I've heard some say that Aging is a disease that could be curable. Does that sound possible? Even with genetic engineering. Everything on this planet-everything in this universe-seems to age. So what is meant by this. Reduce aging to a point that it's almost irrelevant? I heard of a 'aging' gene that may determine how you age and life span. Any thoughts anyone?

Yeah, I heard that it was in the genes, or DNA or something, so therefore, technically, if one could remove it, then you'd stop aging.

Yeah...I heard this also. Imagine that....if they removed this gene from us we would stop aging!!!! This would be an amazing acheivement. I think it would help space exploration and possibly migrating to other planets due to over population.

The Future: Quoted from "Engines of Creation (http://www.foresight.org/EOC/EOC_Chapter_7.html#section08of08)" by K. Eric Drexler

Aging is natural, but so were smallpox and our efforts to prevent it. We have conquered smallpox, and it seems that we will conquer aging.

Longevity has increased during the last century, but chiefly because better sanitation and drugs have reduced bacterial illness. The basic human life span has increased little.

Still, researchers have made progress toward understanding and slowing the aging process. They have identified some of its causes, such as uncontrolled cross-linking. They have devised partial treatments, such as antioxidants and free-radical inhibitors. They have proposed and studied other mechanisms of aging, such as - clocks" in the cell and changes in the body's hormone balance. In laboratory experiments, special drugs and diets have extended the life span of mice by 25 to 45 percent.

Such work will continue; as the baby boom generation ages, expect a boom in aging research. One biotechnology company, Senetek of Denmark, specializes in aging research. In April 1985, Eastman Kodak and ICN Pharmaceuticals were reported to have joined in a $45 million venture to produce isoprinosine and other drugs with the potential to extend life span. The results of conventional anti-aging research may substantially lengthen human life spans - and improve the health of the old - during the next ten to twenty years. How greatly will drugs, surgery, exercise, and diet extend life spans? For now, estimates must remain guesswork. Only new scientific knowledge can rescue such predictions from the realm of speculation, because they rely on new science and not just new engineering.

With cell repair machines, however, the potential for life extension becomes clear. They will be able to repair cells so long as their distinctive structures remain intact, and will be able to replace cells that have been destroyed. Either way, they will restore health. Aging is fundamentally no different from any other physical disorder; it is no magical effect of calendar dates on a mysterious life-force. Brittle bones, wrinkled skin, low enzyme activities, slow wound healing, poor memory, and the rest all result from damaged molecular machinery, chemical imbalances, and mis-arranged structures. By restoring all the cells and tissues of the body to a youthful structure, repair machines will restore youthful health.


Hyaluronic Acid: Hyaluronic acid (also called Hyaluronan) is a component of connective tissue whose function is to cushion and lubricate. Hyaluronan occurs throughout the body in abundant amounts in many of the places people with hereditary connective tissue disorders have problems such as joints, heart valves and eyes. Hyaluronic acid abnormalities are a common thread in connective tissue disorders. Interestingly, they are also common biochemical anomalies in most of the individual features of connective tissue disorders such as mitral valve prolapse, TMJ, osteoarthritis, and keratoconus.

Hyaluronic acid has been nicknamed by the press as the "key to the fountain of youth" because it has been noted that at least some people who ingest a lot of it in their diets tend to live to ripe old ages. ABC News had a show on a village in Japan and hyaluronic acid entitled, "The Village of Long Life: Could Hyaluronic Acid Be an Anti-Aging Remedy? (http://abcnews.go.com/onair/2020/PRIMETIME_japanyouth_001102_feature.html)".

Very informative quote/reference, Pine_net :cool: Although like other "incurable" diseases i think there's more money in the products the companies sell than actually curing or reversing aging. Know what i mean? Of course we can cure the cold, its just more lucrative to NOT cure it, and make billions each year selling cold medicines.

Yeah, I was gonna say, they'll be certain ethical issues; do we have the right, should it be a selective process, etc etc, but I'm sure we'll get over that in due time. :rolleyes:

The real problem isn't with the normal body tissues like the bones lungs muscles etc eventually those could be cloned the real problem is the brain, extending brain life is the tricky part it is a well known fact that as one ages the flexibility of the brain declines making one more set in their ways, by about 100 half your brain cells are gone, the brain makes up for it by creating more connections. However the limit on the brain cells is the real problem of aging in my opinion the rest can be replaced with better technology. I mean it isn't too far fetched to think that a new custom made body could be grown and your brain transplanted into the new one to extend life espcially if the new bodies immune system is designed to except your brain, but eventually the brain will wear out and it is the only bit of hard ware in the body that can't be lost without you loosing your sense of self though i am sure it can be augmented or certain sections replaced but eventually many functions might not be easy to replicate if at all. (regardless of what the strong AI people believe) Not to say AI isn't possible just much more complex and harder a problem than people like to believe IMHO.

