Slashdot Mirror
Scientists Discover Possible Anti-Aging Gene
werelnon writes "The BBC is running an article about researchers who seem to have discovered a gene which controls aging. By stimulating this gene, which when malfunctioning causes premature aging, scientists have managed to prolong the average life span of lab mice from 2 to 3 years. Because a very similar gene is present in humans it is quite possible it will do the same thing for people." From the article: "But there may be downsides with Klotho. The long-lived mice in the new experiments tend to be less fertile. And the gene may also predispose people to diabetes. The trick for researchers will be to find ways of getting the life-enhancing results of Klotho while avoiding the drawbacks."
Human life expectancy has been increasing overall for a long time now, and we have come to expect certain diseases and conditions including lack of fertility and diabetes along with many others (see Geriatrics).
Could the issues that these mice are having be similar to what we as humans are experiencing by exceeding the lifetimes that generations previous had?
Isn't klotho the element from the Star Wars empire used to heal wounds? I see George Lucas suing over this gene's name...
--Forest C. Adcock--
1 cubic polynomial post
2, 3 and 1 are the zeroes of
--polynomial_zeroesYou can get a life expectancy of 160+ years if you don't have any nutritional defeciencies. All you need to do is have the correct amount of Vitamin A, B, C, D etc and all other trace minerals, and you're fine. We shouldn't have to cheat death like this.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
How do you stimulate a gene?
Or, more importantly, will you still respect yourself in the morning?
The trick for researchers will be to find ways of getting the life-enhancing results of Klotho while avoiding the drawbacks
Isn't that always the goal of a research scientist? To find the benefits, while mitigating or eliminating the drawbacks?
bash: rtfm: command not found
If you're increasing life expectancy 50%, it seems like decreased fertility would be a benefit, not a drawback. You don't want to cause a population boom.
I'd say that's a very, very fair trade for a 50% increase in lifespan.
But there may be downsides with Klotho. The long-lived mice in the new experiments tend to be less fertile.
Good thing, or we'd be overrun by mice! If you live longer, you better breed slower. Imagine if elephants bred as often as rabbits?
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Scientist also reported that implementing this into a anti aging drug would involve the destruction of millions of kittens and 14 sea otters and one Great Dane puppy to derive enough of the compound to supply the worlds population.
Fortunately the Lead Scientist isn't a Cat person.
Attempt was made to contact PETA, but they apparently were in to much shock to respond, but we expect them to be happy with the idea.
"The head of the research team developing the drug had this to say about the breakthrough: 'MWUHAHAHAHA! Soon I will be... IMMORTAL! HAHAHAHA!' The team expects the drug to be available to the general public 'At the whim of your new overlords.'"
Doctor: Take this pill, but beware it carries a terrible curse!
Homer: [worried] Ooooh, that's bad.
Doctor: But it slows aging!
Homer: [relieved] That's good.
Doctor: It will render you infertile and may make you vulnerable to diabetes.
Homer: [worried] That's bad.
Doctor: But you will live longer!
Homer: [relieved] That's good.
Doctor: [very fast] Side effects include headache, constipation, dry mouth, drowsiness, insomnia, nausea, vision problems, agitation, dizziness, fatigue, confusion, hypotension, rash or hives, seizures, and lightheadedness.
Homer: [stares]
Doctor: That's bad.
The trick for researchers will be to find ways of getting the life-enhancing results of Klotho while avoiding the drawbacks
I would not call "less fertile" and "predispose people to diabetes" life-enhancing. Life-extending may be, but enhancing?
In theory there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice there is. - Yogi Berra
Scientists Discover Possible Anti-Aging Gene
Again??
No sig for now.
You know, it's very likely the only way a beneficial artificial genetic variation like this would reach the masses is by a technology that modifies your genes very soon after conception. Because once you're born, or (worse) reach adulthood, it becomes very tricky and expensive to evade the body's built-in defenses against alien genetic material (e.g. viruses). So even if a life-extending genetic treatment became available, you'd very likely only be able to take advantage of it (1) before you're born or (2) after you become fabulously rich.
And doesn't that open an interesting can of worms? If, for example, it turns out that some people with decently well-off and very foresightful parents can live 50% longer than the rest of us? If you think we have nasty debates now about, say, equal opportunity in college education, just wait a few decades, when it's a question of equal opportunity for that extra 30 years of life...
... welcome our new life-prolonging overlords!
Join the anonymous, help develop the network: http://www.i2p2.de
The Hayflick Barrier, that suggests cells will replicate only a certain number of times.
