Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

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GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

williatw wrote:
hanelyp wrote:I doubt a fountain of youth would be as simple as a single factor, or without side effects, or we'd already see it in the wild.
But adult stem cells have only been recently added to our bag of tricks so to speak. I assume they mean IPS (Induced Pleuripotent stem cells). I would think they are also talking about life extension with some rejuvenation occuring. Seem to me if you could make organs from your own cells(not what they are talking about here but mentioned elsewhere) you could make as needed genetically compatible replacement organs. That by itself would extend life by decades.
This was the subject of a paper I wrote in philosophy of technology back in the early 90's. Imagine the social issues that arise with radical life extension, especially if it's as expensive as we'd guess given the need to replace organs. Unless such life extension is offered to everyone, you will have class warfare. But if it's too expensive to be offered to everyone (which is likely), then what you're forced to choose between is providing the best medical treatments possible, or severe class warfare, perhaps even civil war.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

GIThruster wrote:
williatw wrote:
hanelyp wrote:I doubt a fountain of youth would be as simple as a single factor, or without side effects, or we'd already see it in the wild.
But adult stem cells have only been recently added to our bag of tricks so to speak. I assume they mean IPS (Induced Pleuripotent stem cells). I would think they are also talking about life extension with some rejuvenation occuring. Seem to me if you could make organs from your own cells(not what they are talking about here but mentioned elsewhere) you could make as needed genetically compatible replacement organs. That by itself would extend life by decades.
This was the subject of a paper I wrote in philosophy of technology back in the early 90's. Imagine the social issues that arise with radical life extension, especially if it's as expensive as we'd guess given the need to replace organs. Unless such life extension is offered to everyone, you will have class warfare. But if it's too expensive to be offered to everyone (which is likely), then what you're forced to choose between is providing the best medical treatments possible, or severe class warfare, perhaps even civil war.


I think most of the expense in medicine is artificially created. It seems to me that it is theoretically possible to do in stem-cell-research/growing-organs, the same thing that happened with crowd sourcing digital technology and computer programing. An explosion in capability.

I think at some point a lot of people will be able to manufacture custom organs. What is keeping the price up is the artificial constraints put on the technology by Government. Fortunately, other countries will give us relief from the constraints of a governmentally imposed semi-monopoly.

India is already a major source for medical tourism.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

GIThruster
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Post by GIThruster »

I don't know what you mean by "artificially created" but major surgery is very expensive here in the US. The average person cannot afford to pay $50-250k for each organ they might want to have replaced, plus the cost of the actual replacement item. If what you're suggesting is, this class warfare could be avoided by people traveling to other countries for their organ replacements, I imagine that is possible, but given the lower standards for education and medicine in most parts of the world, I'd expect US law to lock that down. Furthermore, there is a very large percentage of citizens in the US that could not afford the cheaper rates overseas as well. So you're still stuck with many millions of people crying they are entitled to a heart transplant regardless of their ability to pay for it. And if the USG pays Mr. Medicaid for a heart transplant, how can it then not pay for Ms. Wallstreet's?

What you eventually arrive at is class warfare driven by economics and the severe benefits of life extension. I argued in the paper, we might even see a return to indentured servitude, that could easily last decades, as a person pays off their health bills so they can live for hundreds of years.
"Courage is not just a virtue, but the form of every virtue at the testing point." C. S. Lewis

williatw
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Post by williatw »

