Is Aging a Disease That can be Cured?

[Liffrea]

"It's a repair and maintenance approach to extending the functional life span of a human body. It's just like maintaining the functional life span of a classic car, or a house. We know -- because people do it -- that there is no limit to how long you can do that. Once you have a sufficiently comprehensive panel of interventions to get rid of damage and maintain these things, then, they can last indefinitely. The only reason we don't see that in the human body now is that the panel of interventions we have available to us today is not sufficiently comprehensive."
~ Aubrey de Grey, molecular biologist and author of End of Aging

http://www.dailygalaxy.com/my_weblog/2010/02/is-aging-a-disease-that-can-be-cured.html

[Svipdag]

I think that it is probably part of our genetic "blueprint". We can ill afford to clutter up the world with immortals.

[Northern_Paladin]

Yes but they need the Top Scientific Minds to focus on this and Billions if Not Trillions in Research Grants. They don't have that now, which is why I'm Pessimistic about any breakthroughs in this Area. But Just Imagine never having to Age or being able to Reverse your Age to the Physiological Optimum of 20-28.

I don't know about the Rest of You but I wouldn't mind living for 10,000 Years. Just imagine all things you get to see.

Men Naturally desire Youth and Immortality its within our Genetic Make up to Desire Such things. The Urge to Stay Alive is the Strongest of Human Drives.

[nisse]

We don't even know what goes wrong to cause progeria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeria)...Don't have much hope for curing aging...That guy's just telling people what they want to hear :ohwell:

[Northern_Paladin]

Not entirely true. They do know Progeria is Genetic and which defects in the Genetic schema result in a malfunctioning of the Aging Process.

Lamin A

Nuclear lamin A is a protein scaffold on the inner edge of the nucleus that helps organize nuclear processes such as RNA and DNA synthesis.

Prelamin A contains a CAAX box at the C-terminus of the protein (where C is a cysteine and A is any aliphatic amino acids). This ensures that the cysteine is farnesylated and allows prelamin A to bind membranes, specifically the nuclear membrane. After prelamin A has been localized to the cell nuclear membrane, the C-terminal amino acids, including the farnesylated cysteine, are cleaved off by a specific protease. The resulting protein, now lamin A, is no longer membrane-bound, and carries out functions inside the nucleus.

In HGPS, the recognition site that the enzyme requires for cleavage of prelamin A to lamin A is mutated. Lamin A cannot be produced, and prelamin A builds up on the nuclear membrane, causing a characteristic nuclear blebbing.[27] This results in the premature aging symptoms of progeria, although the mechanism connecting the misshapen nucleus to the symptoms is not known.

A study that compared HGPS patient cells with the skin cells from LMNA young and elderly human subjects found similar defects in the HGPS and elderly cells, including down-regulation of certain nuclear proteins, increased DNA damage, and demethylation of histone, leading to reduced heterochromatin.[28] Nematodes over their lifespan show progressive lamin changes comparable to HGPS in all cells but neurons and gametes.[29] These studies suggest that lamin A defects contribute to normal aging.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeria

[Óttar]

I figure there are 7 billion people on the planet and for 1/2 a million years we've developed all this stuff, but we haven't figured out how to not die. I think this is an endeavour worth putting more resources towards, don't you think? I mean if only for the sake of knowing for sure how to not die.

[nisse]

Not entirely true. They do know Progeria is Genetic and which defects in the Genetic schema result in a malfunctioning of the Aging Process.

We know the mutation (and it's not only Lamin A than causes progeroid diseases). We don't know how Lamin A cycling is affected by incomplete post-translational processing and don't know how the diffect in Lamin A cycling causes accelerated aging.

[Arne]

People like Caucescu thought to prevent aging by injecting baby blood.

[Loki]

I figure there are 7 billion people on the planet and for 1/2 a million years we've developed all this stuff, but we haven't figured out how to not die. I think this is an endeavour worth putting more resources towards, don't you think? I mean if only for the sake of knowing for sure how to not die.

It is very necessary for humans to die, though. As Svipdag noted, we cannot fill the earth up with people without losing the older ones. Either that, or we should stop giving birth to new people. The earth is already too full of us humans -- planet earth's parasitic infestation. :(

[Liffrea]

Who would want to live forever? At least confined to earth anyway, a big universe might keep us occupied for a while, or we would have to invent out own inner or outer universe.

If you’re romantically inclined perhaps aging is a purposeful thing, we are meant to die not just for biological reasons but because we aren’t going anywhere anymore, we have fulfilled our potential to our ability, time for the next chapter.

Or if we see the universe as cold and dark we can view it more heroically, live young, burn out, carve your name in stone and stick two fingers up at the indifference of life.

Either way it’s got to be better than watching the stars go out one by one and waiting for your turn to burn.

Immortality……not thanks, I’ll take living life instead.

[Northern_Paladin]

If the Technology was developed I doubt there would be Problems finding a Market for it. Women spend Billions trying to look Young. Men obsess of their Mortality as well.

