasterous for humanity, should it ever become possible.
In no time at all the planet would become 'standing room only' - grossly and unsustainably over populated, not enough water, no crops and rampant disease, exacerbated by no funerals to make sufficient living room (quite literally).
On the plus side though, we would all go mad and find new ways of dying, thus restoring both balance and sanity.

Perhaps Nature knows best?

I think perhaps ethically the best approach to that problem would be to offer people the ability to live that long only if they are sterilised in the process. Their genes still survive, just not in the usual evolutionary way. I'm very much not in favour of the idea of killing off the very old because they're taking up space, I intend to live to be a ripe old age.

Stercus Accidit

It would become the exclusive luxury of the mega wealthy, and those who provide it, themselves becoming mega wealthy.

There is no way the common 9-5 working man can be given immortality, the world would get over populated, imagine then if impoverished nations were offered it also, with already existing shortages of food?

People have to die, and frankly die at a higher rate than they are now for society to become truly sustainable.

I can see it being banned, or highly regulated (who you know gets you in, cue an immortal bono) if they have a miracle, live forever young gene replacement therapy or similar thing.

CerebralCortex

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

...People have to die, and frankly die at a higher rate than they are now for society to become truly sustainable...

I'm speechless.

sink

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

It would become the exclusive luxury of the mega wealthy, and those who provide it, themselves becoming mega wealthy.

There is no way the common 9-5 working man can be given immortality, the world would get over populated, imagine then if impoverished nations were offered it also, with already existing shortages of food?

People have to die, and frankly die at a higher rate than they are now for society to become truly sustainable.

I can see it being banned, or highly regulated (who you know gets you in, cue an immortal bono) if they have a miracle, live forever young gene replacement therapy or similar thing.

I disagree. If the ageing is stopped people will still not become immortal, they will still die from accident and disease.

For populations to become stable the only thing that has to happen is for the birth rate to be in line with the death rate. In some countries such as Russia and Japan the birth rate is actually lower than death rate and they're in population decline, even though Japan has one of the longest life expectancies in the world.

If the life expectancy reaches 1000 years all that is need to sustain the population is for people to have on average 2 children every 1000 years. If we do halt the ageing process it is likely that new fertility treatments will be able to postpone menopause indefinitely, so people can put off having kids until they're well into their centenaries.

Beruthiel

hiorta wrote: »

In no time at all the planet would become 'standing room only' - grossly and unsustainably over populated, not enough water, no crops and rampant disease

By then we will have built the Starship Enterprise and will be happily populating M class planets.


/Two Star Trek jokes in as many days.

CerebralCortex

Beruthiel wrote: »

By then we will have built the Starship Enterprise and will be happily populating M class planets.


/Two Star Trek jokes in as many days.

By then, we may not even recognise humanity.

Stercus Accidit

CerebralCortex wrote: »

I'm speechless.

Thanks for sharing?

sink wrote: »

I disagree. If the ageing is stopped people will still not become immortal, they will still die from accident and disease.

For populations to become stable the only thing that has to happen is for the birth rate to be in line with the death rate. In some countries such as Russia and Japan the birth rate is actually lower than death rate and they're in population decline, even though Japan has one of the longest life expectancies in the world.

If the life expectancy reaches 1000 years all that is need to sustain the population is for people to have on average 2 children every 1000 years. If we do halt the ageing process it is likely that new fertility treatments will be able to postpone menopause indefinitely, so people can put off having kids until they're well into their centenaries.

I see your point, disease and accident rates of death will decline greatly though, a healthier smarter population and safer environment will ensure that.

It is a question though of how well you can trust people to do what is right for everyone, the ideal is as you posted above, it would have to be imposed by law.

20goto10

They'll need to find a cure for tiredness first. Could be a good time to get into the rocking chair business.

20goto10

cooker3 wrote: »

I heard a case recently about a jellyfish which can theoretically live forever. It can transform itself and its cells to a younger state. It 'remakes' the telomeres so they are as new as they would be at birth. My brief knowledge of this field is that 1 of the huge reasons for aging in the body is the telomeres which are at the ends of the chromosomes get shorter and when they run out the chromosome deteriorates and cell division stops.

But I am getting this from memory and for the life of me can't remember where I read/heard it.