Ok i think that is enough for now, except to add that most ideas that extend life can increase cancer risks if they try to turn off the death gene. Since cancers are just cells that keep on replicating and not dying forming tumors more or less.

It is possible to regrow nerve cells that have died. Actually the brain does repair and restore dead and/or damaged nerve cells, but in extremely small quantaties. The body is only capable of sustaining the CNS (central nerve system) up to a point. With major traumas or serious aging there will have to be used a more radical method of reparation. The use of stem cells?

This is a scary thought. How can the CNS be replaced without replacing the personality. What of the soul. Can you transplant it? Is there such a thing anyway??

The fountain of youth is a holy grail of genetics. I have my doubts about the possibility of such a thing, but aging can most certainly be seen as an ailness or disease, so why not?!

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!


no.

Aging is the cause of sooo many factors. One that I heard was the cusioning Hyaluronic acid, like Pine_net noted, that protectes DNA from damage, but once it wears down cells are unable to reproduce correctly or at all. I wouldn't call aging a disease because it happens in so many places and there's no one spot that pinpoints it.

After a few centuries your brain would run out of storage space. After that point, whats the point of living? You would be unable to store anything in long term memory.

By that time, we'll have replaced our brain with working hard drives and we can "load" memory into our brain.

We don't actually know thats possible. We could end up with a bunch of immortal people who cant remember what happened three seconds ago.

that would be one interesting world.

Really, by the time we figure out how to "stop" aging we'll have other advances. The morality of making our lives infinite would stop us from doing it. We have learned our lesson from history not to jump right into a new techonology without first looking to the consequences of it in the future.

When civilization is that far ahead we likly will be kept as pets by giant computers even though we think we are in charge.

Kind of like with cats.... :

you mean we're not already???? :eek: :eek: meow.

I don't think aging is genetic. It's just a case of your body's various organs and tissues giving out after many years of activity. No one should live forever anyway that's dumb. Besides, there are some people I WANT to die. And since federal laws prevent me from doing it, I have to wait for stupid natural causes.

That matrix uploading info into your brain stuff is entirely possible. The biggest obsticle is that we know virtually nothing about the brain, and since you can only learn more by cutting a living brain open, its hard to gain more information. All you need to know is what electrical impulses control what information. Then you basically just cut a hole in the back of a dude's head and shove a metal rod in, pump him full of info and boom! He knows some shit. The weirdest part is the fact that he would have no memory of where he learned whatever was implanted.

" We have learned our lesson from history
not to jump right into a new techonology"

Hmmm ... we have?

Then why do the expressions 'unintended consequences'
or 'unexpected consequences' come to mind?

Because we're not perfect and cannot see everything in the future.

So what have we learned then? That we are fallible and
destined to make mistakes no matter how hard we try to
avoid them?

Not too reassuring. ;)

:eek: :confused: we're not...and: we can't???:D

we have learned that technology can be very dangerous to ourselves and other living things even though it might help us achieve something great.

Sorry to get off topic for so long...

Anyone have any more info to what causes aging?

sitting around. You tend to age when you do nothing for like 50 years... Fascinating.

Ive read a bit about some supposed causes of ageing, and whats talked about alot is telomere shortening. Telomeres being the protective cap on the end of chromosomes. Its said they shorten with age, therefore (i assume) being unable to perform their functions of protecting and conserving DNA in chromosomes. Perhaps somebody can elaborate?

I'll tell you what it is that's causing aging...everytime the DNA in the cells split up to create new cells one small piece at the beginning and the end of the thread is lost and that is what's causing aging Boys and Girls. The fact that we are slowly but surely loosing our DNA. This is also one of the reasons you shouldn't clone people, because of the gentic age.

I figure until full maturity ageing is just the body getting ready for makeing more people. After that point those processes keep going on unregulated. Why should evolution prepare us for life after the last age our ancestors have born offspring at.

If someone already posted this, i didn't read it all!

If we were to have no aging at all, life would be horrible in the sense that most people would have great great great grandsons and other things like that.... bla bla bla. The world would become over-populated in a matter of days (maybe months) and noone would die naturally.