Eternal Life isn't Possible under the Current Schema of Physics which states the Universe will "Die" making Intelligence life impossible.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_death

Elizabeth Bathory thought Youth could be attained by bathing in Virgins Blood.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Bathory

[lei.talk]

Cell aging mechanism discovered
Salk scientists say

Damage to histones key, can be partially reversed

BRADLEY J. FIKES (http://www.nctimes.com/search/?l=50&sd=desc&s=start_time&f=html&byline=By%20BRADLEY%20J.%20FIKES%20-%20bfikes@nctimes.com) | Sunday, October 3, 2010 5:51 pm |

LA JOLLA (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Jolla,_San_Diego,_California) ---- Salk Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salk_Institute_for_Biological_Studies) scientists say they have discovered a major key to how human and other animal cells age. They have also partly reversed the process in the laboratory, they write in a new study.

Damage to vital proteins called histones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Histone) plays a big role in cellular aging, said Jan Karlseder (http://www.salk.edu/faculty/karlseder.html), a Salk associate professor who led the study. Histone binds with DNA to form a substance called chromatin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromatin), the main component of chromosomes.

Shortening of telomeres (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomere), the protective tips of chromosomes, leads to production of defective histone, Karlseder said. This shortening occurs each time cells divide, and eventually the cells stop dividing, a state known as cellular senescence (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senescence#Cellular_senescence).

Telomeres have long been suspected of playing an important role in aging. Research on their role began in the 1930s, culminating with a Nobel Prize awarded in 2009 to scientists who figured out that telomeres regulate cell division. But how telomeres did this remained a mystery.

The new discovery is likely to help in developing tests to measure the risk of an individual getting certain aging-related diseases or cancer, Karlseder said. That's the goal of UC San Francisco molecular biologist Elizabeth Blackburn (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Blackburn), he said. Blackburn shared the 2009 Nobel Prize for her work on telomeres.

"I can well imagine that once the tools have advanced far enough to measure the telomere length, chromatin state and integrity of individual cells and individual chromosomes, we can use this as a prognostic parameter for age-related diseases and cancer," Karlseder said.

However, treatments for aging in general are much further off, he said, because many factors are involved in the aging process.

The research was published online Oct. 3 in the scientific journal Nature Structural and Molecular Biology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_Structural_%26_Molecular_Biology). Salk postdoctoral fellow Roddy O'Sullivan (http://sites.google.com/site/karlsederlab/roddyo'sullivanpostdoctoralfellow) assisted Karlseder, along with other contributors.

Clues to disease

Steven Artandi (http://hematology.stanford.edu/research/artandi_lab.html), a Stanford University School of Medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_University_School_of_Medicine)researcher familiar with Karlseder's work, called it "a fascinating new finding in cellular aging."

"It's a dramatic effect, where telomere dysfunction is reprogramming histones throughout the nucleus," said Artandi, an associate professor of medicine at the Stanford Center on Longevity (http://longevity.stanford.edu/).

The work may lead to a better understanding of the body's delicate balance between normal cell renewal and cancer, Artandi said. Perpetual regeneration of cells would appear to help prolong life. But cancer is also characterized by immortal cells that never stop growing and dividing, Artandi said.

On the other extreme, cells that divide too few times also cause diseases, especially those of premature aging. In one such disease, progeria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Progeria), telomeres are unusually short. Patients with the disease age at an unusually rapid rate, starting when they are toddlers.

Karlseder's lab is studying Werner syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Werner_syndrome), a disease causing premature aging. Those with it age rapidly, starting in adolescence or early adulthood. By 30 or 40, those with the disease look like those in old age. Karlseder said the research might explain why symptoms appear when they do.

What goes wrong

When cells divide, the ends of chromosomes slowly erode, carrying the risk of losing important genetic information. Because telomeres are at the end of normal chromosomes, they erode first, preserving the rest of the chromosomes. After a certain number of cell divisions, telomeres become so short they send a message that makes the cells stop dividing.

The chromosomes are formed with the help of histones, best known for winding up the long DNA double helix into chromatin so it can be easily stored.

But histones serve as much more than molecular packing peanuts.

Histones are extremely similar across species boundaries, even those as distantly related as man and yeast. Scientists interpret the similarity to mean that evolution has "conserved" histones as species diverge, because it is so fundamental to life that it can't be changed much without endangering the cell's viability.

Chromatin from older cells, which have been through many divisions, shows clear differences from chromatin from younger cells, he said.

Youthful appearance

The scientists partially restored chromatin in older cells to its youthful appearance by genetically engineering them to make telomerase (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telomerase), an enzyme that restores the length of telomeres. This enzyme is usually produced in the adult human body only by cells that need to divide repeatedly, such as reproductive cells. It's also produced by embryonic stem cells (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryonic_stem_cell).

However, telomerase is also made by nearly all cancer cells, which makes them virtually immortal, Karlseder said. So permanently activating telomerase would put cells on a path toward cancer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer).

"Whether a short burst of telomerase could be beneficial is simply too early to tell," Karlseder said.

Other contributors to the study include Stuart Schreiber (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stuart_Schreiber), of the Broad Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broad_Institute) of Harvard and MIT and Howard Hughes Medical Institute (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Hughes_Medical_Institute), and his postdoctoral fellow, Stefan Kubicek (http://www.cemm.oeaw.ac.at/index.php?id=155).

