Worm Lifespan Extended To Five to Six Times Normal

Trillian_1138 writes "Scientific America has a brief article, only two paragraphs, sumarizing research from a recently released longevity study done on worms. The worms, Caenorhabditis elegans, have been known to live 124 days, "the equivalent of a human reaching his 500th birthday." In addition, in worms which had their insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1) altere, "lived six times longer than normal worms and remained active for most of their lives." "These life-span extensions, which are the longest mean life-span extensions every produced in any organism, are particularly intriguing," the team writes, "because the insulin/IGF-1 pathway controls longevity in many species, including mammals." Humans already live significantly longer than only a century ago, in large part simply from hygiene advances. What might the effects on society be if gene therapy or other medical treatement humans lived to be 500?"

Comments

The next boom

[kinnell]

What might the effects on society be if gene therapy or other medical treatement humans lived to be 500?

Time to invest in zimmer frame and artificial hip manufacturers.

DAMMIT

[Smidge204]

You know the only people who are going to be able to afford any kind of longevity tratment are going to be rich people and politicians... Imagine a whole senate full of Strom Thurmonds!

I, for one, welcome our new immortal legislative overlords.

=Smidge=

hard to adjust.

[bobba22]

It would take a long time for civilisation to adjust to longer life span. Especially if we aged more slowly. What age would you retire at? and who would pay your pension for *say* the next 200 years?The burden on society to look after the super-aged would be almost intolerable, workers would be taxed at incredible rates to provide. At the other end of the scale, you'd have kids running round at 25 years old, still not mature enough to be left alone, puberty would take a decade at least, would there be enough acne cream to go round ;-) On the plus side, women would look 16-30 for about 60 years! I'm all for it!

BLASTer

[Johnny Mnemonic]

How many people read the headline as a way to extend the self-expire date of SoBig and the Blaster worm?

Need...more...coffee.

at what price longevity?

[bluethundr]

C. elegans that affect the activity of insulin and removed gonad tissue, which affects endocrine hormone levels.

So the Doctor told me, "...okay so you can live for 500 years. All we have to do is remove your nads."

Clearly, this process is do for some refinement before it's ready for mass comsumption. Ananova also covers this.

Re:at what price longevity?

[Tumbleweed]

> So the Doctor told me, "...okay so you can live for 500 years. All we have to do is remove your nads."

Well, that would certainly cure the nasty overpopulation side-effect, wouldn't it? :)

Ugh

[gooru]

God, I don't think I could deal with my parents for hundreds more years.

The only real difference

[pmz]

is that the jokes about 80-year-old female genitalia in junior high school will no longer be funny (funny in the context of 14-year-olds, that is).