From KurzweilAI.net:

Vitamins 'may shorten your life'

BBC News, April 16, 2008

Copenhagen University research has suggested that certain vitamin supplements do not extend life and could even lead to a premature death.

A review of 67 studies with trials involving 233,000 people found "no convincing evidence" that antioxidant supplements cut the risk of dying," and suggested that vitamins A and E could interfere with the body's natural defences, and that beta-carotene, vitamin A, and vitamin E seem to increase mortality.

The researchers linked vitamin A supplements to a 16% increased risk of dying, beta-carotene to a 7% increased risk and vitamin E to a 4% increased risk.

More details here. This sounds kind of like when they figured out that, with trans fatty acids and all, margarine is worse for your heart than butter.

Sheesh. Be careful out there.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

First Aubrey de Grey was on 60 Minutes.

Then he was on FastForward Radio.

I guess all glory is fleeting. Poor Aubrey is reduced to doing Stephen Colbert. Well, what the hey -- let's tune in anyhow.

UPDATE: Aubrey did great. I figured Colbert would tear him to shreds, but not at all. He held his own and then some -- recommended that McCain should get serious about funding the Methuselah Foundation before being elected president seeing as "he doesn't have much time."

Good stuff.

UPDATE II: Here's the clip...

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

...while waiting for real life extension (like maybe SRT501) to be developed:

102 Ways to Slow Down Aging

- Christina Laun at "Bootstrapper"

It's a good collection of old school advice on taking care yourself. Some are these things are more fun than others.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 06:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Back in 2004 I predicted that we'd have life extension by 2014. I have on several occasions reaffirmed this prediction. Last year I added:

This idea - that progress in life extension science continues regardless of its description - is part of the reasoning behind my prediction that we will have some form of life extension by 2014. Perhaps I should modify this prediction to say that it will be an off-label treatment - something gerontologists know extends life, but won't publicly admit extends life.

I was responding to the timidness of some gerontologists to admit that the they are engaged in life extension science. But there's more than timidness at work here. Life extension will, I think, turn out that the best treatment for a host of diseases. What physical problem would not benefit from a younger biochemistry?

Phil said in our most recent FastForward Radio show that solutions for diseases will "come along for the ride" when we get life extension. It could also work the other way around. Especially with the earliest incarnations, life extension could come along for the ride while we are searching for treatments for specific diseases. Case in point:

Human clinical trials to test [SIRT1 activating] compounds in diabetes are slated to begin early next year, according to Sirtris Pharmaceuticals, based in Cambridge, MA, which developed the drugs. "As far as I'm aware, this is the first anti-aging molecule going into [testing in] man," says David Sinclair, a biologist at Harvard Medical School, in Boston, and cofounder of Sirtris. "From that standpoint, this is a major milestone in medicine."

If these trials prove this drug to be effective, it will be marketed as a drug for diabetics and people who are at risk of diabetes. But the truth is that it could be good for everybody because it will duplicate the chemistry of caloric restriction for those of us who would perfer not to live on starvation rations.

For several years, scientists have been on the hunt for a drug that could bring the benefits of caloric restriction without the strict diet. Last fall, Sinclair and his colleagues took a first step when they showed that mice given resveratrol, a molecule that activates SIRT1, stayed healthy when fed high-fat foods. But there was a catch: mice were dosed with the human equivalent of more than 1,000 wine bottles' worth of the compound, an amount not possible for humans to imbibe or take in pill form.

Now a team at Sirtris, led by CEO Christoph Westphal, has identified a group of compounds that activate SIRT1 1,000 times more potently than resveratrol does. According to findings published today in the journal Nature, the compounds bind to the enzyme and dramatically increase its activity. Because the new compounds are more powerful, much lower doses are likely needed to achieve the same beneficial effects. "We believe doses needed in humans for the novel compounds are probably on the order of hundreds of milligrams, similar to many marketed drugs," says Westphal.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (11)

A lengthy and mostly positive portrayal. Check it out.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 12:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Stephen has been blogging up a storm on the subject of Aubrey de Grey's landmark new book, Ending Aging, which I will be reviewing in the near future. If you haven't bought a copy yet (or even if you have!) and would like to get a copy of the book signed by the author, here's your big chance.

So you can get a signed copy of the book while actively helping to end aging. That's a pretty good deal!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 12:23 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Long, long ago in the primordial soup, before the arrival of multicellular life, single-celled life was eating and being eaten. Normally this is the starkest of all zero-sum games. When the lion wins, the wildebeest loses - big time.

But there was a notable exception in the soup. One prey species evolved a remarkable defense. They became indigestible. Once they were ingested they made themselves at home within their predator. They became mitochondria.

There must have been conflict at first. The cell probably did try to digest the mitochondria and the mitochondria probably sickened the cell.

But at some point a truce was called and a partnership flourished. Cells with mitochondria could out-compete their neighbors because the mitochondria devoted itself to being an energy factory for the cell. The cell returned the favor by protecting the mitochondria and taking over more and more of the other tasks that, formerly, the mitochondria did for itself.

For awhile the two partners were still individuals. Like our intestinal flora, mitochondria had a home, but maintained their own DNA.

But the mitochondria had a good reason for giving up even this function. Being an energy factory is a dirty, toxic job. The DNA kept within mitochondria was (and is) constantly bombarded with mutagens. And mutated mitochondria become less efficient and eventually quit working.

Evolution responded by moving mitochondrial DNA out of the mitochondria and into the relative safety of the cell nucleus. When mitochondrial genes work from the safety of the nucleus its called allotopic expression. The more that mitochondrial DNA moved to the nucleus, the risk for mitochondrial failure was reduced. This pressure has served as a one-way ratchet pushing the migration of mitochondrial DNA to the nucleus.

Even now this process is not complete. Human mitochondria still maintains a few of its own genes. And this is a problem. Aubrey de Grey has identified mitochondrial mutations as one of the seven reason we age.