Hela cells having to do with cancerous "immortal cells" and the length of telomeres and aging.
lysosomes which as the "recycling bins" of cells may overtime become "clogged" with material the cells are unable to recycle and cause cell death.
No matter that there may be a genetic tweak for aging there are other things at play that may impact on the genetic tweak.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
There are a few limitations to our lifespan. The Hayflick limit may be a driving factor. Body cells, with very few exceptions, have a limit on the number of divisions they can make. This may be related to the way that every time a cell divides, one of the daughter cells has a slightly shorter copy. The ends of the chromosome are telomeres, the aglets on our gene shoelaces.
Of course, many of our tissues divide more than others, and we're vulnerable to a weak point of failure, whether it be skin tissue (definitely a point of infection), blood supply, blood vessels or what have you.
There have been two major schools of thought about aging, and many points in-between. On one side, some think that aging is caused by an incredible number of small failures from separate causes, and to try to beat aging is doomed to fail on this alone. On the other side of the issue, there are those who believe one or perhaps two major items are at fault for aging, and that we can close to an Elixir of Youth. The truth probably lies somewhere in between.
I still highly recommend Michael D. West's book The Immortal Cell for an inside account of one search for a cure for aging. (He's also one of the co-authors of the hefty tome Principles of Cloning). Fascinating stuff, and definitely not the stuff of 'fringe' science.
Binary geeks can count to 1,023 on their fingers
This seems to be playing out somewhat similar to the Gundam Seed anime.
The concept of gene alteration, which makes the people themselves more enhanced, whether metally, phycially, or in life span, receive negative effects, which in both this experience and the anime was infertilety over several generations and deteriaration of the gene.
It is interesting how sci-fi shows can trully have a random chance of predicting some aspects of future.
Although this can be viewed as progress, it is unnatural. However, most of our society is based around and functions on unnatural principles, beliefs, and technologies, however we view their possitive effects outweight the negatives. Maybe it is only in selfishness, which it most likely is, for example our necessity on automobiles and other gasoline based transportation, inspite the damage it causes to environment.
That is the question for this situation, would this gene alteration bring more posstive then negative aspects? (At least the way we view 'possitive' and 'negative')
This is why people should RTFA
Or just have a well-rounded education. The fates aren't that obscure...
From a person who doesn't know much about this topic, it seems like the longer people live, the worse shape they become. As people start reaching their late 70s and 80s, they getting many health problems that, quite frankly, I would rather not live with. These problems can be mental and/or physical so that you could have a body that is fragile and brittle, but a working mind. This makes it so that you know that you are brittle and fragile, but you can't do anything about it. The reverse of that would be pretty bad too.
I know that I would not want live in that state. Just imagine yourself in the early stages of alzheimer's where you know that you are forgetting all that you used to know. I'm sure to incite a couple of fierce replies with this next comment but it is my opinion: I would want to be euthanized if I was in that state.
The article does state that in the mice, the typical effects of old age were delayed. But I would bet anything that in humans, infertility and diabetes would be only the start of the problems caused by this.
P.S. People who oppose my opinion, don't take offense to what I say for it is simply my opinion and it often changes as more information is taken into account.
But name anyone who has.
Scientists Discover Possible Anti-Aging Gene
So we have to get old again?
Something tells me that I don't need to RTFM.
We should thank the Life Extension Foundation and the supplement industry for funding the anti anging initiative.
They offer a membership for anyone who wants to help fund the anti aging movement. We all should get involved with this and get memberships, its our lives we are protecting.
Scientists discover that Klotho's evil twin brother, Cthulhu, can be used without the drawbacks of life-enhancing results.
Now, it will be interesting to compare this gene with previously covered longevity gene discovered in fruit flies - Indy. What proteins do they encode, what are their roles etc?
1 5082220.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2000/12/0012
Running a quick and dirty comparison analysis using Genebank BLAST shows no obvious similarities.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
The Fable of the Dragon-Tyrant
I think that being less fertile would be a GOOD thing with a longer life... we we just had longer life and were fully fertile for all that time, the earth would have even more trouble than it already is sustaining the population growth that would ensue. I'd say this is a perfect balance for longer lives.
Stem cells can cure aging like osteoperosis and arthritis.
Seems like antiaging to me without messing with genes .
The trick for researchers will be to find ways of getting the life-enhancing results of Klotho while avoiding the drawbacks.
Well let's see. You get diabetes, you are less fertile or you have 35 years less life? Well according to the FDA getting diabetes or becoming infertile makes the benefit of the drug, living 35 years longer, totally unacceptable. I think if people were allowed to make this choice themselves instead of the government they could live with the side effects.
