Introduction
As I have discussed before I have an interest in anti-ageing technologies and I will be creating more posts to cover this field.
As we move further into the 21st century we are dealing with an increasingly ageing demographic, particularly within developed countries.
Many of the diseases that will take an increasing toll are intimately tied to the processes of ageing and I don't believe it is possible to investigate them adequately in isolation from each other.
This is going to put an increasing amount of stress on our governmental, social and health care structures.
If we take the example of dementias alone the statistics are startling. The following excerpt is taken from a summary of a 2015 global report on dementia:
Between 2015 and 2050, the number of older people living in high income countries is forecast to increase by 56%, compared with 138% in upper middle income countries, 185% in lower middle income countries, and by 239% low income countries. Rising life expectancy is contributing to rapid increases in numbers, and is associated with increased prevalence of chronic diseases like dementia.
We estimate that 46.8 million people worldwide are living with dementia in 2015. This number will almost double every 20 years, reaching 74.7 million in 2030 and 131.5 million in 2050. These new estimates are 12-13% higher than those made for the World Alzheimer Report 2009.
Now these are for just one type of disease (dementias).
If we take into account the vast spectrum of diseases that increase as people age then the situation becomes even more concerning.
Adding Life to Years, Not Years to Life
Most people understand the principle that prevention is better than cure.
For those of us who are interested in Life-Extension what we are talking about is adding useful years to a person's lifespan.
Nobody wants to live to be 150 years old if half of that time is miserable due to disability and ill health.
That is completely pointless.
The way to think of it is adding "life to years, not years to life" - I forget exactly where I read that quote but it has always stuck with me.
If we do not start to tackle the diseases of ageing head-on we will be left with a huge population of elderly people who have a miserable quality of life.
In addition to that we will end up spending larger and larger amounts of money to look after and care for them.
I believe it is better to prevent people ending up in that state in the first place.
The "Only Rich People" Fallacy
I want to keep this post brief so I won't be able to cover every single objection that people to anti-ageing medicine but I would like to mention this one.
The basic objection is that such treatments and technologies will only be available to the rich.
Whilst I can sympathise with people's opinion and feelings I think it is a patently absurd view point to hold.
Since when has this not been the case for any type of technology?
Almost all new technologies start out as being very expensive and the domain of the wealthy. I can think of few things that did not begin this way.
Mobile phones were an incredibly expensive luxury when they were first released. Now they are actually more common in some developing countries than they are in wealthier nations.
The fact is that all technology starts out expensive and becomes cheaper over time. There is a trickle down effect.
I think these kinds of objections come from an ideologically based opposition to anti-ageing technologies.
Life Extension & Anti-Aging Technology Group
I have recently started using LinkedIn more and I must say it is a lot better than Facebook. The site is a lot more professionally orientated and there is less of the usual "look at me" type posts.
The last time I used LinkedIn was years ago when the site was quite new and much less developed.
I have also noticed that they have a vast array of discussion groups and I have created the "Life Extension & Anti-Aging Technology" group on LinkedIn specifically for discussing these topics, which you can find here:
Life Extension & Anti-Aging Technology Group Link
There are no specific requirements for joining, all you need is an interest in these issues and a willingness to have sensible scientific discussion.
Here is an excerpt from the about page:
A group for people who are interested in the interplay between ageing and disease, life extension technologies and related fields. Share interesting stories, papers, research and anything which you feel is relevant to this.
How Can a LinkedIn Group Help Steemit?
I'm a strong believer that we can help to spread the Steemit message by stealth and one of the ways to do this it to share appropriate links on other social media.
Rather than doing any kind of hard sell, if people find articles they like it might make them more likely to become curious about Steemit and make it one of their regular sources of information.
LinkedIn tends to attract people with a more professional focus and I believe that is the kind of demographic that will bring greater outside investment into Steem/Steemit.
It is also another great place to attract new bloggers from.
Thank you for reading
All uncredited images are taken from my personal Thinkstock Photography account. More information can be provided on request.
I am a student from Argentina and to solve the expenses I worked as a computer teacher for seniors.
At least in my country the technology, represents a great leap for the elderly. They have grown up in a generation where this did not exist and to enter this new era is very difficult for them.