His proposed solution is elegant - finish the job that evolution started. Put the rest of mitochondrial DNA into the nucleus. De Grey is not suggesting that we do away with mitochondrial DNA. Instead of a "cut and paste," we do a much simpler "copy and paste." Then when the mitochondrial DNA becomes too damaged to work, the backup copy of those genes in the nucleus does the job. With complete allotropic expression even a mitochondria with gibberish DNA would, in theory, continue to work just fine.

Until recently all the research in this area was aimed at a group of diseases called mitochondriopathies - congenital defects in the mitochondrial DNA.

Picking up the ball, Eric Schon and his coworkers from the Department of Neurology at Columbia took the next step, inserting a cloned copy of the algae's TP6 gene into the nucleus of human cells whose mitochondrial DNA harbored the same mutations that cause these neuromuscular diseases in humans. The cells decoded the genetic instructions, turned out the protein in the main chamber of the cell, imported it into the mitochondria...rescuing the cells from the destructive effects of the mutation.

Ending Aging, page 91.

Aubrey de Grey believes that this research – though aimed at a group of rare diseases - will help us battle the mitochondrial problems that we all get as we grow older. Now research sponsored by the Methuseleh Foundation – with which Aubrey de Grey is affiliated - is beginning to bear fruit.

PhD candidate Mark Hamalainen of Cambridge University presented the initial success in his Methuselah Foundation-funded work on allotopic expression, showing evidence that his allotopically-expressed genes could encode the relevant proteins and that these were taken up into the mitochondria. In this case, the genes encode healthy and defective versions of the protein that is miscoded in Neuropathy, Ataxia and Retinitis Pigmentosa (NARP), a hereditary mitochondrial disease characterized by blindness and weak and uncoordinated muscles. Well done! It is good to see Foundation-funded research make such solid progress; many thanks go to the generous donors who have made this possible.

FuturePundit Randall Parker has started reviewing Ending Aging (like me, he's having to publish his thoughts in installments). His first post is covering ground I've neglected - the pro-Aging trance. Check it out.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aubrey de Grey has stated that aging is caused by seven problems:

1. Cell loss, cell atrophy
2. Junk outside cells
3. Crosslinks outside cells
4. Death-resistant cells
5. Mitochondrial mutations
6. Junk inside cells
7. Nuclear mutations that cause cancer

Each of these problems got a chapter in Aubrey's new book Ending Aging. In each chapter de Grey explained the problem and then outlined the most promising methods for conquering each. Although the book was only released a couple of weeks ago, at least two chapters already need major revisions - chapter 12 on cancer, and chapter 6 on mitochondrial mutations.

That's how fast the state of the art is moving now. I'll bet Aubrey de Grey couldn't be happier. Both of these developments were announced at de Grey's own SENS3 conference last week.

Attendees at SENS3 heard first-hand about an extremely exciting approach to cancer treatment that has not yet hit the scientific literature or the press. In 2003, Dr. Zheng Cui and his colleagues at the Comprehensive Cancer Center of Wake Forest University reported the discovery of mice with immune cells that rendered them invulnerable to cancer: they had been intentionally giving mice cancer by injecting them with virulent cancer cells as part of a separate study, when they discovered a single mouse in the colony that was completely immune to the invasive cells.

His curiosity piqued, Dr. Cui went on to show that it could resist multiple rounds of such injections, and were so impressed that they used him to father a whole colony of mice, all of whom shared this remarkable invulnerability to cancer. Based on that ability, he calls them spontaneous regression/complete resistance (SR/CR) mice.

I'm glad Dr. Cui put that mouse out to stud. And not just because his decendents may help us cure cancer. That mouse earned it. I'm reminded of the plot to Unbreakable.

Amazingly this ability to fight off cancer is transferable to normal mice with a simple transfusion. It both prevented cancer and fought off cancer that had already started. And a single dose is sufficient to give a lifetime - a mouse's lifetime anyway - of cancer protection.

Then Dr. Cui went looking for these special immune system cells in humans. He found them.

...there appears to be a classical bell-shaped distribution of cancer-killing ability in the granulocytes of people in the population: a few people have white blood cells extremely weak cancer-killing activity, the great majority have an 'average' competence, and a very small group of outliers have the kind of overwhelming search-and-destroy activity (at least in a test tube!) that is seen in the SR/CR mice.

Dr. Cui now has FDA approval for human testing of his proposed "GIFT" (Granulocyte InFusion Therapy). He will transfuse granulocytes from cancer resistent people to people who are battling cancer. He just needs funding.

Next post: why the mitochondrial chapter of Ending Aging needs an update.

UPDATE:

Aubrey de Grey has just published an excerpt from Ending Aging at KurzweilAI:

Bootstrapping our way to an Ageless Future

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

It appears that old guys hooking up with younger women may be a key to increasing human lifespan:

Women often lose their reproductive capacity around age 50, but if men can still reproduce into their 70s, Darwin would say it's advantageous for males to live longer lives providing they can hook up with a woman capable of reproducing. Natural selection should favor longevity-boosting genes, which would get passed down from fathers to both sons and daughters. So women would benefit as well in future generations, the scientists say.

Result: Over time, the older-guy-with-younger-gal lifestyle would lift the lifespan ceiling for both men and women in the next generations and so on.

"By increasing the survival of men you have a spillover effect on women because men pass their genes to children of both sexes," said Cedric Puleston, a doctoral candidate at Stanford University.

At a mere 12 years older than my bride, I'm apparently not doing that much to help. It turns out that a 5-15 year age difference within married couples has been the norm in traditional societies throughout history, so Suraya and I are just normal (or perhaps old school).

Anyhow, this probably isn't going to prove a very effective means of extending human lifespan going forward -- seeing as we have more direct methods available -- but it might explain how we got here.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Aubrey de Grey from Ending Aging:

There were actual land sites all over the planet that should be very badly contaminated by lipofuscin [waste byproducts of metabolism that our cells can't break down and, therefore, contribute to aging.], because their soil has been seeded with the stuff for generations. I speak, of course, of graveyards.