There are people who have lived to 170 odd years in third world countries. TIME Magazine covered it a while ago.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Hey, aren't elves supposed to live *forever* and breed almost never? Arent vulcans too now that I'm thinking about it? Welcome, Lord of the Rings and/or Startrek!!
The article fails to specify what is meant by "anti-aging". Is it keeping a very old living being alive longer? Or does it also have the added benefit of decreasing visible and physical signs of aging to the subject in question? If all that this drug can do is keep a very very old-looking person alive a bit longer, but not feel or look as old as they are, I say big deal. If I'm that old and weak, I'd probably want to die soon anyway.
Hero of Allacrost, a FOSS RPG for *NIX/*BSD/OS X/Win
Orson Scott Card, in Ender's Shadow, raised the ethical question of what happens if we can flip an intelligence gene, with the opposite effect of klotho: extreme shortened life. I see various comments about acceptable side effects: what do we think is an acceptable tradeoff? And if this klotho dumbed down people (the corollary), would that be acceptable?
While we may be having increased life expectancy, life quality and our level of health is decreasing.
Most food people consume is no longer organic, most people know nothing at all about supplements and how to stay healthy.
We should be focused on life extention and not waiting for government or corporations to come in with the cure for diseases like cancer and diabetes.
If you want a cure, start a business to fund the search for it. The life extension foundation does this. Life extension foundation
Life expectancy is not important. Only quality is important. We are not as healthy as we once were, and every 10 years more of us are dying from heart disease, cancer, diabetes and other illnesses due to the foods we are consuming. It is time for us to take control of our own destiny, become our own doctors, create our own supplements and treatments, and finally start supporting the organic food industry.
We can complain about the results (obesity, diabetes, cancer) of consumption of low quality products, but the only way to improve our health is to stop consuming products designed to ruin our health. This means we need to both fund research for cures while also focus on prevention by offering alternatives to Coke, Pepsi, and high fructose corn syrup which are actually safe. We need to be consuming products like green tea, with natural organic sugar, not high fructose corn syrup and dextrose mixed with acid.
We're too many already.
the current average human life span is PLENTY for achieving dreams, enjoyment, and personal betterment. instead of trying to extend life, these guys should be out there LIVING.
and besides, as asimov said, our relatively short life-spans are a cause for collaboration, and you can't say that's not a good thing. a big part of human nature is the concept of legacy, evolving ourselves and passing down to the next generation. if we increase our life-spans, we just slow down the process.
not to mention overpopulation, poverty, blah blah blah etc. etc. ad nauseum.
if we're going to evolve, let's evolve along the lines of cybernetics, improving the quality of life for the here and now, instead of hanging around longer. those who dream of extended life are dreaming of more time to regret wasting the first bits.
and we're STILL not immune to large trucks. BUGGRIT.
---- I was woken up this morning by a face full of fur. Damn cat thought my head made a good pillow.
I think the reason humans live longer is because they have enough money to buy medicine. The only way to actually live healthier is to change your consumption, and Americans are one of the least healthy countries in the developed world. Our quality of life is among the lowest, and we don't even live the longest. Basically we have enough money to buy life extensions.
Diabetes is common now, so is heart disease and cancer. The reason these diseases are so common is because many of the food companies and industries deliberately create products which in tests on mice are known to cause diabetes, cancer, and heart disease. If mice die from high fructose corn syrup, why are humans being given high fructose corn syrup in every product?
Food companies like to blame the problem instead of the cause. They will blame obesity for poor health instead of the quality of their products. If we want better health we need a more advanced food industry which actually designs foods to be as health as possible instead of food that is plain addictive. Otherwise our healthcare costs will continue to rise forever while food companies continue to put junk in foods to give us new diseases of the future.
Grow your own food, or buy organic. Buy supplements. Look out for your own health, be your own doctor, and help fund research for new supplements, help fund organic farmers and shop at the stores which sell quality.
Long sick lives are not as good as long health lives.
"There can be only one!"
"If your head comes away from your neck, it's over!"
They weren't people, they were tortoises
I meet your unreferenced assertion and raise you a referenced BBC article. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4028137.stm
Sorry if my slashdotML is sloppy. Anyhow, I'm thinking you're wrong on this one.
...it's really a sad day for America when we require a goddamn ACT OF CONGRESS to make our DVD players work properly. ~
We should be trying to cheat death. Give me a better reason to go to work than to try and cheat death?