I think telomeres link to aging has been disproven. I too am getting that from memory!

blue_steel

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

cue an immortal bono.

Shudder. For this reason alone it should be banned :pac:

CerebralCortex

20goto10 wrote: »

I think telomeres link to aging has been disproven. I too am getting that from memory!

Telomere shortening is one of many of the forms of damage that result from metabolism that eventually cause pathology.

CerebralCortex

Stercus Accidit wrote: »

Thanks for sharing?...

The whole people have to die part, I'm just a little disheartened that people think they have to die or more specifically that you think people have to die.

ColmDawson

CerebralCortex wrote: »

The whole people have to die part, I'm just a little disheartened that people think they have to die or more specifically that you think people have to die.

You think death (of old age) is a bad thing? I'll admit it's sad to lose someone, but do you actually think it's a bad thing?

Stercus Accidit

CerebralCortex wrote: »

The whole people have to die part, I'm just a little disheartened that people think they have to die or more specifically that you think people have to die.

I get you now, but in a thread discussing possible practical immortality or at least hugely increased lifespans, I don't think we as a species could handle that.

I look at international news and so on and see the selfish nature of people, and just cant envision a social responsibility change to the degree that would be required by such a technology.

It is sci-fi stuff no doubt about it, anything we say now is idle hypothesis, but its interesting none the less to discuss it, I don't see people being able to handle this any time soon. We are better at creating technology than responsibly using it.

cooker3

I don't know, of you look at most of the west the birth rate is pretty static now and in certain countries is falling behind what is needed for increased population. The growth rate is really in Africa and Asia which the church can take part 'credit' in.
If these places followed the trend of the west than it could work out. We have a huge pension crisis ahead...1 way of solving it.

hiorta

Perhaps immortality is the default position, but excluding the physical bits of us?

Ickle Magoo

There are several theories on what causes or drives the ageing process. Some interlinked...

Hayflick limit theory, Free-radical theory, The telomere theory and glycation

I have no doubt that with the advance in technologies for genome mapping and identification of processes that we will eventually differentiate between the causes and effect of ageing and so be able to slow the ageing process down or at least minimise some of the negative effects, but I don't think eternal life is on the cards any time soon...:cool:

Rycn

If eventually every human born has the possibility to live forever then eventually there will be no children or even room on the planet. The capabilities of a young mind are far greater than that of a 750 year old man who has been made chemically immortal. And whats gona happen with population control etc etc. Couples wont be aloud have children, i imagine there would be lifelong waitinglists to be granted permission to have a child.

Its rediculous to even want to live forever, its these same people who are scared of death that create religion, heaven, thhe afterlife etc etc.

Get over it, one day i'll be dead and buried in the ground and you will too, its the natural life cycle.

Ickle Magoo

Rycn wrote: »

The capabilities of a young mind are far greater than that of a 750 year old man who has been made chemically immortal.

How could you possibly know that?

Rycn

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

How could you possibly know that?

What do u mean how could i possibly know that, its fairly obvious that a young mind is far more capable than an 80 year olds, if you use common sense then its quite obvious that if they ever do manage to make a human being live until 750 or whatever then they're mind wouldnt be the sharpest. I imagine simple motor functions would be exhausting to a 750 year old brain.

Ickle Magoo

Rycn wrote: »

What do u mean how could i possibly know that, its fairly obvious that a young mind is far more capable than an 80 year olds, if you use common sense then its quite obvious that if they ever do manage to make a human being live until 750 or whatever then they're mind wouldnt be the sharpest. I imagine simple motor functions would be exhausting to a 750 year old brain.

Eh, no, that's not what using common sense would tell me, quite the opposite in fact. We're talking about exceptional cell regeneration, life extension to possibly indefinite life - you are discussing things as if people would age as they are now, just for longer. Regenerative therapy would mean that a 750 yr old wouldn't necessarily have 10 x the ageing difficulties of a 75 year old - if we slowed the ageing process down so we lived 10,000 years say, the age of the cells in a 750 yr old would be age appropriate to a 13 year old in our current life expectancy scale - now that doesn't mean the 750 yr old would would function as a 13 yr old child does, he still has all the experience and memories his 750 years have given him but the cell functionality, the cellular ability in every organ of his body would be akin to those found in a 13 yr old today.