...

there was no accumulation of lipofuscin in cemetaries - and if it were there, we certainly ought to be aware of it, because lipofuscin is fluorescent.

-page 121

Aubrey de Grey's answer: Xenocatabolism. If there is a food source available, bacteria will evolve that can eat it. And if bacteria can do it, why can't we steal that ability for ourselves?

You must get this book:

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Ending Aging by Aubrey de Grey has been published today. Phil got his hands on an advanced copy and has promised a review. With luck, the copy I ordered will arrive in the next day or so.

This is the book that those of us who have followed life extension closely have been eagerly awaiting. In case you don't know what all the fuss is about, the following is some indispensible Aubrey:

• Phil's email interview with Aubrey de Grey.

• Our Fast Forward Radio interview with Aubrey:

  Download this podcast episode (35.17 MB)   

  
  

  Here are the show notes for this episode of Fast Forward Radio.

• Aubrey's Seven Deadly Things (that cause aging).

• Lastly, don't miss this documentary about Aubrey de Grey. I have mixed feelings about this program, but I think that its a (mostly) fair introduction to Aubrey and his ideas.

And make sure to pick up a copy of Ending Aging.

UPDATE:

Alright! My copy was in today's mail. I'll be reading all night.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Aubrey de Grey's new book, Ending Aging: The Rejuvenation Breakthroughs That Could Reverse Human Aging in Our Lifetime. Looks to a be thorough explanation of SENS and the work of the Methuselah Foundation. I can't wait to get started; will provide a full report when finished.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In his speech at the World Transhumanist conference, Ray Kurzweil claimed that life expectancy is currently increasing by 3 months per year. If that rate of improvement stayed constant, my two-year-old son would have a life expectancy nine years longer than my current expectancy when he reaches my current age of 38.

That sort of linear improvement does not upset the status quo. Career and retirement plans would gradually change to accommodate slightly longer lives, but not much else would change.

Fortunately Kurzweil doesn't expect us to stay at the current rate of improvement. He believes that in 15 years life expectancy will increase more than one year for each year that passes. For every year that passes the average person would get at least another year added to their life expectancy. That would be an indefinite lifespan very soon - by the year 2022. That would change everything.

If we placed our progress on a life expectancy calendar – presently we're at March 31... three months into the life expectancy year. December 31 represents the threshold of indefinite lifespans. If Kurzweil's right, how many days improvement in life expectancy will we see added each year until 2022?

365 days – 91 days = 274 days.

274 days / 15 years = approximately 18.25 days/year

But that's linear. When it comes to technological advancement, Kurzweil never thinks linear.

If Kurzweil's forecast is right (that we get 3 months of life expectancy improvement per year now and that we will pass 1 year of life expectancy improvement per year in 15 years), AND if life expectancy improvement is subject to the same doubling trend that we've seen with computers, what would this look like?

Obviously, this was a job for a spreadsheet. Columns A and B represent the years in Kurzweil's forecast. Column C shows a simple annual doubling trend. Notice that column C is totaled at the bottom. I generated D in reverse order. Starting at the bottom, I calculated 2022's doubling as a portion of the sum of all progress made since 2007. Working backward I did the same with 2021 on up.

The closer I got to the current year, the smaller the percentage. Excel had to resort to scientific notation for 2009, 2008, and 2007.

At the bottom of column E, I placed the number 274 – the number of days improvement in life expectancy per year needed to achieve an indefinite lifespan. Again, working backwards in column F, I showed the number of days improvement we could expect to see each year if Kurzweil is right (and if this improvement were subject to doubling). Column G is where we fall on the life expectancy calendar.

Notice how this could sneak up on us. Imagine some critic writing an article in 2013 about how we're 6 years into Kurzweil's forecast timeframe and we've seen no real progress, "Obviously good ol' Ray is just a lovable crank."

By 2018 the critic might admit that there has been modest improvement, but indefinite lifespans are perhaps a century away, not four years, "Kurzweil's optimism obviously got the best of him with that prediction he made back in 2007."

The progress of the last four years is so explosive that it might take the critic several years after 2022 to admit that we achieved indefinite life spans in 2022.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 06:10 AM | Permalink | Comments (12)

On May 29, 2007 Aubrey de Grey spoke to Google about defeating aging. If you haven't heard him speak before, you really need to:

An odd thing happens at the beginning of this video. The Google M.C. got up and reminded the audience that this talk was going to be recorded for public consumption so "Please don't ask any Google confidential questions."

Ummm. I'm sure Google has some very important secrets that it needs to keep – like its search engine algorithms. But what subject would Aubrey de Grey touch on or have an expertise in that would elicit a "Google confidential question?"

If we live 1000 years, do you think Google come up with a better search algorithm than yada yada yada?

I guess that this is something the M.C. says at all the Google TechTalks. But really, it's almost enough to make me suspect some nefarious Google conspiracy.

That aside, don't miss Aubrey's presentation. It's a brilliant summation of his work.

UPDATE:

On the other hand, how cool would it be to work in a place that hosts speakers like Aubrey de Grey? That audience (which I'm sure was just dying to ask Google-confidential questions) was probably on the clock.

And don't miss our FastForward Radio interview of Aubrey de Grey from last August.

H/T to Michael Anissimov.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 04:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

`Bear in mind then, that Brag is a good dog, but Holdfast is a better. Bear that in mind, will you?' repeated Mr Jaggers, shutting his eyes and nodding his head at Joe, as if he were forgiving him something. `Now, I return to this young fellow. And the communication I have got to make is, that he has Great Expectations.'

Dickens, Great Expectations

In the upcoming current edition of FastForward Radio, Stephen and I spend some time talking about our recent discussion about The Secret, and what our views on that matter have to say about where The Speculist fits on a scale from the completely skeptical to the completely mystical/credulous. Without giving too much away about a show that's still in production that you can just go listen to, I will just say that at this site, we are quick to entertain any idea that entertains us, but we don't spend a lot of time on ideas that don't have a solid basis in science and technology.