Vitamins like A, B , C and D arent the vitamins which increase lifespan, but theres chromium, alpha lipoic acid, green tea, cinnamon, red wine, and lots of other supplements and foods which are known to increase a persons health.
Ultimately however, unless you are rich you won't have the money to increase your health. You'd be best off buying a lot of land, having a farm, and farming your way to good health.
Great. Now everytime some jackass dies I have to hear more stupid ass statements.
"Only 67!? They were so young..."
between humans? Esp. humans of different races? It seems to me that Asians(esp. East Asians) actually tend to age much less than caucasians. Japan especially tends to have a lot of very old people, I remember in 2003 the oldest person in the world was Japanese, they died, and then again the oldest person in the world was Japanese. In China, esp. rural China, you buy your own casket at age 60 or 70, but it's not uncommon for one to use it as a piece of furniture for 20 or 30 years!
Even in very poor parts of Asia, such as Pakistan, centarians(sp?) are not nearly as rare as they are in the US and Europe. Is this due to the same gene? Is it due to diet/exercise? Or is it a combination of factors?
Monstar L
Just fund the research yourself and then share the results.
In Korea only old people...
oh wait...
Isn't that always the goal of a research scientist?
Yes, but there's a more fundamental one. To write the grant proposal so it gets funding and you keep getting paid.
I don't have a reference on the TIME Magazine article, but if you dig out National Geographic Magazine - January 1973, you'll find an article on longeivity by Dr. Alexander Leaf. He searched the world looking for the oldest living person, and they found Sharalla Mesmelov (167 years old) of a small Russian town. Remember, this is the National Geographic Society, not the National Enquirer. 167 years of age, and they had a half page picture of him actually harvesting tea leaves on a tea plantation. Still working 8 hours a day, six days a week at age 167. Five months later, May of 1973, he turns 168, goes out and hoes the garden for reporters to show how vigorous he is at age 168.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
greeaaattt.... so not only is the population expanding at an exponential rate, we're gonna live longer than we are now.
we're about to run out of room on this rock QUICK.
The long-lived mice in the new experiments tend to be less fertile. And the gene may also predispose people to diabetes. The trick for researchers will be to find ways of getting the life-enhancing results of Klotho while avoiding the drawbacks
You know, I don't see being less fertile as a drawback. If people want to get pregnant these days, they will. Another poster already mentioned a possible population boom.
Don't even think along those lines. What you're saying is "this gene can make you live longer, at as a mild birth control, and help prevent teen pregnancy."
Now, just for a cure for diabetes.
Law of Balance, Yin Yang, etc.. you know the rest...
you extend age of certain person, there are bound to be a drawback somewhere.
funny... to think our Human life expectancy extend longer, but there always drawback like AIDS, etc that came along.
Law of balance of it just one of my stupid theory.
With every single one of these extensions in average expected lifespan, the age-associated decline is also delayed.
So this would mean being healthier for longer. Everybody knows of the odd person who is 80, but looks like a 60-year old and acts like a 40 year-old (running marathons etc.). Possible treatments for ageing are aimed at prevented age-related decline and making sure most people can be like that 80 year-old.
Big deal you say. You'd rather die. Fine - but then you might miss out on the advances that come along 10 or 20 years down the track, which might reverse the decline which has already occurred.
More life is always better (unless you believe in an afterlife I guess).
The supplement industry has a better track record than stem cells. Yes stem cells like nano technology have a lot of potential for 50 years into the future, right now its just not practical or useful.
I'm all for anti aging, and stem cell research has little if anything to do with the anti aging movement. When you want to mess with genetics it does not actually cure those who are already sick, it might prevent people of the future from getting sick but it could make cancer more popular as well. I'm not really looking forward to the genetic technologies because I don't trust the drug companies.
Instead if we are going to use stemcells we need to open up the technology, make it decentralized, once its open and everyone can access it and do research then I'll care more about it. Why arent there university courses on stem cell technology? Why should the general population support something that doctors don't know enough about to actually teach courses on it?
If stem cells are the next big thing after DNA, we need to actually be teaching it in school like we taught DNA. We need to teach stem cell courses like we teach courses about atoms and photons in highschool.
Well sure, if you don't read it. From TFA:
A better argument: we shouldn't be wasting resources on anti-aging technology because we won't need it. The Rapture, you know. Last Days and all that.
