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The Ethics of Life Extension

Posted by michael on from the head-in-a-jar dept.

buggieboy writes "The President's Council on Bioethics met this month to discuss Age-Retardation: Scientific Possibilities and moral challenges. The consensus was that "aging is a natural part of the life cycle, not a disease." Think Social Security was discussed?" Bruce Sterling's book Holy Fire is a good look at this issue if you find it interesting.

5 of 160 comments (clear)

  1. Practical Life extension by Tiamat · · Score: 4, Informative
    They speak in the report about the most studied, and most promising, practical means of life extension: calorie restriction with optimal nutrition. As they suggest in the report, the evidence is clear that it extends not just average lifespan, but maximum lifespan, by as much as 50%, in every species that has been tested, including mice, dogs, and now other primates.

    Most people will wait for pharm companies to develop mimetics, or ways of producing the same results without actually having to eat less, but for those who have an interest in reading up on human CR visit the CR Society web pages, or pick up one of Roy Walford's books on Amazon. (He's a professor of pathology at UCLA school of medicine, and is a leading researcher of CR. Beyond the 120 year diet is a good layman's introduction to CR.)

  2. Scientific American articles by GuyMannDude · · Score: 3, Informative

    For those of you with an interest in the subject of aging, you may wish to check out some of Scientific American's articles on the subject from the last year:

    The Truth About Human Aging

    The Serious Search for an Anti-Aging Pill

    GMD

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    watch this
  3. Re:Idiots. All Idiots. by juushin · · Score: 2, Informative

    To point out a correction, insulin is naturally produced by the body. You must be referring to modern synthetic forms of insulin (Lyspro, Glargine) in your comment that insulin is unnatural.

  4. Re:This is insane by superflex · · Score: 2, Informative
    Sorry, don't have time to do alot of research, but here is an interesting piece on this sort of problem.

    Notable quote from this article: "At the same time that we're preventing pollution in the United States, we're shifting the problem to somebody else," said Ted Smith of the Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition, an environmental advocacy group. "It's being exported and doing harm."

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    sigs are for suckers
  5. Re:I beg to differ by Iainuki · · Score: 4, Informative

    Overpopulation in developed countries would be a problem if the populations were increasing, which they aren't. The birthrates in most developed countries have fallen below the replacement rate; the US population continues to grow only because of immigration.