The study was funded by the National Institutes of Health (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Institutes_of_Health), the George E. Hewitt Foundation for Medical Research, and the Ernst Schering Research Foundation and the European Union.

[Eldritch]

It is very necessary for humans to die, though. As Svipdag noted, we cannot fill the earth up with people without losing the older ones. Either that, or we should stop giving birth to new people.

People in the civilized parts of the Earth already are having less kids than ever, and later in life. There's no reason this trend shouldn't or cannot continue as people lifespans expand.

That's not the problem, but this is:


The earth is already too full of us humans -- planet earth's parasitic infestation. :(

There are too many of certain kinds of ... people, true enough. The population of sub-Saharan Africa is estimated to triple by the middle-point of this century. That is well over two billion people who, if they were born in Europe, would be considered retarded. This may quite possibly finish us off as a species -- not by making us extinct, but by dropping collective, global IQ dramatically, if that population explosion isn't contained. It really is an eugenicist's nightmare.

[Svipdag]

Having become an old man nearing the end of his days, I have thought and speculated a great deal lately about immortality. Whether or not it is to be regarded as a disease, I think that aging can be slowed, stopped, or, perhaps, even reversed. I do not expect this to be accomplished in time to be of any benefit to me.
That having been said, I am more concerned about the ethical issues which immortality would entail. I said in an earlier post that we cannot afford to clutter the world up with immortals. Actually, I seriously doubt that there is any great danger of this.
Immortality is not for all. Much of the human race is not psychologically equipped to cope with immortality. Boredom is the bane of the immortal. Janacek wrote an opera, "The Makropolis Case" about an immortal soprano, Ilena Makropolis, who is being driven mad by sheer boredom. She has been there, seen that, and done that over, and over,
and over, and OVER again. I won't spoil the plot by telling you any more.
Ability to resist boredom and insatiable curiosity are among the prerequisites for enduring immortality. Willingness to accept indefinitely the limitations of one's intellect and of the human body are others. For how many of us ,then, would immortality in the long run, NOT be a curse rather than a blessing ?
Arthur C. Clark has said that he couldn't live with his limitations for more than 200 years. Who could, then ? No, I don't think that there is really much danger of cluttering up the world with immortals once people understand what it would be like.
For the few who could endure eternal existence,let me propose an alternative route to immortality,one which would have minimal
environmental impact.
I can foresee a time when it will be possible to transfer all of a person's memories and his personality to the solid-state electronic "brain"of an android, a simulacrum of his body at any age he might choose.
This android would have all of the senses of the human body except pain. Under normal conditions of use, it could be repaired indefinitely. It would require no air, water, food,or heat, just an energy source to recharge its batteries.
Of course,it could not reproduce, but, then, reproduction and immortality are incompatible.I see no reason, however why the android should not be provided with the means to enjoy recreational sex.
Inasmuch as it would not eat, this would limit the use of the android's
sense of taste. However,the android could enjoy pre-recorded taste sensations, e.g. those of a 6-course dinner with cocktail, wine, and liqueur recorded on a data chip which could be slipped under the tongue.
The android would be stronger than a human body and have more acute senses of vision,hearing and smell,any of which could be turned down or shut off at will.
Immortal androids would be the ideal first settlers of Mars.

[Curtis24]

Can humans live forever? No, but we can live longer and we can possibly delay the physical degeneration of aging.

Who knows, maybe in the future you will see 40-year olds who look like they're 20.

[blan]

old age scares me more than death

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Svipdag
Much of the human race is not psychologically equipped to cope with immortality.

I think much of the human race isn’t psychologically equipped to be human, let alone immortal, most of us want to return to Eden (perhaps no bad thing), at least that is my view of most of humanity. They would be far happier sipping the waters of the Lethe and forgetting.

[Curtis24]

Human beings are psychologically equipped to live in hunter-gatherer societies of 50-100 people. Now, if that is what you mean by "Eden", you're correct. What we're not equipped to do is live with modern technology...

[Liffrea]

Originally Posted by Curtis24
Human beings are psychologically equipped to live in hunter-gatherer societies of 50-100 people. Now, if that is what you mean by "Eden", you're correct.

What I mean by Eden is a psychological state of innocence.


What we're not equipped to do is live with modern technology...

I disagree, technology is the very essence of man, I don’t think it is a case of not being able to live with technology but more one of not being aware of its proper function. I recall an interesting statement by the scientist duo Ian Stewart and Jack Cohen that much of human technology is developed with one purpose in mind, to extend the time we live in the cradle where things just “magically” happen for us.

[anonymaus]

Arthur C. Clark has said that he couldn't live with his limitations for more than 200 years. Who could, then ?

Having considered the subject more than once myself, I somewhat agree with Clarke. I would not want, in 10,000 years, to consider myself 10,000 years "out of date" with the state of evolution in the human species. Then again it is said that were early neolithics to be cloned or birthed, and raised as normal modern humans, they would be utterly indistinguishable from us; that would make them over 12,000 years "out of date". I suppose in either case we can't know until we run the experiment. ;)