Do you think they are going to remove the high fructose corn syrup from all the products that are causing diabetes? Hell no. Most of us already are insulin resistant. The best thing to do is to find a cure for diabetes instead of worrying about how to prevent it. It's no longer possible to prevent it when theres high fructose corn syrup in just about every food. The only solution to diabetes is to find a way to upregulate insulin receptors and increase insulin sensitivity so people never develop type 2 diabetes, and for those who do it can be reversed. When you reverse or prevent insulin resistance you prevent people from dying of heart disease and you actually strengthen the financial viability of the healthcare industry. Right now drug industrys like the diabetes situation because they have a continuous supply of new diabetics coming in. At some point half the population will be diabetic, and when this happens its going to be too late.
The best situation would be for people to fund the search for a cure, not the search for a new drug or treatment. This means people need to fund the supplement industry not the drug industry, and people need to start open source drug companies that share their discoveries. These drug companies will form when doctors want to cure diabetes, and people with big money want to fund these doctors. Hey if people with diabetes or who have certain genes to make them vulnerable to it actually became a member of a network of individuals trying to cure it, its only a matter of time. I think diabetes type 1 will be cured first, then type 2, I don't think cancer will ever be cured, however I think we will find ways to prevent it.
If you want a cure, you have to make it yourself, drug companies will never make it and will do everything in their power to surpress you and your industry backing a cure if you ever do come up with a cure. So if you are rich and powerful, and diabetes genes are in your family, it is your responsibility to cure the disease. It is also the responsibility of consumers, lawyers, etc.
Heart disease will be cured once insulin resistance is cured. Insulin resistance will be cured once diabetes is cured. All of this won't increase or decrease lifespan, what it does is it increases the quality of life.
wait, was this really a dupe? I don't recognize it...
I have a really elegant proof for Fermat's last theorem. If this sig was only a bit longer...
I believe in an afterlife but more life is ok too.
Life is to be enjoyed and should be lived well, respecting others etc. Live a good life... If everyone did these things we'd live a better life and society would be much better!
In korea, old people no longer get old.
(Sorry, I don't normally contribute to the perpetuation of Slashdot cliches, but nobody had posted this one. With good reason, I might add.)
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
No, the trick will be finding whether what they did with the mice applied to humans. Suppressing the side effects they found in mice is nothing by comparison.
While mice are similar in some ways to people, they are also rather different. What extends the life of lab mice might, in humans: a) have no effect, b) cause humans to sprout extra limbs, c) live longe and prosper, or d) none of the above.
And it's going to take a long time before they can try these experiments on humans.
--Pat
Research abstract: Suppression of Aging in Mice by the Hormone Klotho
A defect in Klotho gene expression in mice accelerates the degeneration of multiple age-sensitive traits. Here we show that overexpression of Klotho in mice extends life span. Klotho protein functions as a circulating hormone that binds to a cell-surface receptor and represses intracellular signals of insulin and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF1), an evolutionarily conserved mechanism for extending life span. Alleviation of aging-like phenotypes in Klotho-deficient mice was observed by perturbing insulin/IGF1 signaling, suggesting that Klotho-mediated inhibition of insulin/IGF1 signaling contributes to its anti-aging properties. Klotho protein may function as an anti-aging hormone in mammals.
News of the Week: Boosting Gene Extends Mouse Life Span
A protein named after the Greek goddess who spins life's thread has joined the short list of ways to extend a mouse's natural life span. Whereas lab mice can live about 2 years, mice engineered to overproduce this protein, called Klotho, have celebrated third birthdays, Makoto Kuro-o of the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas and his colleagues report online in this week's Science Express (www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1112766). The mutant rodents represent a rare case of a single gene substantially influencing life span in mammals.
"I'm not a dreamer; I don't think we're going to find a master control gene for aging," says Harry Dietz, a geneticist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who studies Klotho's counterpart in humans. But, he says, "this is the next best thing. We have found something that perhaps has the ability to make old age richer."
But Kuro-o, who discovered the gene that encodes Klotho, worries that "too much Klotho might not be very good." The mice he created with extra Klotho look like animals at risk of diabetes. There's also disagreement over how Klotho works.
Mice lacking Klotho die young, after developing arteriosclerosis and other age-related conditions much earlier than normal (Science, 7 November 1997, p. 1013). Still, many doubted that extra Klotho would lengthen life span. With a short-lived mutant, "you always have to worry that it's just sick," says Cynthia Kenyon, who studies aging at the University of California, San Francisco.
So, Kuro-o, his postdoctoral fellows Hiroshi Kurosu and Masaya Yamamoto, and colleagues at universities in the U.S. and Japan created mice overexpressing the gene for Klotho. While Klotho is produced only in the kidney and brain, a fragment of it slips into the blood and may act like a hormone. Males making extra Klotho lived up to 30% longer than normal males, and the mutant females survived 20% longer than normal counterparts. As with lab animals coaxed to have lengthy life spans, the altered rodents had fertility problems. They produced about half the expected number of offspring.