Which isn't to say that science and technology are the only worthwhile subjects that might be discussed. The folks who write for The Speculist would probably have a lot to say about religion, for example -- seeing as we are mostly people of faith -- but along with politics, it is one of the two topics we generally avoid. (With a few notable exceptions.) Those subjects are taboo not because they aren't interesting or because we wouldn't have a lot to say about them, but rather because:

1. They already get plenty of coverage elsewhere in the blogosphere, and

2. They tend to take over, leaving little time or room for other discussions.

Anyway, there are plenty of other topics that we haven't spent a lot of time on, except to have some fun with them. Things like UFOs, for example. We don't write about UFOs because they aren't particularly interesting to us; and they aren't particularly interesting to us because we don't think there's much of anything there. The real world can prove much more exhilarating than imaginary substitutes. Take sea monsters: an actual sea monster captures the imagination in a way that the mythical one can't.

Likewise, The Secret offers us a world of infinite possibility accessible by means of the fact that our minds control physical reality. That's nice, but speaking as someone not yet thoroughly convinced that my mind does control physical reality, I am nonetheless astounded by the future of limitless possibility that lies before us. In one of the earliest entries at The Speculist, written about three and a half years ago, I dashed off a list of items that I believed we have a pretty good shot at being able to live to see. At the time, I labeled these items the "extremely good news."

On the one hand, that's correct. It is good news that all of these items lie within the possibility space of humanity. But on the other hand, there's nothing particularly extreme about this list. These are just a few possibilities that lie far beyond the scope of what most practitioners of The Secret ever think about, and yet they lie well within the scope of what is attainable by humanity. These are not our Great Expectations; they're just our reasonable expectations.

Preserving and Nurturing the Biosphere

1. Methods of production that generate zero pollutants

2. Energy sources that produce zero pollutants

3. Reversing of previous environmental damage

4. Human population levels with zero negative environmental impact

5. Preservation of natural habitat for all living species

6. The long-term survival of all living species

7. The retrieval of lost species

8. The creation of new species and new biospheres

Standards of Living

1. Eradication of hunger worldwide

2. Adequate clean water, housing, clothing, for all

3. Medical care for all

4. Access to technology and knowledge for all who want it

5. Total economic independence for individuals and groups who desire it

Indefinite Human Lifespan

1. Eradication of aging and infectious disease

2. Quick, effective treatment for any kind of cancer

3. Effective prevention/cures for heart disease, diabetes, other chronic diseases

4. Suspension of life not sustainable by current means

5. The transfer of human consciousness to new media

Work

1. Work necessary for economic viability, not for economic survival

2. Continued blurring of line between work and play

3. Full immersion VR to eliminate distance

4. Artificial Intelligences to assist us in work

Recreation

1. Artificial Intelligences to entertain and befriend us

2. Full immersion VR to simulate any experience

3. Consumer model of entertainment rivaled by producer/participant model

(Amazing how much things can change in such a short period of time. Look at item 3 in the immediately preceding category. I'd say we're well on our way with that one.)

Stephen was taken to task in the comments section of the aforelinked discussion of The Secret for suggesting that a person's goals should be "realistic." But I think he would agree that everything on this list is not only realistic, but quite reasonable. With a future this bright within our grasp, who needs spooky magic powers?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:12 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Well, the MPrize has achieved another milestone in their efforts to help you live longer. The Methuselah Mouse Prize now sits at four million dollars. That's a four followed by six zeroes, folks.

If you haven't visited the MPrize site in a while, stop by. There's a lot of great information there. Take a moment to read up on opportunities for membership and other ways you can help them in their quest to extend your lifespan.

We've been tracking the progress of the MPrize for some time:

$0.5 million

$1 million

$2 million

$3 million

The current progress is encourging, but there's still a long way to go. So what are you waiting for?

Pay him a visit.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The blogger Reason at Fight Aging is giving reasons why he thinks that life extension is gaining acceptance from an important group - the scientists that will deliver it.

Exhibit A: Interview of Mark Hamalainen, PhD student working in the mitochondrion lab at Cambridge University:

Mark Hamalainen: ...it is good to be alive today, so why not tomorrow? I could write a book on all the things I'd like to do that one lifetime isn't enough for. I can understand how it is culturally advantageous (or at least inevitable) to come up with justifications for aging being ok when there is no prospect of intervention. But to maintain those beliefs when intervention is foreseeable is irrational. Any pro-death argument is vastly out of proportion with the horrible reality of aging: the gradual decay of your body that culminates in the ceasing of your existence.

Exhibit B: Older researchers lamenting the conservative culture that is holding back life extension research

"The cure for aging" is the instant-death third rail of grantsmanship and we stay away from it.

Note to researchers - I know you guys have already figured this out, but just a reminder - if "the cure for aging" is "instant death" ...don't call it that. Add to everyone's life expectancy with "sirtuin" research or "mitochondria" research, and let the marketers name it.

Exhibit C: The publication last March of the cover article "The Longevity Dividend" in The Scientists.

Why are we so optimistic now? The primary reason is that science has revealed that aging is not the immutable process it was once thought to be. Interventions at a variety of genetic, cellular, physiological, and behavioral levels not only increase longevity in laboratory organisms, but also dramatically increase the duration of disease-free life. The realization that some humans retain their physical and mental functioning for more than a century suggests that genes associated with the extension of healthy life already exist within the human genome. Biogerontologists have now gone from merely describing cellular aging and cell death to manipulating the mechanisms responsible for these phenomena.

I'd add an Exhibit D, the resveratrol/SIRT1 developments Randall Parker has been writing about:

• Wine Compound Resveratrol Protects Mice From Obesity Damage [permalink not working, scroll down]

• Resveratrol Increases Energy In Humans, Mice

• Androgen Insensitive Prostate Cancer Stopped With SIRT1 Gene

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 08:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

When I started Phil's last post I was thinking: "Wow, a movie that moderates Phil's Death Sucks position toward Leon Kass! This I gotta see."