This, i think, wouldn't be the best way to go. I say noone messes with the aging process. Leave it alone!

Hm, I wonder why people would want to live forever. More life equals more crap that gets dished out to you. Not worth it I say.

Though that would help space travel...except that the travelers would be so lazy, being used to no gravity, they would possibly die or something when they encountered a planet with gravity.

There needs to be a gene that removes sex drive that is implanted along with long life, or some 100% foolproof way to stop birth(except for abstaining), or else we'll get a population bomb. A pitiful way to use good technology.

__________________________________________
There is no god, afterlife or divine love. There is only Entropy, the mother from which we were all born. She tugs our souls with the beautiful, maternal love of chaos. Why do you keep Her waiting?

I am just reading a few of these posts and wanted to reply to a couple of them. First, telomeres are implicated in aging and its true after each cell division due to imperfect replication of the telomere a small portion is lost. But telomerase can and has been used to reverse the process and essentially add more GAAC (if I remember correctly) amino acids to the telomere keeping it the same length, the problem is that this is the same thing that cancer cells do to keep themselves dividing continuously without being targeted for apoptosis. That is a very dangerous gamble. Also I wanted to throw in a few more ideas about the causes for aging. Calorie restriction has shown to increase lab mice's life span up to 30% +! Genetic mutation accumulation is also implicated in aging, but that goes hand in hand (at least in my opinion) with the telomere degredation theory. Also there is the Hayflick limit, which I haven't heard much about in regards to aging but I can't see how to discuss aging without bringing that up?. One more thing, I read a study that stated that abstaining from intercourse leads to a longer healthier life? among animals. I have also heard alot about not getting sex driving up testosterone and causing more aggression which in turn increases blood pressure, etc. , ect.

I read somewhere that an elderly brain has trouble produceing dopamine. In the same artical it said that when dopamine was added in too high a quantity the geezer became both agressive and horney.

FYI: Dopamine is used in an experimental treatment of Parkenson's disease.

Yes aging is curable we could make people last up to the 200-300yrs with genetic modifaction. we would have to do some intense engineering and make whole new species to get up and into the 1000's. This will be very effective for are children and grandchildren but what about us? Are best hope is replacing are bodies through cybornetics :D

Also if were engineering people to live forever think what that would to are population! we would have to force (or engineering people) not to breed or at lest one child per millennium limit or something? :eek:

we can't live forever.
well.. unless you can cure accidental death, and lonliness.

Originally posted by NightFall
we can't live forever.
well.. unless you can cure accidental death, and lonliness.

yes we could cure those thing by backing are selves up and messing with are personalities and souls in the same manner that we @#$% with computers.

"I just upgraded to personality driver 40.72 and I think i found a bug: I can't stop smiling?"

honestly, I don't want to live forever,

-But really, if your like me your life is the first 25 yrs, you are going to school, 16+ girls. jobs, all that insecurity bull that we all deal with, you get in debt, then graduate University. Spend time paying off that debt to what, have to deal from 24-28yrs old, finding that special someone, having a kid, buying a house, guess what...... more debt. you spend the next 15-25 yrs paying off debt, your 50-55 now, sounds like fun

Honestly living 300 yrs might not be so bad. Time to relax maybe..........

explore all the little things i want to do, because in today's society there is so much pressure to streamline your life to one spot in the business world that really to branch off and do many things is crazy.

I already figured out how to cure immortality, now you want a cure for the cure? Come on people make up your minds!

Regards,
God

hey GOD it's nice that you cured immortality but you left us with way to short a lifespan.

Give us atleast 250-500 years,

Hello, I didn't perceive this topic so I opened a similar one 'why do we age?'

Anyway, my explanation for aging is here

http://www.meucat.com/vi.html

Thanks

Miguel

Here's a person that believes if you can live for 20 years
you'll have a shot at living forever (http://www.cnn.com/2005/HEALTH/diet.fitness/02/15/one.mans.immortality.ap/index.html).

i think immortality, meh in theory it's possible but I see the 'slowing of aging' through nanotech is truely what will let us live 250-300 yrs.

meucat, you didn't see this topic because it was last discussed over 2 years ago, and Mike18ca has brought it up from it's slumber.

I must ask you now Mike, why? Several of the people invloved in this discussion don't post here regularly anymore, if at all.

just searching for aging topics in the bio/genetic forum and this one had some good info as did many others,

didn't look to see how old it was. my bad.

hey GOD it's nice that you cured immortality but you left us with way to short a lifespan.