Males appeared more affected by Klotho than females did. Their blood, unlike that of females, contained more insulin than normal mice. This suggested that the male mutants were somewhat resistant to insulin--a symptom, in extreme forms, of diabetes. The Klotho-boosted males and females had normal glucose levels, a surprise because untreated diabetes causes high glucose. These features don't appear in other long-lived mice, which are usually insulin-sensitive and have low glucose.
Klotho's effects on insulin could connect
However it's spelled, might be cured with this knowledge. we can stop the aging if we repair this gene. Since progeria is a result of the gene malfunctioning. getting to it a "normal" status may prove well for cases that have been discovered in the womb.
Fuck the selfish reasons for playing with this gene, why not save a few lives of people who are cursed with this gene not working?
what i'm curious about is will we be younger longer or older longer? assuming the average lifespan of a human mean is 70, 50% more is 105. but honestly, age 70-105 isn't age that'll benefit society much. they've past their working age and can really only offer their wisdom at this point.
i would rather prefer it extended our youth or extended our life equally at different parts. meaning i can technically feel like 50 at the age of 75 (50% increase again).
would i really want to extend my life being old?
HD Trailers
It would be logical, then, if evolution had produced a direct link between aging and fertility. This does not mean it has, only that such a link would be entirely reasonable. We also know, from other work in genetics, that direct links exist in countless places between all sorts of characteristics - even ones you wouldn't necessarily expect.
Sexual reproduction evolved quite late on and different species have very different numbers of X and Y chromosomes. The Duck-Billed Platypus has 5 X chromosomes, 5 Y chromosomes and a determination system that simply isn't understood at all. It would seem likely, then, that this is a product or extension of aging. Again, this would make a lot of sense, as there is really nothing else that would make sense.
I would imagine there to be multiple links, too. Genetic material is damaged over time, so a later adaptation would presumably have been to put the energy and effort into a timeframe where damage is within acceptable limits. It is also possible that, in species with simple-enough genetic material, this might even be leveraged - a small amount of damage would maximize diversity through subtle mis-copies of the genetic code. The genes would need to be fantastically fault-tolerent for this to work, but it is certainly within the realms of the imaginable.
The upshot of all this is simple enough - tweak one parameter and it WILL impact people in other ways. Rather than regarding this as a problem, it may prove very helpful, as not all parameters are going to be directly or easily controllable. There may be other ways to tweak them, if you exploit these kinds of side-effects.
Of course, they still have to find a way to alter genetic material safely. Existing mechanisms use modified retroviruses that embed desired sequences into the infected person. This method has a moderate-to-high risk of a rare form of leukemia. It is also unclear what impact (if any) the old code remaining present will have.
The problems are not well-understood and the complexity of human genetic code is still too great to be subject to detailed analysis. However, the fact that results are being obtained at all shows that these are very bright people with a good understanding of their subject. It'll be interesting to see how far this goes, over time.
One final note - this might be a way to help revive long-lived species on the edge of extinction. If increasing longevity decreases fertility for the reasons I've suggested, then decreasing longevity should increase fertility. It may be possible to use this (in conjunction with other fertility treatments, if any are usable) to help rebuild populations where the genetics would normally work against them.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
That article was later debunked.
O ils/totalhealth2004.html
http://www.healthwatcher.net/Quackerywatch/Young-
But even if we pretend it's true: since this was the early 1970s in a small Russian town, vitamin supplements can't have been responsible for that man's age anyway.
Why do we have the lifespan we do? Why are we designed for 40-50 years (in the wild), while Galapagos tortoises for 150 and rabbits for 3?
A physicist would figure there must be some characteristic external time scale to which we are optimally matched -- but what could it be?
Here's a wild guess: our overall lifetime is set to be roughly twice our youth, so that we have a chance to oversee the education of our young, and the length of our youth is set to roughly one sunspot cycle, which corresponds to the (very small) variation in solar output, which might be correlated with variations in Earth's climate.
In other words, Nature concluded it's worthwhile to keep individuals around for a few solar cycles, but for times much more than that, it's better to roll the genetic dice again, to be sure of having a robust genetic diversity that stands a good chance of coping with climate and habitat variations.
Elian.... ELIAN!!!
What's the big deal? Who cares if I can add one extra year to my life? Is this what passes for progress?
This might depend on who "you" is. I thought the traditional Catholic position against birth control was because people were supposed to be fruitful and multiply. I wonder if the Catholic church will then take a position against this because it inhibits such multiplication...