I met many people teaching and there was something that always surprised me, in all cases. They always wanted to learn, they always wanted to discover something new.
I teach from clicking a mouse or turning on a computer, to installing programs and downloading movies.
I really like what you do, I have always felt a special connection with older people and I think they deserve to be introduced in this era. Cheers my friend!
@tincho
That is fantastic! Thank you:)
Spam is not welcome. Whatever your intentions, I will be flagging you if you spam the system with comments. Please reconsider.
There is one truth in my family history - we rarely reach old age. Not to be a self-fulfilling prophesy, I intend to live but when it's time to go, may it be quick and peaceful. That being said, quality of life is vitally important to me. As you've eluded to, there's no point in extending life if you can't live it.
Yes I remember you mentioned it before. I think we all hope for a quick peaceful death - the sad part is that isn't as common as we'd like.
This is true which is why I've told my boys it's all right if I go wandering the woods when the time comes, if you get my drift.
I always share my post to linkedin, twitter, facebook, stumble, tumblr, reddit - sometimes to pinterest, medium, voat, ello, academy. But I can't see if there are views from those media to my Steemit blog.
Yes some sort of analytics would be useful.
agreed!
Thanks:)
We don't need to live longer. We need to learn to live with each other.
True but your answer makes me think you didn't read what I said.
Busted.
Lol I think we all do it, but basically one of the points I was making was that the real focus is on improving the quality of life in old age rather than just living longer - that is pointless.
Agree, I will definitely read it. Thanks.
As written here,
adding life to yearsI do think adding quality to life is important. I don't think I want a longer life that is less meaningful.
Yes I think most people feel that way and I don't think anyone is trying to extend life without taking account of that as the primary focus.
It reminds me of people who talk about using caloric restriction as an interim life extension measure - I think it might make my life feel longer but I'm not sure I would want that if I can't enjoy the simple things in life like a good meal!
Living life is definitely not the same as "living". Sure we are all "living" meaning we were born and we will eventually leave this earth but how we spend our time here is what's all about. Too many people believe in just skating by, living in their comfort zone. Move away from that, otherwise you will regret not doing so many things. Bottom line...LIVE LIFE!
I wholeheartedly agree :)
Sorry eh, but for me seem Humankind somehow Failed. To extend Life, i woulda say its great, but somehow the Life around me, its some crap and beside the Micro-organism world around me, About Death and Life every day.....Let me say so, there are no loving Humans around me. Or is it just me today, who is blind for that ? or even my Life long ?
I sympathise with your situation.
such a good post
Thank you!
We don't need anti aging discoveries. Our world is overpopulated by a virus it doesn't need, a virus that's killing its host just to project purpose when we don't have one.
A very pessimistic view but I sympathise.
Don't use "we"! Maybe YOU don't, but some of us value extending our lives.
r u pho real? if the world is over populated by a virus, are you going to be the next cell to initiate apoptosis to lower the viral load?? Or are you one of these types that thinks the virus is caused by them... over there .. those... (put in your select group ..Caucasians/Africans/ Asians/ Persians/ Amazonian...) and elect to kill them off.
your post essentially paints you a Malthusian. Many a sky has not fallen despite all the Malthusian's shock and horror. Tech solves our next crisis. Overpopulation is not an issue at all. If you knew anything about demographics you would understand that the west has an issue with depopulation caused by insufficient birth rates. Country by country the western nations are failing to meet the required maintenance birthrate of 2.1 births per woman. The reality is we need anti ageing technologies like OP crytofiend attests, to keep people healthier and in the workplace for longer. The unaccounted for debts represented by various governmental superannuation schemes have every single nation with those structures in place marching head long to bankruptcy. We can avert the issue if we turn to tech and make 100 the new 65. This would allow people to continue to ply their trades/ sell their services/ continue to produce and enhance their communities instead of losing their vital skills to rest homes/ gated communities or geriatric golf courses.
There is no reason that those individuals couldn't elect to work for only 3 days a week for 6 months a year and then spend the remainder of the year with their loved ones doing interesting things like visiting the only remaining woven swing bridges in the world which date back to pre Conquistador times. I for one relish the idea of the opportunity of induced tissue regeneration, induced pluripotent stem cells, telomerase reactivation, peptide therapies, individualised cancer therapies, liquid biopsies all of which are in laboratories today, and are failing to be released because Luddite Malthusians are scared they'll get left behind.