Give us atleast 250-500 years,
If I gave you 250-500 years, then you would want 1000-2000 years. There are already too many people around. Stop being so damn fruitful already! The search for immortality is just a way of putting off what you fear.

Now, where did I put that killer asteroi... whups, did I say that out loud?

As someone involved in the " medical anti-ageing industry", perhaps I can give you all some tips.

First... brain ageing...

There has been some amazing research recently into the effects of, would you believe, berries on the processes of brain ageing.

The clear winner is the humble blueberry. Researchers supplemented the diets of rats with blueberries and found some startling effects. Memory increased, curiosity increased, agility increased, the ability to cope with a changing environment improved and... and here was the real surprise, the rats actually grew new brain cells... lots of them. The really interesting part was that the rats on blueberries in the last third of their lives (the time equivalent to humans over 60) outperformed the control rats (that is, those not on bluberries) in the first third of their lives, when those rats should have been at their mental and physical peak.

When they extended the reseach to humans who had early stage alzheimers, they found a remarkable improvement on just half a cup of berries a day.

Second... ageing as a disease...

The anti-ageing profession looks at ageing as the cumulative symptoms of a number of related diseases. This is a paradigm shift that much of the medical fraternity is slow to embrace, but there has been a marked difference in mainstream medical attitudes over the last four or five years.

For instance, it's not too long ago that med students used to be taught that diet and nutrition had no role to play in the prevention of disease. Hard to believe huh?

The causes of ageing appear to fall into four main categories, hormones, oxidation, inflammation and genes.

As we age, our hormone production across all major hormone groups declines, and at up to 15% per decade. That means that if you're in your mid forties, your hormone levels are depleted by more than 30%. By your late fifties, you're down to around 50%, and the decline gets faster from there.

Hormones? Yes, and there's a long list... Human Growth Hormone, DHEA, Pregnenalone, Melatonin, Testosterone, Oestrogen, Progesterone and a whole raft of others.

By restoring these hormones to the levels of, say, your mid thirties, you will restore vitality, shed weight, increase muscle mass, reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke, and reduce the risk of diabetes.

This isn't urban myth, or science fiction. It's real, heavily researched medicine being practiced by a growing number of mainstream doctors all over the world... BUT... you need to do it in balance. Just rushing off to your local drug store isn't going to help that much.

Medically, it's the same logic as treating diabetes (which is caused by an impaired insulin regulation and production mechanism) by giving a patient insulin.

And oxidation? Do you mean we rust? Yes... sort of.

The very process that keeps us alive, that is the burning of oxygen to provide cellular energy, is the same proces that causes us to age. The so-called anti-oxidants really do perform a vital role in keeping you alive. There are lots of them... and one of the most powerful is melatonin, a hormone that, yes, declines with age just like all the rest. A part of the reason blueberries might protect brains may lie in their high value as anti-oxidant food.

If you supplement your diet with a broad range of anti-oxidant foods, you'll be preventing some of the damage that we associate with ageing.

Now if you think that just by eating right, you will get all the right nitrition, and hence all the anti-oxidants you need, you'd be very wrong indeed. Modern farming practices, and depletion of soils has meant a quantifiable decline in the nutritional value of key foods over the last 50 years. In fact, in a study published by the American College of Nutrition, researchers looked at measures of nutritional values for 43 key garden crops in 1999, and compared them with the same crop values published in 1950. In some cases, the nutritional content had dropped by 36%!

The moral of that is that if you're not taking balanced nutritional supplements, then start.

Then there's the new kid on the block, inflammation. The more we look, the more we're coming to understand that some of the symptoms we now associate with ageing may be cased by chronic low level inflammation.

For example, it is just possible that our hormone levels decline because the capilliaries that carry blood to the glands that secrete them may be inflamed, thereby reducing the flow of blood, which in turn depresses production.

The bottom line is this... there isn't a person reading this who should not be taking at least 2grams of high quality fish oil every day (that's usually two gel caps). Fish oil is a superb natural anti-inflammatory, and the list of diseases/conditions that fish oil helps would fill a telephone book. In fact, it would be easier to write a list of diseases fish oil didn't help.

Finally, there are genes. It appears that, for now, no matter how healthy the hormone modulation, anti-oxidants, fish oil and nutritional supplements keep us, we have a genetic use-by date. In humans, that looks to be around 110-115 years of age.

So... is ageing a treatable disease? Yes, and no. Yes, in that the primary goal of research right now is to stop that long, slow, debilitating decline in physical and mental function that we currently associate with "getting old". And, depending on how much money you've got, we can be relatively successful at that. We're all still going to die, but changes in thinking within the medical profession over the next 20 years will mean that for many of us, death will come while we're hang gliding, mountain climbing or scuba diving at age 97.

