Lifeboat Foundation

Playing God is a common objection to developing technologies to increase human lifespan and yet it is never used in relation to current therapies already available.

Here I’ll point out another of the articles going up at the Life Extension Advocacy Foundation, this time on the topic of the naturalistic fallacy where it occurs in opposition to healthy life extension. Our community would like to build medical therapies that address the causes of aging, thereby ending age-related disease and greatly extending healthy human life spans. It has always surprised me to find that most people, at least initially, object to this goal. It seems perfectly and straightforwardly obvious to me that aging to death, suffering considerably along the way, is just as much a problem to be overcome as any other medical condition that causes pain and mortality. Yet opposition exists, and that opposition is one of the greatest challenges faced when raising funding and pushing forward with research and development of rejuvenation therapies.

When it comes to treating aging as a medical condition the naturalistic fallacy is voiced in this way: aging is natural, what is natural is good, and therefore we shouldn’t tamper with aging. If you look around at your houses, your computers, your modern medicine, and consider that such an objection is perhaps just a little late to the game, and hard to hold in a self-consistent manner, then you’re probably not alone. Notably, the same objection is rarely brought up when it comes to treating specific age-related diseases, or in the matter of therapies that already exist. People who are uncomfortable about radical changes to the course of aging and who speak out against the extension of human life are nonetheless almost all in favor of cancer research, treatments for heart disease, and an end to Alzheimer’s disease. Yet age-related diseases and aging are the same thing, the same forms of damage and dysfunction, only differing by degree and by the names they are given.

Continue reading “Addressing Naturalistic Objections to Extending Healthy Human Life Spans” »

The Cellage synthetic biology digest.

The field of synthetic biology holds the potential to treat a variety of aging processes and treat age-related diseases. Synthetic biology allows biologists to create new functions in cells by creating synthetic cellular programs and could allow us to combat age-related diseases in ways never before considered.

#aging #crowdfundthecure

Continue reading “Synthetic biology could combat the aging process” »

Not sure where the author got his messaging on AI and QC (namely AI more fluid and human like due to QC); but it sounds a lot like my words. However, there is one lost piece to the AI story even with QC to make AI more human like and that is when you have Synbio involved in the mix. In fact I can not wait to see what my friend Alex Zhavoronkov and his team does with QC in his anti-aging work. I expect to see many great things with QC, AI, and Synbio together.

Nonetheless, I am glad to see others also seeing the capability that many of us do see.

Applications of Artificial Intelligence In Use Today

Continue reading “10 Powerful Examples Of Artificial Intelligence In Use Today” »

More data for caloric restriction and health benefits.

The long-term response to calorie restriction has long been of interest to the aging research community, and particularly in the past few decades as the tools of biotechnology allowed for a more detailed analysis of the metabolic changes that accompany a reduced calorie intake. A restricted diet extends healthy life spans in near all species tested to date, though to a much greater extent in short-lived species than in long-lived species such as our own. Considerable effort is presently devoted to the development of drugs that can replicate some fraction of calorie restriction — more effort than is merited in my opinion, given that the optimal result for extension of human life span achieved via calorie restriction mimetics will be both hard to achieve safely and very limited in comparison to the gains possible through rejuvenation therapies after the SENS model. Repairing damage within the existing system should be expected to outdo attempts to change the system in order to slow the accumulation of damage, in both efficiency and size of result.

Not everyone is interested in the long term, however. The short term health benefits of calorie restriction appear quickly and are surprisingly similar in mice and humans, given that calorie restriction in mice results in significantly extended life and calorie restriction in humans does not. The beneficial adjustments to metabolism and organ function are for the most part larger and more reliable than similar gains presently achievable through forms of medicine. That is more a case of medical science having a long way to go yet than calorie restriction being wondrous, however. Still, the short term benefits are coming to the attention to wider audience within the research and medical community.

Continue reading “Calorie Restriction as a Means to Improve Surgical Outcomes” »

Grassroots funding of fundamental science and private enterprize will lead the way in rejuvenation biotechnology not the traditional funding sources from Government which are shrinking every year.

It is important to understand that innovation and progress is unlikely to come from the Government and the traditional grant system which is shrinking every year. Rejuvenation biotechnology will likely be funded with a mix of fundraising for fundamental breakthrough technologies followed by private enterprize taking discoveries to market. This is why supporting science is critcial as relying on the Government to innovate and drive progress is unlikely to yield results anytime soon.

“Today, researchers compete for government grants at increasingly shorter intervals and with diminishing chances of success: Less than 1 in 5 grant applications succeeds. This inhibits risk taking.

Continue reading “Don’t Thank Big Government for Medical Breakthroughs” »

Heck of a cheerleader. First Amendment Aspirin?

It’s an exciting time to be an elderly mouse. Researchers believe that by removing senescent cells (cells with a persistent damage response), which naturally accumulate with age, senior rodents can regrow hair, run faster, and improve organ function. This strategy may bring us one step closer to the “fountain of youth,” but it’s important to be cautious and not hype, says researcher of aging Peter de Keizer of the Erasmus University Medical Center in the Netherlands. In an Opinion published December 29 in Trends in Molecule Medicine, he discusses the milestones the field still needs to hit before translation in humans is ready for discussion.

#aging #crowdfundthecure

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/12/161229141835.htm

Continue reading “Anti-aging therapies targeting senescent cells: Facts and fiction” »

121 people including me have already sent their gifts to CellAge project, what about you? wink

Hello everyone! There are some great news, today CellAge campaign successfully reached amazing $6 000! This makes 15% of the goal, and we are very grateful to 121 brave people who decided to support the development of a universal test system to target senescent cells!

If you have not yet supported the campaign with a donation, here is a reminder that the best New Year gift for scientists is funding to launch another longevity study! bigsmile

Continue reading “The best gift scientists can have for the New Year is funding for another longevity research!” »

My grandparents taught me the importance of a power nap; and it does help.

We’re not sure what the boss would have to say about it if you suddenly downed tools and made a decision to have a little sleep, but new research has found that taking an hour’s nap after lunch can have a number of health benefits, including preventing brain ageing.

The study conducted among the older Chinese men by a team of worldwide researchers concentrated mainly on post-lunchtime napping and its impact on the health of elderly people.

Continue reading “Hour-Long Nap May Boost Brain Function in Older Adults” »