GIThruster wrote:I don't know what you mean by "artificially created" but major surgery is very expensive here in the US. The average person cannot afford to pay $50-250k for each organ they might want to have replaced, plus the cost of the actual replacement item. If what you're suggesting is, this class warfare could be avoided by people traveling to other countries for their organ replacements, I imagine that is possible, but given the lower standards for education and medicine in most parts of the world, I'd expect US law to lock that down. Furthermore, there is a very large percentage of citizens in the US that could not afford the cheaper rates overseas as well. So you're still stuck with many millions of people crying they are entitled to a heart transplant regardless of their ability to pay for it. And if the USG pays Mr. Medicaid for a heart transplant, how can it then not pay for Ms. Wallstreet's?
What you eventually arrive at is class warfare driven by economics and the severe benefits of life extension. I argued in the paper, we might even see a return to indentured servitude, that could easily last decades, as a person pays off their health bills so they can live for hundreds of years.
Well let’s see...the US government might try to lock it down sure it will work as well as drug interdiction does. After all in this case we are talking about living vs dying where in the case of drugs it’s just about getting high. To your basic point, there probably will be class warfare. After all the difference between me and my boss is he lives in a nicer/bigger house drives a fancier car, etc. Okay, I am not incapable of feeling a twinge of envy (deserved or not), but it’s not to the degree where I would seriously contemplate firebombing his house. In the end he will age & die just like me. Now we are as you say rapidly approaching a crossroads where the difference between rich and poor is the difference between living and dying literally. Fifty or so years from now you go to your 50yr high school reunion you notice a stark reality. The poor/average folk aging about like we are aging now. The "rich" look scarcely older than 30 if that. Not just a trick of cosmetic surgery or some such illusion, they are almost literally younger than their less successful brethren. That is a whole different place than we are now. I would say some form of class warfare is probably unavoidable. You will live as long as you have the bucks to keep yourself alive, with vastly different quality of life.

Luzr
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Post by Luzr »

CaptainBeowulf wrote: Although, those of us who are relatively younger and have no major health problems may make it to somewhere around 150 years with the aforementioned organ replacements grown from our own cells.
Good thing is that each year you "survive", new technolgies might emerge to make you live even longer. With 150 years, maybe even problems with CNS could be solved....
Also, concerning the thing about ocean liners - I seem to recall various sci-fi stories over the last several decades also having cities built in domes under the sea...
IMO, much more expensive than simple liners a much less fun to live in.

rjaypeters
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Post by rjaypeters »

Luzr wrote:Oceans! Given that most of earth surface is water, what about living in gigantic nuclear powered self-sustainable ships cruising forever through oceans? Sound like quite a fun way to spend all these longevity years...
I have long thought humanity ought to move almost all of our population onto the high seas (the nautical equivalents of deserts) to give the landmasses a chance to recover from our carrying costs. After all, the oceans cover about 70% of the earth's area, think of the freedom!

Vacations would be spent on land.

Lots of good engineering would be required! And politics might become even more interesting, too. Don't like the neighbors? Cruise some place else.

This idea is one reason I was interested in the Millenium Project and still am interested in Seasteading.
"Aqaba! By Land!" T. E. Lawrence

R. Peters

williatw
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Post by williatw »

http://nextbigfuture.com/2012/01/interv ... ey-on.html
Recent interview with Aubrey de Grey. To anyone interested.

kurt9
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by kurt9 »

williatw wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/ ... ain-youth/
Probably BS...but you never know
The article, like most journalism, is so vague as to be nearly worthless. No mention of how this Factor X rejuvenates adult stem cells. Does it extend the telomere groups in these stem cells? Or does it do something to rejuvenate the mitochondria? The source paper would help clarify if this is a real breakthrough or simply bogosity.

williatw
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Re: Factor X have we finally found the fountain of Youth?