But by the end of the post I was left with the impression that Phil's position is much the same.

Phil's Stranger than Fiction spoiler ahead:

The Will Ferrell character chooses to tow the Leon Kass line – he decides that the novel’s ending will add meaning to his life that it lacked before. In so deciding, he displays a courage and a stoicism – and most importantly, a desire that his life be worth something – that is both compelling and deeply moving.

And from Phil's comment:

[If Will Ferrell's character Crick] did it as presented -- to preserve the integrity of the story -- it's a very different thing. I can't say that I would do the same, but I admired Crick for making that choice.

I'm sure Phil will correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems that his post-Stranger Than Fiction position is, "I'll grant that a meaningful death may lend meaning to a life that was formerly coasting along. While this fact is a challenge to my 'Death Sucks' philosophy, I'm looking forward to discovering how meaningful a long life, perhaps even an indefinitely long life, can be."

Imagine we're all living someplace like North Korea where we're all equally miserable. Phil, being a courageous guy, publishes a pamphlet entitled "Poverty Sucks" and passes it around. I get a copy and have an epiphany: "You know, Phil's right. This one-turnip-a-week ration stinks!" Pretty soon there's a little movement going that gets the attention of the regime. Predictably Phil's hauled in by the secret police.

Thinking that Phil could produce great propaganda for the state if he's spared, Phil's would-be executioners are told to try to convert him. So they show Phil a film montage of great paupers - Jesus, Ghandi, and many others. Then they show him films of flawed rich people - citizens Kane... and Paris Hilton. At the end of the day Phil is asked who he'd rather be like, the self-actualized poor people, or the miserable, worthless rich people.

If Phil could be convinced that those were the only two alternatives I'm sure that Phil would embrace his life of poverty and stop being such a trouble-maker. But Phil would realize that it's a false choice.

I've known poor people as obsessed with money as any rich person could ever be. And I've also met some very mature and happy wealthy people. Money does not buy happiness, but if Abraham Maslow is correct, then people tend to forgo spiritual development until their basic needs are met. Having some money - enough to cover basic needs - provides the freedom to mature and grow that those mired in poverty might never have.

Likewise, additional time could also provide the freedom to grow and mature. And it would be a false choice to have to decide between a meaningful life and a long life. Life is not a commodity like gold where scarcity adds value. Our lives are precious because it's what we are. That fact is true whether you're 3, 33, or 333.

I also have admiration for those who make the ultimate sacrifice. Heroes don't risk their lives because they hate life or think that dying at age 25 would be great.

My father-in-law was recently given full military honors at his funeral. This was many years after his military service had ended. The officer said at the grave side that "Don McFaul answered his country's call during a time of war." That "freedom is not free." That "some gave all."

I've thought about that last line many times since then. Does it take anything away from my father-in-law's heroism that he survived the war? That he was not one of those who gave all? Absolutely not. Saying "some gave all" honors both those who "gave all" and those who, like my father-in-law, risked all. Death doesn't make heroes. Death is the unfortunate price that some of our heroes pay.

The value and meaning of our lives doesn't depend on our lifespan. That's fortunate because we will never know - even with life extension technology - how long we have left. Our lives are valuable because it's what we are. And our lives have meaning because of the things we do.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 06:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Fight Aging! links and passes on some important questions to ponder about life extension. Here are the questions plus my quick answers:

1. What is the story of your life extension commitment?

   I've been blogging on the subject for three years. I actively support organizations that are working on life extension (MPrize) as well as those that support development of the infrastructure that will make it possible (Foresight).

2. Is it a commitment for moderate or maximum life extension?

   Maximum. Moderate life extension is just a step along the way.

3. What is your favourite argument supporting human life extension?

   Answered here.

4. What is the most probable technological draft of human life extension, which technology or discipline has the biggest chance to reach it earliest? (regenerative medicine, nanotechnology, gene therapy, caloric restriction, bionics, hormones, antioxidants, …)

   Hard to say. My take is that things like calorie restriction (or at least a chemically derived simulation thereof) and antioxidants are the staging grounds. They will get us started. But serious life extension will come about via gene therapy, nanotechnology,etc.

5. When?

   Soon. Faster, please.

6. What can blogs do for LE?

   Keep fighting the fight.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 08:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This is just fantastic news:

Peter A. Thiel, co-founder and former CEO of online payments system PayPal, and Founder and Managing Member of Clarium Capital Management, a San Francisco-based hedge fund, today announced his pledge of $3.5 Million to support scientific research into the alleviation and eventual reversal of the debilities caused by aging, to be conducted under the auspices of the Methuselah Foundation, a charity co-founded and Chaired by Dr. Aubrey de Grey.

Peter A. ThielMr. Thiel commented, "Rapid advances in biological science foretell of a treasure trove of discoveries this century, including dramatically improved health and longevity for all. I'm backing Dr. de Grey, because I believe that his revolutionary approach to aging research will accelerate this process, allowing many people alive today to enjoy radically longer and healthier lives for themselves and their loved ones."

Hey, I guess that interview that Stephen and I did with Aubrey de Grey is really starting to pay off!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

In 2005 Technology Review announced that it would award $20,000 to any geriatric researcher that could show that Aubrey de Grey's SENS project was "so wrong that it was unworthy of learned debate."

Five attempts were made to win the prize. Three submissions were found to be acceptible for consideration. None of the three won. The judges decision was summarized at Technology Review:

"At issue is the conflict between the scientific process and the ambiguous status of ideas that have not yet been subjected to that process.

"The scientific process requires evidence through independent experimentation or observation in order to accord credibility to a hypothesis. SENS is a collection of hypotheses that have mostly not been subjected to that process and thus cannot rise to the level of being scientifically verified. However, by the same token, the ideas of SENS have not been conclusively disproved. SENS exists in a middle ground of yet-to-be-tested ideas that some people may find intriguing but which others are free to doubt.