Kent M Pitman
Philosopher, Technologist, Writer
One of the few more or less equal things in todays society is that even the rich grows old and die.
As a regular person I feel that this is comforting - not even an absurd amount of money buys eternal life.
However, if this research continues we will perhaps have end up in a situation where enough money can buy eternal life. I find that very distrubing - then the rich can't only suppress me, the same rich persons will continue to supress my children and grand children when I am dead.
Live long and fertile \\//
Anonymous Vulcan
To help Dick Clark from dieing a premature death?
lies and deception contribute to shorter life spans.
2 /www.worldgame.org/wwwproject/index.shtml
... but instead found in doing the things that make your body say "hey, life is good" as it naturally turns the right genes on and off to support longer life.
those contributing to such are of course war mongers, as the machinery of war is itself anti-life in its inherent nature. Of course we have other anti-life machinery as well, such as many religions which promote disconnection with this world, and other excuses to say lies, deception and such are ok so long as you ask for forgiveness.
The human mind is a rather powerful device, as what you think and believe has alot to do with how you interact with hard reality. And it is hard reality of which the body lives.
The general lifespan of the population, the better it is intouch with reality, the greater its ability to work in accord with it.
So many deceptions upon deceptions, is it really any wonder how something simple like the statement "time is at hand" can be so distorted away from what was ment? Where what was ment was simply "time is in our hands". The beings we are, we have the capability of extending our lives and a great deal more.
How real is the damage you cannot see, because you don't have better to compair it to? By keeping others blind to what could be, you can always say "how do you know it could be better? there is no proof"
Try this:
http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/theme_a/mod0
To truely understand the impact of the dated information (our capabilities of making this happen have only improved) is to understand "terrorism" is a phanton, a fabrication made real by war mongers and many other deceivers.
This is only an example of what we are capable of.
Life extension? Geee, if we weren't spending so fucking much on anti-life machinery.....
My doctor told me that by the time the colesterol meds he has me on become not good for me anymore, they will have come up with something else...
Working in accord with reality might just be in part, stepping stones from one thing to another.
Some of The big softdrink companies have willinginly chosen to remove all high frutose corn suryp softdrink from schools and replace them with real fruit juice drinks.... in effort to reduce child obesity (high frutose corn suryp hase been found to increase triglicerides by 1/3...)
Something simple like this helps to extend life...
Don't drink the sugarwater... cause its not really a drink that works in accord with the human body/
This anti-life sweetner A much smaller example....
Life extension is not going to be found in some majic manipulation of a gene, of fountain of youth
I recall some article of research that stated that ther more you genuinely enjoy sex with your partner, the more your body tries to keep you young. Pro life acts contributing to longer life?
Who'd thunk dat?
Not war mongers and other deceivers.... who spend fucking obscene amounts of money being anti-life.
Whats the percentage of these people, in comparison to the 6+ billion people on this planet?
Who "really" wants to live in a world of war?
As in "starship troopers" do you really want to live forever?
I already have diabetes, and my wife and I have decided not to have kids. So, it appears I would be a guinea pig for this one. Hey, I will take 50% more longevity. It will give me more time to download and test various linux distros, and various other open source software products. Not to mention, more time on the xbox, gaming, and trolling slashdot!
har har har =-)
"What we do in life echoes in eternity." Maximus Decimus Meridius
If, for example, it turns out that some people with decently well-off and very foresightful parents can live 50% longer than the rest of us?
Well, then at least someone will be able to live longer in contrast to nobody at all.And didn't it strike you as odd that the Queen of Britain died exactly around a round date? Who knows, maybe she is still around?
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
At the beginning of the world, during the time of Adam and right up to Noah, mankind lived exponentially longer than today. The average lifespan was 912 years (for a span of 1700 years) on a strict vegetarian diet:
Genesis 1:29 "And God said, "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."
In fact, every animal also ate a vegetarian diet! There was no consumption of flesh, even among the lions and sharks:
Genesis 1:30 "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so".
It wasn't until after the flood of Noah's day, when the climate was completely altered and plant-based foods became scarse, that God allowed the eating of flesh. You'll see the condition was that all blood needed to be drained from the animal first (is this where the belief of eating kosher foods stems from, can someone confirm or deny?).
Genesis 9:3 "Every moving thing that lives shall be food for you. I have given you all things, even as the green herbs. But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood."
Anyhoo, after this time, lifespans became dramatically shorter.
Ok all you heathens, flame on!