For more reading, I recommend the Life Entension Foundation website at www.lef.org, and the website of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (or A4M, which is the doctors' professional association that certifies anti-aging medical specialists) at www.worldhealth.net.

critiqueing your dream:

we are animals. we eat and use the Earth's resources just like all animals, plants and so on

are you gonna help make all animals live longer and longer, or just white middle class people? Obviously making animals live longer, we would quickly realize that such a situation would spoil a BALANCE wouldn't we???

you see, the way i am looking at this scientific desire to one-up on Nature--by defying aging and the slowing down of physiology, is that it is ignore-ant and utterly selfish

you have no thought for the other species, for other peoples of the planet, for the many generations to come who need a planet not beng gobbled up by people who wont let the fuk go and want to live for ever. the whole REASON for death is so that doesn't happen. Nature is Intelligent. silly reductive man's 'reasoning'....aint!

If your dream comes true and we have 70 as the new 40, and onwards, which means more people zappin about eating for energy, touristing, using up all the LIMITEd resources, well its gonna be even more fuked up that its been isn't it?

i spose your dream includes people having babies when they are in thier 60s? might as well if they will be 'scuba diving ' in their 90s hey

There is no thought whatsover for Nature's intelligence. the REASON FOR death. deeath gives life. it makes room for others. it recycles.--THe materilasitc-mechanistic scientiicif people FEAr death. They simply cannot see a reason for it. they are unconsciousy affected by thepatriarchal mythology they believe they have rejected which also fears death! this is why they seek to defy it,
i am all for good nutrition of course. but we have to give thought to the idea of an elite few living into their hundreds further leeching all the resources from the many others--As is happening right NOW, though at least they die sooner than your dream wishes

The biggest obsticle is that we know virtually nothing about the brain, and since you can only learn more by cutting a living brain open, its hard to gain more information.

Actually, we know quite a lot about the brain these days.

Most of what we've learned has been from non-invasive techniques such as PET scans of working brains (shows glocuse use and thus maps the brain sites which are working during a given task. Pen and paper, language and object manipulation tests given by neuro-psychologists, OTs and Speech pathologists have also provided a great deal of information about how the brain works. Gone are the days of mapping the effects of horse kicks and bullet wounds on soldiers in the Russian army (work done by Luria, a pioneering neuropsychologist).

As someone involved in the " medical anti-ageing industry", perhaps I can give you all some tips.

First... brain ageing...

There has been some amazing research recently into the effects of, would you believe, berries on the processes of brain ageing.

The clear winner is the humble blueberry. Researchers supplemented the diets of rats with blueberries and found some startling effects. Memory increased, curiosity increased, agility increased, the ability to cope with a changing environment improved and... and here was the real surprise, the rats actually grew new brain cells... lots of them. The really interesting part was that the rats on blueberries in the last third of their lives (the time equivalent to humans over 60) outperformed the control rats (that is, those not on bluberries) in the first third of their lives, when those rats should have been at their mental and physical peak.

When they extended the reseach to humans who had early stage alzheimers, they found a remarkable improvement on just half a cup of berries a day.

Second... ageing as a disease...

The anti-ageing profession looks at ageing as the cumulative symptoms of a number of related diseases. This is a paradigm shift that much of the medical fraternity is slow to embrace, but there has been a marked difference in mainstream medical attitudes over the last four or five years.

For instance, it's not too long ago that med students used to be taught that diet and nutrition had no role to play in the prevention of disease. Hard to believe huh?

The causes of ageing appear to fall into four main categories, hormones, oxidation, inflammation and genes.

As we age, our hormone production across all major hormone groups declines, and at up to 15% per decade. That means that if you're in your mid forties, your hormone levels are depleted by more than 30%. By your late fifties, you're down to around 50%, and the decline gets faster from there.

Hormones? Yes, and there's a long list... Human Growth Hormone, DHEA, Pregnenalone, Melatonin, Testosterone, Oestrogen, Progesterone and a whole raft of others.

By restoring these hormones to the levels of, say, your mid thirties, you will restore vitality, shed weight, increase muscle mass, reduce your risk of heart attack and stroke, and reduce the risk of diabetes.

This isn't urban myth, or science fiction. It's real, heavily researched medicine being practiced by a growing number of mainstream doctors all over the world... BUT... you need to do it in balance. Just rushing off to your local drug store isn't going to help that much.

