Category Archives: Longevity Medicine

From Depressed Metabolism: “Some contemporary atheists and secular humanists do not stop at debunking the idea of God but seem to think that making a persuasive case against religion requires them to refute all of its associated ideas as well; including the desire for immortality. Paula Kirby is not the first secular person praising our limited lifespan and glorifying death: ‘For atheists it is the very transience of life that helps to give it its meaning: for it prompts us to live it to the full’ … Kirby does not just repeat the hollow non-empirical cliche that life can only have meaning in the face of death but she also pretends to speak on behalf of all atheists. As can be expected, she cannot imagine an extremely long lifespan to be anything else than unspeakable boredom. When she writes that ‘Susan Ertz got it spot on with her witty remark that millions yearn for immortality who don’t know what to do with themselves on a rainy Sunday afternoon’ one cannot help thinking that she is conveying more information about herself and Susan Ertz than about humans in general. … It is remarkable to what extent the notion of death as not only biological but ontological necessity has permeated Western philosophy – remarkable because the overcoming and mastery of mere natural necessity has otherwise been regarded as the distinction of human existence and endeavor.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2010/05/25/humanist-death-apologetics/

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The New Scientist on calorie restriction: “Dreams of eternal youth feature in many cultures throughout history, but it was only in the 20th century that research into longevity really began. Much about ageing is still mysterious – we don’t even know the underlying reasons why we journey into old age. There are many lines of enquiry into how to live longer, though, with one of the most intriguing being calorie restriction: in effect, going on a lifelong diet. Calorie restriction dramatically extends not only the lifespan of laboratory animals, but also their ‘healthspan’ – how long they live free of disease. On the assumption that it has the same effect in people, some individuals have already adopted a restricted diet. The latest evidence suggests that while calorie restriction is indeed beneficial for humans, when it comes to lifespan extension, it may not be the whole story. The good news is that we might be able to delay ageing without cutting our food intake. … There’s a definite possibility that if you balance the diet correctly, a longer lifespan can be achieved without full food restriction. … It is unclear why eating less should make animals live longer. While a restricted diet triggers numerous changes at the molecular and genetic levels, only some of these are common across all the species tested. However, there does seem to be a general principle that a dearth of nutrients causes organisms to divert resources away from growth and reproduction and towards basic survival functions. From an evolutionary perspective, these adaptations could help an organism survive famine.”

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627621.100-eat-less-live-longer.html?full=true

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Here is a presentation given by researcher Anders Sandberg for Google’s Tech Talk series: “The idea of creating a faithful, one-to-one computer copy of a human brain has been a popular philosophical thought experiment and science fiction plot for decades. While computational neuroscience and systems biology are currently very far away from this goal, the trends towards large-scale simulation, industrialized neuroinformatics, new forms of microscopy and powerful computing clusters point in this direction and are enabling new forms of simulations of unprecendented scope. In this talk I will discuss current estimates of how close we are to achieving emulated brains, technological requirements, research challenges and some of the possible consequences.” A little while back the Future of Humanity Institute published a roadmap to whole brain emulation. This topic is of interest to supporters of engineered longevity as a part of the very long term goal of incrementally replacing the vulnerable biology of the brain with something more robust and damage-resistant. Such as, for example, clusters of diamondoid nanomachines designed to emulate the functions of neurons.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.aleph.se/andart/archives/2010/06/whole_brain_emulation_the_logical_endpoint_of_neuroinformatics.html

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Maria Konovalenko on the study of the often large life span differences between similar species - or rather the lack of such research work in comparison to other fields of life science: "Here's this quite simple idea: to take two species similar in size and basic biology, but having a substantial difference in longevity, and figure out what's the reason for this difference. What are the distinctions in the mechanisms of aging and stress resistance? It's desirable to carry out this work in various species. However, not a lot of people are excited about this simple idea. Even the genome of the famous naked mole rat has not been sequenced yet, although many people believe it's got 'negligible' senescence. For now all that we have is negligible funding of evolutionary-comparative biology of aging. Moreover, previously obtained results are put into cold storage. ... And here comes the main question in biogerontology. Why is the research into the fundamental mechanisms of aging so scarcely funded?" Aging and longevity research in general receives very little funding and attention in comparison to its importance to the future of human health. This state of affairs is slowly changing, but not fast enough for my liking.

View the Article Under Discussion: http://maria-konovalenko.typepad.com/blog/2010/06/the-main-question-in-biogerontology.html

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Via Newswise: "Why all the attention on TOR? TOR (target of rapamycin) is a key nutrient-sensing catalytic enzyme that evolution has conserved among every plant and animal species that has cells containing a nucleus. TOR mediates the connection between nutrients in the environment to the growth and metabolism of the organism. Studies in flies, worms, yeast and mice support the notion that the TOR signaling network also plays a pivotal role in regulating the aging process. When TOR signaling is reduced, either through genetic manipulation or via the use of drugs, the organism presumes there are reduced nutrients in its environment and goes into a 'survival' mode similar to that seen in dietary restriction, which has been shown to extend lifespan and slow the onset of certain age-related diseases. ... it remains to be seen which downstream effectors of TOR are key drivers of longevity and which ones elicit only minor effects. In addition to simply extending lifespan, research on the protective effects of TOR is likely to identify which age-related diseases can be slowed by inhibition of the TOR pathway."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.newswise.com/articles/tor-a-key-mediator-of-the-effects-of-dietary-restriction-and-its-impact-on-aging

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From Depressed Metabolism, a look at the folk who are trying to ensure that cryonics patients can preserve their resources as well as the fine structure of their brains: "On the weekend of April 23-25 I attended a meeting of the cryonics Asset Preservation Group held [near] Gloucester, Massachusetts. I will try to give a few brief summaries without going into detail about every presentation. ... A central problem for cryonicists wanting revival trusts is that Cryopreserved Persons (CPs) are legally dead and are not ascertainable beneficiaries under trust law. My solution to this problem has been to have cryonics organizations (rather than the legal system) recognize the reanimated CP as the beneficiary. But finding the right cryonics organization to do this is not always easy. ... the best presentation at this meeting of the Asset Preservation Group was the one on 'Personal Revival Trusts' by Igor Levenberg. I have been working with the thorny problems associated with cryonics reanimation trusts for years and I have never seen such careful and persuasive legal analyses."

View the Article Under Discussion: http://www.depressedmetabolism.com/2010/06/02/fourth-asset-preservation-group-meeting/

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