Rycn

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

he still has all the experience and memories his 750 years have given him but the cell functionality, the cellular ability in every organ of his body would be akin to those found in a 13 yr old today.

How could you possibly know that?

Ickle Magoo

Rycn wrote: »

How could you possibly know that?

Two reasons.

A) That's what the kind of cell regeneration allowing long life that we are discussing would allow for....and that's because...


Because the technology would be utterly pointless otherwise. Who wants to age to a decrepit 97 yr old that is wracked with arthritis and can't remember their own name and THEN prolong life for hundreds of years? Who is going to spend the time and money investing in exploring technologies that would give someone 10 x less the quality of life of a 75 yr old? Makes no sense.

Rycn

Thats a rediculous presumption.

Ickle Magoo

Why do you think that?

If it has no useful function then it's not a likely avenue for science to try to advance. The very foundation and ultimate aim of cell regeneration in terms of life extension is to prevent the body ageing. If a brain cell, muscle cell, whatever is better able to regenerate or not degenerate in the first place then there is no reason why an older person would have reduced motor function. The aim of prolonging life is not to have lots of old people shuffling around in pain and in need of psychiatric care, it is to prolong quality life.

The idea that if we had the technology that could extend human life by 500+ years that we would only use it at the point quality of life is already diminished just doesn't make sense. Sorry if you find the premise for my rationale ridiculous.

sink

The idea behind Life extension/ Future Regenerative Therapies is to freeze ageing around the mid twenties. So even though a person may be 750 years old they still have the body and mind of a 25 year old. Otherwise as Ickle Magoo said there would be no point.

CerebralCortex

ColmDawson wrote: »

You think death (of old age) is a bad thing? I'll admit it's sad to lose someone, but do you actually think it's a bad thing?

I think both death and old age are a bad thing, yes. Completely involuntary thus they're bad.

CerebralCortex

Rycn wrote: »

What do u mean how could i possibly know that, its fairly obvious that a young mind is far more capable than an 80 year olds, if you use common sense then its quite obvious that if they ever do manage to make a human being live until 750 or whatever then they're mind wouldnt be the sharpest. I imagine simple motor functions would be exhausting to a 750 year old brain.

What you've demonstrated can be summed up as the Tithonus error.

ColmDawson

CerebralCortex wrote: »

I think both death and old age are a bad thing, yes. Completely involuntary thus they're bad.

But doesn't it give us a sense of perspective, of priority, of value? On a larger scale, death means that space is made for new people who will lead different lives and make their own mark on the world.

sxt

ColmDawson wrote: »

But doesn't it give us a sense of perspective, of priority, of value? On a larger scale, death means that space is made for new people who will lead different lives and make their own mark on the world.

It does, if you believe that aging and death are unavoidable.

However,the arguments for attempting to prolong the healthy lifespan of a human being outweighs the arguments for accepting that people will always grow frail and suffer in the end, a poor quality of life, as a result of age related diseases.

CerebralCortex

ColmDawson wrote: »

But doesn't it give us a sense of perspective, of priority, of value?

No I don't think so, it's as simple as you don't exist.

ColmDawson wrote: »

On a larger scale, death means that space is made for new people who will lead different lives and make their own mark on the world.

So I have to die to make space for people don't exist?

CerebralCortex

sxt wrote: »

It certaintly does,That is if you believe that aging and death are unavoidable, as most rationally minded believe.

Are you saying life extensionists including me are irrational in our beliefs? Aging is inexorable not unavoidable, aging causes death when you don't avoid it, but it's not the only thing that causes death.

sink

ColmDawson wrote: »

But doesn't it give us a sense of perspective, of priority, of value? On a larger scale, death means that space is made for new people who will lead different lives and make their own mark on the world.

The pace of societal change would likely slow down, but is that necessarily a bad thing? Our society is developing a breakneck speed and we tend to jump before we look, after all it likely won't be us that will be dealing with the consequences. Our culture suffers from chronic short-termism. Our lives are short and we try to fit so much into them that we have no patience. Having a more mature and experienced society willing to invest themselves in doing things the right way as opposed taking short cuts would perhaps increase our appreciation and care for the environment in which we live. I often hear the sentiment 'It won't happen till long after I'm dead', well that certainly wouldn't be the case if we lived for a millennia.