Medically, it's the same logic as treating diabetes (which is caused by an impaired insulin regulation and production mechanism) by giving a patient insulin.

And oxidation? Do you mean we rust? Yes... sort of.

The very process that keeps us alive, that is the burning of oxygen to provide cellular energy, is the same proces that causes us to age. The so-called anti-oxidants really do perform a vital role in keeping you alive. There are lots of them... and one of the most powerful is melatonin, a hormone that, yes, declines with age just like all the rest. A part of the reason blueberries might protect brains may lie in their high value as anti-oxidant food.

If you supplement your diet with a broad range of anti-oxidant foods, you'll be preventing some of the damage that we associate with ageing.

Now if you think that just by eating right, you will get all the right nitrition, and hence all the anti-oxidants you need, you'd be very wrong indeed. Modern farming practices, and depletion of soils has meant a quantifiable decline in the nutritional value of key foods over the last 50 years. In fact, in a study published by the American College of Nutrition, researchers looked at measures of nutritional values for 43 key garden crops in 1999, and compared them with the same crop values published in 1950. In some cases, the nutritional content had dropped by 36%!

The moral of that is that if you're not taking balanced nutritional supplements, then start.

Then there's the new kid on the block, inflammation. The more we look, the more we're coming to understand that some of the symptoms we now associate with ageing may be cased by chronic low level inflammation.

For example, it is just possible that our hormone levels decline because the capilliaries that carry blood to the glands that secrete them may be inflamed, thereby reducing the flow of blood, which in turn depresses production.

The bottom line is this... there isn't a person reading this who should not be taking at least 2grams of high quality fish oil every day (that's usually two gel caps). Fish oil is a superb natural anti-inflammatory, and the list of diseases/conditions that fish oil helps would fill a telephone book. In fact, it would be easier to write a list of diseases fish oil didn't help.

Finally, there are genes. It appears that, for now, no matter how healthy the hormone modulation, anti-oxidants, fish oil and nutritional supplements keep us, we have a genetic use-by date. In humans, that looks to be around 110-115 years of age.

So... is ageing a treatable disease? Yes, and no. Yes, in that the primary goal of research right now is to stop that long, slow, debilitating decline in physical and mental function that we currently associate with "getting old". And, depending on how much money you've got, we can be relatively successful at that. We're all still going to die, but changes in thinking within the medical profession over the next 20 years will mean that for many of us, death will come while we're hang gliding, mountain climbing or scuba diving at age 97.

For more reading, I recommend the Life Entension Foundation website at www.lef.org, and the website of the American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine (or A4M, which is the doctors' professional association that certifies anti-aging medical specialists) at www.worldhealth.net.


No matter how advanced science will be,it will never be able to stop aging only to relatively to slow it down,even if they find out everything.And,yes,oxydation affects us,much like it affects everything on Earth.It's much like scientists are trying to find a way to control all atmospheric weather,eruptions of volcanoes and supervolcanoes-that's absurd.Things like aging and the Earth's atmospheric weather control will always be totally impossible,you don't have to be scientist to know that.

Cool!

are you gonna help make all animals live longer and longer, or just white middle class people? Obviously making animals live longer, we would quickly realize that such a situation would spoil a BALANCE wouldn't we???

That "balance" was spoiled a very very long time ago, when humans started using intelligence and creativity instead of instinct.


you see, the way i am looking at this scientific desire to one-up on Nature--by defying aging and the slowing down of physiology, is that it is ignore-ant and utterly selfish

Actually, this IS nature's reasoning. Nature already does EXACTLY what we're trying to do. You see, our role in nature is not merely to breed. In any species, when you delay reproduction over a few generations, you extend life span. In other words, if a species breeds later in life, then individual members of that species will live longer. ANY species! It doesn't matter whether you're a fruit fly, coelacanth, hawk or human. If, over a number of generations, that species delays reproduction until later in life, it extends the life span and health span of that species.

This is nature's way of ensuring that the strongest, fittest, and most intelligent are able to propogate, and in higher species, it allows the young to benefit from the knowledge and experience of the older, without being weighed down by the need to look after them.



If your dream comes true and we have 70 as the new 40, and onwards, which means more people zappin about eating for energy, touristing, using up all the LIMITEd resources, well its gonna be even more fuked up that its been isn't it?