"Some scientists react very negatively toward those who seek to claim the mantle of scientific authority for ideas that have not yet been proved. Estep et al. seem to have this philosophy. They raise many reasons to doubt SENS. Their submission does the best job in that regard. But at the same time, they are too quick to engage in name-calling, labeling ideas as 'pseudo-scientific' or 'unscientific' that they cannot really demonstrate are so.

"We need to remember that all hypotheses go through a stage where one or a small number of investigators believe something and others raise doubts. The conventional wisdom is usually correct. But while most radical ideas are in fact wrong, it is a hallmark of the scientific process that it is fair about considering new propositions; every now and then, radical ideas turn out to be true. Indeed, these exceptions are often the most momentous discoveries in science.

"SENS has many unsupported claims and is certainly not scientifically proven. I personally would be surprised if de Grey is correct in the majority of his claims. However, I don't think Estep et al. have proved that SENS is false; that would require more research. In some cases, SENS makes claims that run parallel to existing research (while being more sensational). Future investigation into those areas will almost certainly illuminate the controversy. Until that time, people like Estep et al. are free to doubt SENS. I share many of those doubts, but it would be overstating the case to assert that Estep et al. have proved their point."

Technology Review continued:

[Judge Craig Ventor] wrote, "Estep et al. in my view have not demonstrated that SENS is unworthy of discussion, but the proponents of SENS have not made a compelling case for it."

In short, SENS is highly speculative. Many of its proposals have not been reproduced, nor could they be reproduced with today's scientific knowledge and technology. Echoing Myhrvold, we might charitably say that de Grey's proposals exist in a kind of antechamber of science, where they wait (possibly in vain) for independent verification. SENS does not compel the assent of many knowledgeable scientists; but neither is it demonstrably wrong.

In an apparent effort to outclass each other, Technology Review has agreed to pay their half of the $20,000 to the writers of the best submission; and those "winners" (who have filed a dissent arguing that they should have won the full $20,000) are donating the proceeds to the American Federation for Aging Research.

I think this is a pretty good outcome. It should serve as a rebuke to those scientists who would rather name-call than think and test. On the other hand, it should also remind those of us who support de Grey that many of de Grey's proposals are beyond the ability of contemporary science to test. Not that de Grey and most of his supporters haven't already acknowledged that fact.

By necessity SENS leads contemporary science. But what great engineering projects have ever been started where the science was completely known ahead of time? Certainly not the Manhattan, Apollo, or Human Genome projects. The Human Genome Project was started knowing that it would take a century to complete with the computers and methods then available, but they went ahead with confidence that better computers and sequencing methods would develop during the project. They were right.

The details of Aubrey de Grey's SENS proposal are important - we have to start somewhere. But when (not if, but when) some detail of the present SENS proposal is proven incorrect, SENS will no more falter than any of those other projects when technical obstacles were encountered.

The eternal tension between engineers and scientists may be the fundamental problem here. Scientists want cold, hard proof. But engineers know that in order to do any great thing you got to have a little faith.

UPDATE: Reason at Fight Aging has much to say on this topic.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Turns out it loves me back:

Curcumin is an inexpensive dietary supplement that offers powerful protection for aging brains. It has been used as a food additive for thousands of years in the East as the active ingredient in turmeric, or yellow curry spice. Recently, curcumin's many benefits are being uncoverd by Western and Eastern gerontologists (scientists and clinicians who study the aging process). Curcumin has many effects when we eat it as a nutritional supplement, but the most important one seems to be that it reduces the buildup of Alzheimer's-related amyloid in our brains as we age.

Tastes great. Wards off Alzheimer's. That's a pretty good combo. Apparently, it does turn your brain yellow, but I can live with that.

Read the whole thing.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Via Fight Aging!, here's a well-thought-out analysis from George Dvorsky on what the SENS Challenge might mean for the future of aging research:

So, my pre-interpretation of the judge’s decision should they vote against SENS is that they will likely take issue with the inner working of SENS and de Grey’s methodology. And as I said, on this point they may be right – an outcome that may cause de Grey to go back to the drawing board to come up with SENS 2.0. If they declare, however, that speculations into anti-aging interventions per se are “beyond learned debate,” then they will have made a significant judgemental error.

If, on the other hand, the judges vote in favour of SENS, it would represent a clear victory for those who continually push the boundaries of science into uncharted and controversial areas. It’s artist as scientist, drawing outside the lines to conceive of new possibilities and charting all the terra incognita. Perhaps this is why de Grey is happy with the current set of judges; like himself, the panel is filled with visionaries and big thinkers.

Frankly, I don't see how Aubrey can lose. Unless the panel of judges buys into the "de Grey is a fraud and SENS is pseudo-science" tirade, -- which seems highly unlikely -- he will have gained some valuable serious criticism of his work and additional exposure for his ideas.

Ideas which, by the way, we've been exposing for some time.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 09:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

That's really the argument, when you get right down to it:

I do not see why the "death is meaningful" folks should get to decide the lifespans of those who disagree. As far as I am concerned, people who want to die are welcome to do so, but those who would rather stay around longer should have that option.

Via Fight Aging!

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Or maybe you should eat less fish.

Or maybe eating fish puts you at greater risk for one particular heart problem, but overall makes you less likely to have heart problems in the first place.

Or maybe it's not a good idea to generalize.

Anyhow, I sure like fish.

What were we talking about?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Well, here's a development:

In the study of Alzheimer's disease, the smallest steps forward have sometimes led to the most exciting breakthroughs.

In the case of a recent study from Novato's Buck Institute, it's a molecular step forward -- specifically, modifying a single amino acid in the brains of lab mice that could prevent the frightening memory loss and dementia associated with Alzheimer's disease.

In the Buck Institute study, a protein was altered in the brains of lab mice. The mice that received the treatment showed all the pathological signs of suffering Alzheimer's disease -- most notably, a buildup of sticky plaque that scientists believe is related to the disease -- but had none of the memory-loss symptoms or brain shrinkage.