No matter what problem you encounter, whether it's a grand challenge for humanity or a personal problem of your own, there's an idea out there that can overcome it. And you can find that idea.
-Ray Kurzweil
Thanks I like Kurzweil:)
Steemit is anti-aging technology. It can work as a pension fund. Who knows what kind of health elixirs we will be able to buy in 30 years!
Lol we will have to wait and see.
Everyone wants to live forever!
Not sure everyone does.
True not everyone because some people the longer they live the more important people in their life passaway and they are left alone
Some people just hate life in general too.
this technology has recently been invented by a biology scientist in the Netherlands. Its supposed to be a medicine that makes the body get rid of old or damaged sells . Its only been tested on mice, But the older mouse that got it was walking around like a younger mouse with more energy. And started to get color in its hair again and growing muscle again.
It was on the news recently. Not sure if there is much known about it.
Yes they are called senescent cells and removing them seems to have an anti-ageing effect.
All our cells (not just nerve cells) communicate chemically with each other to a certain degree.
One of the theories of ageing is that these senescent cells are able to cause disease and ill health without becoming cancerous, probably by releasing certain chemical agents which act to cause dysfunction in otherwise normal cells.
They seem to ratchet up the activity of the immune system in particular which can cause chronic inflammation - another process that seems to increase with age and also acts to cause damage to healthy cells, potentially causing a feedback loop which creates more senescent cells.
Under normal circumstances such cells are supposed to commit suicide by a process known as apoptosis (programmed cell death). However as we age these processes seem to get less efficient (possibly due to DNA damage) and we slowly build up more and more of them.
So to summarise they act lack bad leaders which signal other cells to misbehave and once they are removed the other cells go back to functioning normally.
I believe combining this sort of therapy to remove senescent cells and supplementing stem cells would create a very potent means of rolling back the chronological clock.
the process you are looking for for is called autophagy. It is where your immune system, in the form of phagocytes, search out and consume inefficient/ dying/ damaged cells and harvest their nutrients for reuse in other fresh cells.
Vampire therapy where an aged individual is leached off a youngling, is one way of replacing senescent proteins and cells, but a better way is through intermittent fasting either by way of time restricted eating windows of 8-10 hrs per day, or using something like Longo's fasting mimicking diet (www.prolonfmd.com) which is all the good of fasting without the downside like sarcopenia (muscle loss) which can be irreversible in some elderly, leading to their demise. (Thankfully this can be mitigated with a daily dose of 1-1.5g branched chain amino acids, and the use of exogenous ketone bodies). Heat shock proteins are also a way to induce autophagy, although not as powerful.
The discussion of autophagy raises a key point about a couple of interesting approaches to anti ageing, namely how long would you run rapalogs for given they inhibit autophagy to certain degree, and allow possible free radical production by cells containing damaged mitochondria leaking from disrupted electron chain pathways? The likely answer may be that we cycle this stuff, and have runs of treatments with an underlying persistent effort to detoxify, and unburden our mitochondria, then initiate mitochondrial biogenesis.
Thanks for your support of human life extension...
An important word in the anti-aging movement is Healthspan which is defined as the period of one's life during which one is generally healthy and free from serious disease. As you pointed out, we are not just extending years, we are extending healthy, happy years. Incorporating words like this into our daily vocabulary will shape the public's way of thinking about the objectives of radical life extension.
It is true that the wealthy will have the first opportunity to benefit from anti-aging therapies, however, these therapies are often very experimental and potentially dangerous. The wealthy will serve as human lab rats on whom we will perfect life extension techniques for the masses. I thought I would mention this to show a different way of thinking about this issue.
Good luck to the Linked In Life Extension & Anti-Aging Technology Group! Changing attitudes toward aging research in recent times has cultivated many new anti-aging organizations. The organization that leads the fight to end aging ASAP is Aubrey de Grey's SENS Foundation. They are attacking the problem of aging directly on all fronts.
I have my own anti-aging community on Google+ called Biology of Aging with 7600 members and growing. If you don't have a Google+ account, you can still see a tiny sample.