This is not a dream. It is real medicine, and I hope 70 does become the new 40, because the human, physical and financial resources required to sustain an infirm, demented geriatric are FAR GREATER than are required to sustain a 40 year old, even with that 40 year old's self consumption. The "silly" reasoning here is the reasoning that says growing feeble and infirm is just part of growing old.



THe materilasitc-mechanistic scientiicif people FEAr death. They simply cannot see a reason for it. they are unconsciousy affected by thepatriarchal mythology they believe they have rejected which also fears death! this is why they seek to defy it,

I do not fear death. I fear being confined to a wheelchair while my grandchild, who I have known and loved all his life and who I no longer recognise, spoon feeds me baby food, wipes my arse and changes my oxygen bottle every day for the next ten years.

But perhaps in your thinking, we should all have use by dates... compulsory euthenasia where, say, on our 50th, or 40th, or even 30th birthday, we're put down to make way for a new generation. (Sounds like a plot for a really bad B grade science fiction film... oh, wait... someones already made it)



i am all for good nutrition of course. but we have to give thought to the idea of an elite few living into their hundreds further leeching all the resources from the many others--As is happening right NOW, though at least they die sooner than your dream wishes

You can't choose. The very research which is telling you what "good nutrition" really is, is the same research that's going to extend both my life span AND my health span.

And if you think it's indecent, somehow, that for now, only the wealthier can afford to benefit from this research, then you do not understand how the supply chain works. You do not understand that just about anything you take for granted today started its life being so expensive that it was out of the reach of all but "the few leeches who live of the resources of others".

Perhaps, comrade, you need to study a little more history before you weigh into debates about the future.

huh?...you mean you think you've made good points?
wishfull thinking not thought out more like dude.

I think it would help space exploration and possibly migrating to other planets due to over population.

To migrate to other planets, you need a colossal amount of energy and technology. Both of which are currently not sufficient enough to do such a venture.

Even then, that planet would overpopulate due to steady growth (overpopulation being defined as when a population exceeds maintainable levels and/or depletes a key resource that supports it's numbers [space, oil, natural gas, agricultural land, etc.]) and we'd be right back in the same boat again.

YES..........!
the dream of the patriarchs.
To escape Nature, and 'return' to the stars. the roots of this dream is plain to see in its mythology.
it's not up there we need to explore, but the Deep. Understanding the natrual ALLY of death. not in a nihilistic way, but doing so enriches life

That "balance" was spoiled a very very long time ago, when humans started using intelligence and creativity instead of instinct.



Actually, this IS nature's reasoning. Nature already does EXACTLY what we're trying to do. You see, our role in nature is not merely to breed. In any species, when you delay reproduction over a few generations, you extend life span. In other words, if a species breeds later in life, then individual members of that species will live longer. ANY species! It doesn't matter whether you're a fruit fly, coelacanth, hawk or human. If, over a number of generations, that species delays reproduction until later in life, it extends the life span and health span of that species.

This is nature's way of ensuring that the strongest, fittest, and most intelligent are able to propogate, and in higher species, it allows the young to benefit from the knowledge and experience of the older, without being weighed down by the need to look after them.



This is not a dream. It is real medicine, and I hope 70 does become the new 40, because the human, physical and financial resources required to sustain an infirm, demented geriatric are FAR GREATER than are required to sustain a 40 year old, even with that 40 year old's self consumption. The "silly" reasoning here is the reasoning that says growing feeble and infirm is just part of growing old.



I do not fear death. I fear being confined to a wheelchair while my grandchild, who I have known and loved all his life and who I no longer recognise, spoon feeds me baby food, wipes my arse and changes my oxygen bottle every day for the next ten years.

But perhaps in your thinking, we should all have use by dates... compulsory euthenasia where, say, on our 50th, or 40th, or even 30th birthday, we're put down to make way for a new generation. (Sounds like a plot for a really bad B grade science fiction film... oh, wait... someones already made it)



You can't choose. The very research which is telling you what "good nutrition" really is, is the same research that's going to extend both my life span AND my health span.

And if you think it's indecent, somehow, that for now, only the wealthier can afford to benefit from this research, then you do not understand how the supply chain works. You do not understand that just about anything you take for granted today started its life being so expensive that it was out of the reach of all but "the few leeches who live of the resources of others".

Perhaps, comrade, you need to study a little more history before you weigh into debates about the future.

Chestarth,none lives forever,and nothing lasts forever.humans didn't make the imbalance in the nature,since scientists have proofs that nature was imbalanced in past,too.Humans have almost zero effect on nature.
Medicine will never be able to give us eternal life,not because of its genes that can be repaired,but there are many other factors here,one of them is that we oxydate like everything and everyone else on the planet,we're totally powerless against it.