We'll certainly take this is a nice step along the way to a cure. And note that this step forward involves moving molecules around.

FuturePundit, commenting on the announcement of the new Johns Hopkins Institute for NanoBioTechnology, makes not of this relationship between molecular nanotechnology and the future of medicine:

The functional components of cells are molecules. To measure and manipulate small components requires the development of technology that operate on the same scale as the target systems. Nanotechnology for biological systems therefore is the right approach for the development of great diagnostics, disease treatments, and enhancements.

There you have it, folks -- Spock's chessboard in action.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 12:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This very simple test reveals a lot:

If you can walk a quarter-mile, odds are you have at least six years of life left in you, scientists announced today.

And the faster you can do it, the longer you might live.

While walking is no guarantee of health or longevity, a new study found that the ability of elderly people to do the quarter-mile was an "important determinant" in whether they'd be alive six years later and how much illness and disability they would endure.

"The ability to complete this walk was a powerful predictor of health outcomes," said study leader Anne Newman of the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine. "In fact, we found that the people who could not complete the walk were at an extremely high risk of later disability and death."

I would guess that before long we'll see something like this standardized, with a well-defined checklist of what to work on for those who are not able to complete the walk.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Here's some really encouraging news:

The National Center for Health Statistics reports that "the age-adjusted death rate reached a record low 801.0 per 100,000 U.S. standard population. This value is 3.8 percent lower than the 2003 rate of 832.7."

Read the whole thing. Check out the graph showing the rapid decline in death; it's dropping faster than my weight.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 07:02 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Most medical research is done by trying to prevent people dying. And Aubrey says we should simply extend this into ageing. Actually, now, we are in a situation of being able to harness what comes from the basic biomedical research to try to devise a better way to age.

And if that leads to life extension, that's great. But it's difficult to see the path to make that happen.

-Professor Tom Kirkwood

Dr. Kirkwood is gerontologist with a very impressive resume. So it's discouraging to to see him discounting the possibility of life extension.

Fortunately for all of us, researchers don't necessarily have to see "the path" to make a contribution to it.

I wonder also how sincere Kirwood is being in his assertion that "it's difficult to see the path to make that happen." The path looks long and difficult, but it seems obvious too. Aging is a complex group of problems. If any treatment makes any of Aubrey de Grey's "seven deadly things" less deadly, then you have life extension.

The problems that cause aging can and probably will be addressed initially as preventative medicine. Established medicine will stoop to calling it "life extension" only after it's blatantly obvious to every 100-year-old on the tennis courts.

I support efforts to devise "better ways to age" the same way I support efforts to devise better ways to hit yourself in the head with a hammer. Both projects would be good, but wouldn't it be better to avoid the underlying activity?

More seriously, "better ways to age" and "life extention" is a distinction without a difference. Now I suppose that there are some problems of old age that can be addressed without extending life. Viagra and Rogaine are drugs that address two problems that are often associated with advancing age. Neither will extend your life.

But any treatment that directly addresses the aging problem - something that slows degeneration - will extend life. Unless Kirkwood's hopes are limited to palliatives like Viagra and Rogaine, "better ways to age" is just "life extension" by another name.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reason at Fight Aging! has a follow-up to Stephen's post from earlier this week:

Advocacy is certainly a spectrum - it's quite possible to be supporting efforts to obtain large-scale funding for the Strategies for Engineered Negligible Senescence (SENS) with one hand, while trying to dispel widespread and elementary myths with the other. Still, one would hope that some progress can be made in banishing the Tithonus error to the past. If half the population no longer knee-jerks in opposition to healthy life extension based on a false conception of "older for longer" - well, that can't be a bad thing for the prospects of raising a broad platform of support for research, can it?

Nope, sounds like a good thing to me. I think what will really slow the knee-jerking -- and in fact might start them jerking in the other direction -- is when people begin to realize that a few (at first a very few) of their friends and loved ones are enjoying longer and longer lives. The operative word there being enjoying.

A lot of folks cling to life even when it becomes painful and undignified. Few will hang on to the delusion that some law of nature or moral obligation requires us to be happy about our eventual demise when they see an alternative of more productive, healthy, happy years in their lives. At some point, the largely unspoken truth will be acknowledged more or less universally.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This looks promising

Researchers in Germany have identified a potential source of reprogrammable cells in adults that could be used for regenerative therapy. The cells would be taken directly from the testis and cultured. No cloning or destruction of embryos would be necessary.

The discovery opens up the possibility, at least for men, of having an endless source of fresh stem cells tailored to one's genetic makeup, which could be turned into any kind of body tissue and used for treatment. This has been the promise of stem cells taken from cloned embryos, but the use of cloned embryos has run into considerable ethical and technical problems...

The big question is whether human males have the same cells. And, as the article explains, even if this stem-cell-source pans out in humans, it's only good for half of the species. So far, no corresponding source of cells has been found in women.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 11:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I learned that the oldest known living animal, a 250 year old Aldabra tortoise (geochelon gignatea) residing at the Calcutta, India zoo, had died, I wondered if anyone had studied tortoise telomeres to learn the secrets of their delayed senescence. I didn't find a study specific to tortoises, but my search uncovered a reptile study right in my own back yard, as it were.

A group of researchers from Iowa State University, Drake University and Des Moines University studied the
"HAYFLICK LIMIT IN REPTILES, A TEST OF POTENTIAL IMMORTALITY",specific to several turtle, snake and reptile species indigenous to Iowa. Their most interesting finding came from snapping turtle tissue:

"Our cultures of fibroblasts from snapping turtles appear to be immortal and untransformed having exceeded 190 cpds with no indication of senescence...Our analysis of the snapping turtle tissues indicates almost no telomerase except in the gonad where it is almost always present. Obviously the telomere is being maintained by some other mechanism."

They conclude that reptiles may reveal mechanisms that have implications for longevity and maintenance of tissue repair.

I can't determine the date the abstract was published. The latest citations are from 1998. I wonder if anyone has read or heard of similar studies?