Economically it makes far more sense. We spend so much of our economic output on education, and we spend around a quarter of our lives being educated. For 20 years spent in education we're lucky to get 30 years of productivity back. And then when our most experienced retire and die, we loose a huge portion of their knowledge forever. Somebody else has to spend many years re-learning what that person already knew. We also have a huge proportion of our society that is dependent, those in education and those in retirement on public pensions or being supported by their offspring. If we lived to 1000, even if we spend 100 years in education we will still get a far better return on that education and we wouldn't have the burden of supporting those in retirement.

I would envision people having multiple careers throughout their lifetime. One would spend several decades working in one field and when they feel like it they could re-train and start afresh in a new field. Yet they would still retain all the knowledge of their previous careers leading interesting ideas and new approaches.

There is one major possible downside to this. The emergence of an underclass who would be required to carry out menial manual labour, on which society depends. They would be the ones who originally could not afford life extension, and later could not compete against those who had it and spent half centuries in education and training with many centuries of working experience after that.

It would be a very interesting setting for a science fiction novel.

ColmDawson

sxt wrote: »

It does, if you believe that aging and death are unavoidable, which would be a very rational assumption at this time.

However,the arguments for attempting to prolong the healthy lifespan of a human being outweighs the arguments for accepting that people will always grow frail and suffer in the end, a poor quality of life, as a result of age related diseases.

I'm all for prolonging life. I just don't have a problem with there being death at the end of it.

CerebralCortex wrote: »

So I have to die to make space for people don't exist?

Is that not preferable to one generation living forever and there never being new people?

sxt

CerebralCortex wrote: »

Are you saying life extensionists including me are irrational in our beliefs? Aging is inexorable not unavoidable, aging causes death when you don't avoid it, but it's not the only thing that causes death.

No no no,I completely agree with your point of view. I worded my response wrongly, i was trying to be understanding of Colm Dawsons way of thinking in that I think that the majority of people (majority of them being rational) would think death as envitable and try to console themselves with this "inevitablity". Like Aubrey De Grey stated, He believes that it is firstly important to prove a conclusive impact on the rejunative lifespan of mice in middle age , then the public / political attitude towards this topic will change dramatically.

ColmDawson

sxt wrote: »

No no no,I completely agree with you. I worded my response wrongly, i was trying to be understanding of Colm Dawsons way of thinking in that I think that the majority of people (majority of them being rational) would think death as envitable and try to console themselves with this "inevitablity".

I'm not trying to console myself. I'm not saying "Death is awful and I wish I could avoid it, but sadly I can't". I'm saying I don't particularly mind, as long as I live at least as long as can be expected for me.

sxt

ColmDawson wrote: »

I'm not trying to console myself. I'm not saying "Death is awful and I wish I could avoid it, but sadly I can't". I'm saying I don't particularly mind, as long as I live at least as long as can be expected for me.

Which will be alot longer the longer you live and the longer we learn about aging...

Rycn

CerebralCortex wrote: »

So I have to die to make space for people who don't exist?

Yes, its the way the world works, and hopefully always will. Noones that special that they need to have their life extended, we all die when we do and make way for the next generation. Thats just the way it is.

sxt

If you were giving the choice of living an extra healthy 20 years, would you not be in favour of that?

Rycn

sxt wrote: »

If you were giving the choice, what would you do?

If i was given the choice to live an 80 year life or a 1000 year life i would choose to live 80 years and let that be it.

What on earth is there to enjoy for 1000 years anyway?

I hope to be happy and fulfilled with my life by the time im an old man, and if im not fulfilled or happy with the way i lived my life i honestly doubt 920 more years of existense would change it.

Zillah

If the finances are available I am absolutely getting my head frozen.

Rycn

sxt wrote: »

If you were giving the choice of living an extra healthy 20 years, would you not be in favour of that?

I suppose if i was given the choice when im fairly old and i wasnt happy with what ive experienced throughout my lifetime, and extra 20 years could sound good, but if i was happy enough i would probably decline the offer.

Im only 21 now so i could have a different view on the subject by then, but right now id say no thanks.