It would be great to see the life extension movement take off on Steemit.
Here is an article I wrote on Steemit: Emergent Rejuvenation Biotechnology Industry
Thanks I will check you out on Google Plus, although I am not a big user of it. I know of Aubrey De Grey's work and have been following it and SENS for many years. I am connected to him on LinkedIn. Thanks for the article link - I will check it out!
Hold onto it, never let it go! Worry, worry, worry, research, research RESEARCH! You only have so much time left.... the clock is ticking!
Do you guys ever think that it might be best to focus on the well being of ALL life, instead of lengthening the life of the only species that has brought this planet and all it's life forms to the brink of destruction? Nah, you should because you can, and lets not forget the fact you're very important! /s
I cant help thinking that transhumanists regret too much, need more time to prove to the world that they are as special as they believe themselves to be.
Best anti aging technology is first having a fulfilling reason to live, losing the fear of death (which is a pathological creation of self fulfilling prophesy). Then news flash... providing the technology we already have, i.e. our bodies with the nutrients and activities it has evolved to utilize. I shudder when I hear technophiles jerking off to the latest ideas of how to become immortal, joke is, we already are. FYI, I'm not saying this represents your opinions, like you said, prevention is the best cure, but I'm pretty certain there'll be some transhumanist individuals reading this.
Good nutrition and exercise is a good start.
Not sure what you mean by that.
One consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Look after your car, it will serve you well and take you many places you wish to go, but are you your car?... and do you think it's the most effective vehicle for all terrain? Transumanists would argue no, their solution being "upgrades" or technology that would provide increased capacity, yet still capacity linked to the human experience and cultural narrative. Like the transumanists, I would argue no also, but then I am not limiting myself to the human narrative, nor planetary narrative, nor even dimensional narrative. Our full potential is only realized once we free ourselves from the very notion of "potential" (coming from a position of lack) and embrace the infinite, putting the horse before the cart and therefore allowing our vehicles to adapt in the best way possible (after millions of years they are pretty good at it, and far better than the cultural circle-jerk some call science). Social issues will not be solved by addressing symptoms. Again though, this ain't directed at you, just my take on the crazy need amongst or species for the elixir of life... kind of hypocritical too if you think how our bloated numbers are sucking this planet dry huh.
We will have to disagree on such matters as I prefer a scientific position. Beyond that it is just religious ideology and the transhumanists are just as guilty of this. As for people draining the resources of the Earth I think you are right - I think we need an attitude change and I hope it will come but I will not hold my breath on it!
I have a lot of respect for true science, but it takes a certain mind to care more for the art than the paycheck or reputation. Overall I think we are on the same page, and since the only constant is change, all we can do is stay true to our principals, I say ALL we can do, but the consequences of doing so are infinite, just depends on the principals :) Have a good one.
You stated:
This is a load of anti-life, destructive rubbish! You have no evidence to support this stupid statement!! Your malignant delusion is pathological and you need help to recognize the damage your pathology is inflicting on the world.
Love the line The way to think of it is adding "life to years, not years to life" - so true. Great post
Thank you:)
I'd pay $10 to see these dudes fight
Seriously though, I really like the idea of "adding life to years". What good is it being alive longer if you can't "live"?
Lol. Yes exactly no point in living if you feel like you would rather be dead.
I'll try to answer the question from a practical perspective: I try to eat everything raw which I can digest thus saving energy and my enzymes which I need to rebuild broken parts of my body thus not wasting them on digestion. In a nutshell The least amount of work my body has to do will keep me the most healthy. This has come from at least 7 diets I tried over a period of several years when I was very very ill. I measure my health by sports, doing the same activities. Having studied vast amounts of literature... From Weston Price to Terry Wahls' protocol.
Great although I don't think the rational for eating raw food is "saving energy or enzymes" for most people. It simply liberates less energy from the food meaning you can eat more.
Not entirely correct. You could just lie in bed all day and never do any activity and that would be very unhealthy.
Wonderful post! My holiday greetings!
Thanks. Happy Easter!
We need it for me to stay 30 for 500 years.
That would be the aim, although I think being physically fit and well for 80 years would be a good thing to aim for initially.
Maybe like in Inception movie.