How do you work out,"humans have almost a zero effect on Nature"...?

what, you mean billions of us have no effect on Nature? not likely is it? and what about the impoverishment of Nature for many others, the extinction of thousands of species, the cutting down of vast amounts of forests, global warming (please dont say therer is absolute proof we have no part in it)......intoxicating the seas, air, water, etc etc

Of course we are having a devastating effect on Nature due to our ignoreance of Nature's intelligence

How do you work out,"humans have almost a zero effect on Nature"...?

what, you mean billions of us have no effect on Nature? not likely is it? and what about the impoverishment of Nature for many others, the extinction of thousands of species, the cutting down of vast amounts of forests, global warming (please dont say therer is absolute proof we have no part in it)......intoxicating the seas, air, water, etc etc

Of course we are having a devastating effect on Nature due to our ignoreance of Nature's intelligence


Simply,because scientists already said that there have been natural global warmings,natural imbalances,fluctuations of magnetic fields,everything that happens today,in the past has already happened.We don't have devastating effect on nature,we have only devastating on ourselves.Human species will destroy itself.Thousands of species have gone forever,so what?Nature is wiping out all kinds of species all the time in these 4 billion years.Let's suppose humans are not at the top of food chain,but pigs are,for example.And let's suppose they are equally intelligent,emotional and with all other characteristics that people have.Pigs would act the same as people are-they would destroy forests,and forget about all other species and they will destroy the other species,as well.For survival is important to eat meat,so if you eat meat you eat animal-it has to be like that,otherwise because of that humanity we would be all dead.All so called moral,religious,justiceful and love values are getting completely lost when species are hungry and thirsty-nature is cruel,in general.
Nature doesn't have intelligence,it's a closed biosystem.

Simply,because scientists already said that there have been natural global warmings,natural imbalances,fluctuations of magnetic fields,everything that happens today,in the past has already happened.

d))Yes. NATURAL.

We don't have devastating effect on nature,we have only devastating on ourselves.

d)))WE aren't some alien force that's dropped INTO 'Nature'. we ARE Nature. so what we do to Nature we do to ourselves. Obviously

Human species will destroy itself.Thousands of species have gone forever,so what?

d))oh dear. VERY compassionate i must say.







Nature is wiping out all kinds of species all the time in these 4 billion years.Let's suppose humans are not at the top of food chain,but pigs are,for example.And let's suppose they are equally intelligent,emotional and with all other characteristics that people have.Pigs would act the same as people are-they would destroy forests,and forget about all other species and they will destroy the other species,as well.For survival is important to eat meat,so if you eat meat you eat animal-it has to be like that,otherwise because of that humanity we would be all dead.All so called moral,religious,justiceful and love values are getting completely lost when species are hungry and thirsty-nature is cruel,in general.

d))you pain all with your bush dude, or girl. it is not ALL hman species who have been so UTTERLY ignorant and selfish and hateful towards Nature you know. you should broaden your horizons and look at mythology, and the VISION of the fkers doing what they are doing to Nature. havng the very same attitude as your education seems to have given you. "so what!"!

Nature doesn't have intelligence,it's a closed biosystem.

no. YOU are closes biosystem. you areclosed off to insight about Intelligence of Nature, otherwise you wouldn't speak such uninformed nonesense

no. YOU are closes biosystem. you areclosed off to insight about Intelligence of Nature, otherwise you wouldn't speak such uninformed nonesense

I'm uninformed?You're the one who is uninformed,I'm just stating what scientists said and investigated about how much people affected Earth,in the past these were all common things,natural processes,like hole in the ozone layer and etc..What intelligence nature has?Zero,it doesn't store memory,it doesn't have feelings,you have give me one good proof that nature has intelligence.

Is Aging A Curable Disease?

Not unless time can be turned backwards, which is currently impossible.

Yeah, but why would anyone want to live forever anyways. Can you imagine all the experiences that you would accumulate that would make your life more-and-more complex. That's not the problem, but because our mental intellectual ability is limited, there would be so much that we would forget that what's the point? You'd start forgetting everything you've done and be back to stage one, or worse yet, other people would start questioning you abou this or that and you wouldn't be able to remember. Then you'd feel like you're stupid. Isn't the limit on our age ability set just right about now - maybe 100 years.

"there's no time for us...
there's no place for us..
what is this thing, that builds our dreams?
yet, slips away, from us...

who wants, to live, forever?"

Another bump eh?