In the meantime, may Addwaita's venerable telomeres rest in peace.

Posted by Kathy at 10:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Last week, after hearing a prediction of 1000-year life spans from Aubrey de Grey, Roger L. Simon expressed concern about the possibility of living too long.

112 years, say, of retirement doesn't sound exactly enthralling. That's a lot of checkers and parcheesi. One of the scientists interviewed in the article said people are living vigorous lives these days in their 70s. Ho-hum. What about in their 140s? Anybody for120 and over tennis?

I can understand why Roger Simon wouldn't want extra drooling years. The typical response to this concern from life extension advocates is to point out that it's not just life extension, but healthy life extension that is the goal. Bill Quick commented:

Roger. the biggest problem in talking - and thinking - about news like this is shaking the three-score-and-ten mindset. The question is not "120 and over tennis," but, "tennis for 120 year olds who are physically only twenty years old?"

We think of physical debility as the primary handicap of advanced age. The real problems will probably be for those raised to think of themselves as old at seventy who find themselves young at 100.

And the Warrior Class Blog (h/t) mused:

[T]ennis for the 120's set might well be played out on center court at Wimbledon. That determination would result from their ability as tennis players, not their age.

Certainly that is the goal - young until hit by a bus. But will it play out like that?

I suspect that life extension will come in three major stages (with many, many incremental advances moving us forward). Stage one life extension will slow aging, stage two will halt aging, and stage three will reverse aging - essentially allowing us, with maintenance, to stay whatever age we choose. I think most life extension advocates would agree with this outline.

If I'm right about that, there is the possibility that some older people in the early years of life extension will have additional years of disability.

Let's use, as a hypothetical, an average woman retiring today at age 65. She would obviously be concerned about the number of years she has left to live - she doesn't want the money to run out before her death. Assume also that with this person's general health and today's medicine she could expect to live to be 80 and that the last five years she would be effectively disabled - unable to do many of the things she likes to do. That means that her health would begin to decline in 2016 and she would die in 2021.

But we won't have today's medicine in 2016 or 2021. Let's assume that by 2014 we reach (as I've predicted in the past) stage one life extension. Our retiree is now 73 and is only a couple of years away from serious decline. But, if she is like most people she is still enjoying life. She has grandchildren and friends and she plays a mean game of Parcheesi. So, she begins stage one treatment - attempting to hold on to as much health as possible as long as possible.

With treatment the two years before decline are stretched to five. After that time she is disabled, but she chooses to continue treatment. The technology continues to improve and by the time she would have died without treatment, 2021, we've reached stage two.

Stage two, the point at which doctors can arrest aging, probably won't be an obvious point in time. It will be a vague milestone between stage one and stage three.

She would be frail during these years. But, aging arrested, she lives on hoping that the treatments improve before bad luck strikes - an accident or illness that kills her.

Her hope pays off. Stage three is obtained in 2030. Her treatments now reverse the damage of aging. By 2035 she is effectively a young woman again - at age 94.

Here's the point. This woman's years in serious decline are lengthened by life extension treatment. Instead of being disabled five years followed by death, she is disabled about 12 years followed by indefinite youth. Which is best?

In the history of the world, this is not a decision that many will face. Obviously those who are already dead never had a choice. And hopefully people who are young today will get stage three care when they need it. This is one generation's dilemma.

For someone faced with this decision, there will be no "right" answer. This will be a very personal decision. And its also a decision that people will have to make without all the facts. This lady could not know when she started the treatments that she would live to benefit from stage three, or even when stage three would be achieved.

I suspect that, like today, people will tend to seek the best medical care possible until they grow tired of fighting. Some people that start life extension treatments won't live to see stage three. But I think many people will try. Perhaps most people will try.

These optimists won't need to have hope for another tennis championship. They might just hope for some more games of Parcheesi - and a few more visits with the grandkids.

Posted by Stephen Gordon at 09:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (7)

Aubrey de Grey speculates that the serious work will begin in about 10 years and may be substantially finished in about 25. FuturePundit has the details.

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 05:40 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The current issue of The Scientist, sporting the catchy phrase "Fight Aging" on the cover,* features an article on the reality of life extension in the near future:

Imagine an intervention, such as a pill, that could significantly reduce your risk of cancer. Imagine an intervention that could reduce your risk of stroke, or dementia, or arthritis. Now, imagine an intervention that does all these things, and at the same time reduces your risk of everything else undesirable about growing older: including heart disease, diabetes, Alzheimer and Parkinson disease, hip fractures, osteoporosis, sensory impairments, and sexual dysfunction. Such a pill may sound like fantasy, but aging interventions already do this in animal models. And many scientists believe that such an intervention is a realistically achievable goal for people.

The experience of aging is about to change. Humans are approaching old age in unprecedented numbers, and this generation and all that follow have the potential to live longer, healthier lives than any in history. These changing demographics also carry the prospect of overwhelming increases in age-related disease, frailty, disability, and all the associated costs and social burdens. The choices we make now will have a profound influence on the health and the wealth of current and future generations.

Reason, of that blog with the catchy name, observes that the authors of the piece, S. Jay Olshansky, Daniel Perry, Richard A. Miller, and Robert N. Butler, are not exactly radicals or firebrands; no, they "collectively stand as core and representative of mainstream gerontology and aging research." These are the folks who are usually on the other side of the debate with people like Aubrey de Grey.

Now, lest we get carried away, it's important to note that the life extension they're talking about isn't the variety that we normally talk about around here. They suggest that it would be realisitic to slow the aging process by about seven years, making tomorrow's 75-year-old the equivalent of today's 68-year-old.

Seven years doesn't sound like all that much, but we'll take it. Much more exciting, as Reason points out, is not the amount of life extension being discussed, but the very fact that the mainstream has shifted and is now seriously talking about it all. Progress!

* A cover featuring the words Death Sucks seems almost inevitable, doesn't it?

Posted by Phil Bowermaster at 06:29 AM | Permalink | Comments (4)

I do my best to stay on the