Post by williatw »

kurt9 wrote:
williatw wrote:http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/01/ ... ain-youth/
Probably BS...but you never know
The article, like most journalism, is so vague as to be nearly worthless. No mention of how this Factor X rejuvenates adult stem cells. Does it extend the telomere groups in these stem cells? Or does it do something to rejuvenate the mitochondria? The source paper would help clarify if this is a real breakthrough or simply bogosity.
Yes...my impression is those things are not being clarified because they simply don't know why it seems to work. After all, could not one discover something that seems to work but not know why it works? Of course that could mean it was BS, but then one would think in that case that they would have some kind of a story about why it worked.

williatw
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Post by williatw »

http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/3465499.htm
Standard Aubrey Degrey talk...interesting if haven't heard him before. ihttp://nextbigfuture.com/2012/03/liveblogging-john-maudlin-talks-about.htmlf
This is actually more interesting IMHO:
From the link: John Mauldin has a free newsletter on financial information.
Millenium Wave Securities.
He discussed stem cell breakthroughs with ISCO (International Stem Cell Company) and Biotime
ISCO can turn blood into Parthogenic stem cells into Organs
50 stem cell types (like blood cell types) can cover 95% of humanity and matching would prevent rejection.
Eventually there will be stem cell banks.
Low hanging fruit are grown corneas.
In 1 to 2 years there will grown corneas implanted into people in India
Also growing skin for burn victims


Wish he gave more info and links..sounds like he is talking about their being an "organ bank" like our current blood banks where the 50 or so types(histocompatible?) of stem cells could be used to create any organ desired for replacement.

CKay
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Post by CKay »

hanelyp wrote:I doubt a fountain of youth would be as simple as a single factor, or without side effects, or we'd already see it in the wild.
There's a jellyfish that once it has reached sexual maturity and reproduced can then regress back to a polyp stage and can switch between the immature and mature stages forever. In other words, so long as it avoids predators and misadventure and the like, it's effectively immortal.

Immortality isn't more widely seen in nature most likely because it doesn't confer any great advantage for the successful transmission of genes - after all, from the sell-fish gene's point of view, that is all an organism is for.

Netmaker
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Joined: Sat Sep 11, 2010 8:17 pm

Some thoughts on CNS Preservation

Post by Netmaker »

Consider using a sperm analogue to deliver new nuclear and mitochondrial material to cells of the nervous system (or any human cells in the body, skip the bacterial cells).

On cell penetration look at using the same mechanism that eggs do to prevent penetration by multiple sperm. Or creating a mechanism that changes the cell protein coat so that the analogues ignore the cell with the change wearing off after a certain period of time.

Potentially, unravel and decode the existing nuclear and mitochondrial DNA to transfer any epigenetic programming with screening to not transfer deleterious modifications.

Destroy the existing cell nucleus and potentially the existing mitochondria as well. The issue with the mitochondria is that the cell may contain multiple mitochondria and so you may wish to let them die on their own (if feasible) rather than worrying about destroying and duplicating them all.

Other issues to be concerned about would be removing any "cruft" that has built up in the cell and not properly disposed of. Reconditioning of the cell wall? Replacement of other cell organelles besides the mitochondria although to my knowledge only the nucleus and mitochondria contain DNA. Reducing the trauma to the body of undergoing the procedure. Potentially by rate limiting the # of analogues introduced at a time (and tagging them with a tracker to determine their progress, rate limiting them by restricting the cell types they can enter/transform and possibly by inducing a state of hibernation/suspended animation (hydrogen sulfide/cold) in the patient undergoing the procedure.

My concerns with introducing neural stem cells is how do you replicate the existing connection patterns so as to preserve knowledge/personality and with respect to extremely long nerves - motor function. Also are cells epigenetic modifications consistent in all cells of the body, in cells of a particular type or are there beneficial/necessary modifications to cells on a local basis?

Diogenes
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Post by Diogenes »

choff wrote:Quite often what works on mice doesn't work on humans, but assuming it does and we all live three times longer, overpopulation becomes an issue. Only countered by having a third as many children, babies would become a very rare sight.
I would suggest we worry about that problem when it comes. :)
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

seedload
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Post by seedload »

I think it is pretty clear that this new treatment will work for a while, long enough that everyone will be using it, but eventually it will stop working, at which point everyone will inexplicably change into Zombies.
Stick the thing in a tub of water! Sheesh!

KitemanSA
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Post by KitemanSA »

Kind of like the socialists?

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