SEO Copywriter. Just Say ON
I've had all the kids that I am going to have, and I already have diabetes. Just tell me how to stimulate the damned gene already!
if you are going to be 100 years.. do YOU REALLY REALLY want to be taking care of newborns at 80 ? 90 ?
Yeah, great, that's a perfect plan if you intend to life the 20~25 years lifespan of a cave man. But what people who lament the wide availability of processed food forget is that the use of packaged food is closely correlated with increased life span.
No, I'm not saying that processed food prolongs life, not at all. A correlation does not imply in cause and effect, there could be a common cause for both phenomena. For instance, the problems of cancer, diabetes, and heart disease that you mention could have an alternative explanation: old age. Even if we assume that processed food brings some health problems, those are certainly offset by other advantages in using processed food, because people who live in industrial countries and eat processed food live much longer than people who live in poor countries and eat food directly from nature.
Remember, the industrial system that gives us processed food is the same system that gives us sanitation and advanced health treatment. It's no use eating vegetables fresh from the garden if you don't have treated water to wash them before eating. Even the most "natural" fruit and vegetables are unable to protect us from typhus and cholera.
Perhaps one could eat natural food in an industrial society and get the best of both worlds, maybe that's what you are trying to say. But the system isn't prepared to supply organically grown food for all the 6+ billion people living on Earth today. If it weren't for the hundreds of millions of tons of grain grown with pesticides and fertilizers and now also with genetically modified plants, people would starve.
All in all, the combination of processed food + advanced health treatment has almost doubled the expected lifespan of people living in the industrial countries, compared to a hundred years ago. Given the choice, most people prefer to face the possible risks of diabetes and heart disease in old age rather than dying from other causes before those diseases appear.
I'll bet that the differences your mentioning have more to do with what people eat and how active they remain througout their lives and less to do with genetics. Asian's tend to have very clean diets compared to Eurpean and American fare.
Rural people and particulary the rural poor tend to lead more active lives and eat food that is fresher, home made and healthier than the moderatly wealthy to obsenely rich.
Kind regards
"A few great minds are enough to endow humanity with monstrous power, but a few great hearts are not enough to make us w
Isn't the Earth overpopulated anyway? Isn't the human race running out of room for expansion of energy usage? Hasn't our health care and social structure slowed the evolution of humans enough? We have methods to store knowledge - let the people die. Or, to quote: "evolve, and let the chips fall where they may".
Scientists looking for ways to have their cake and eat it too.
Movie at 11.
-dZ.
Carol vs. Ghost
maybe: :-)
Hidden DOS secret: add BUGS=OFF to your CONFIG.SYS
As long as 20 year old girls exist, you can always feel young.
Old age is the most unexpected of things that can happen to a man. -- Trotsky
"Use cases are fairy tales..." I. S. 2005
Sounds a lot like that SG1 episode set in the future where the aliens gave them tons of technology and also doubled the human lifespan but make us all infertile.
I bet these "scientists" are really those aliens.
Better get my tinfoil hat.
I want lo live BETTER. Getting older without getting senile or weaker.
All the people i know that are 80+ years old don't care anymore about living . Somethimes, I think they don't want to live anymore). I wonder whether they would think the same way if they had a young body like mine.
80 years should be enough for anybody to get sick of life.
Diseases of heart - Heart Attack
Malignant neoplasms - Cancer
Cerebrovascular diseases - Stroke
Chronic lower respiratory diseases - Lung Disease
Diabetes mellitus - Diabetes
Now, heart attacks are caused almost exclusively bad poor diet (too much fat) and not enough exercise. Cancer has strong links with diet (too much fat) and exposure to chemicals. Strokes are "heart attacks of the brain" in that diet and exercise are major contributing factors here too. A good portion, but not all, cases of lung disease are induced or exacerbated by smoking. And (adult onset) diabetes has been linked to diets high in fats and sugars.
So considering that 66% of male deaths and 63% of female deaths were caused by the above diseases, if you can eliminate the causes of those diseases, you're obviously going to increase your chances for a long and healthy life.
I coulda sworn I saw this exact same thing on an episode of Stargate SG-1. Episode was called "2010", and a group of aliens had given earth a drug that extended our lifespan, but then made is infertile. Needless to say, they were basically killing us off. Hmmm...
just the average life expectancy is. The real reason the overall age is increasing is because of the dramatic increase in prenatal care, care of premature babies, and being able to reduce infant mortality. Humans used to lose kids all the time to all varieties of disease and sickness. Even 100 years or so, it was almost expected that you'd lose one to something.
And our lifestyle choice isn't helping much. The only reason we're not reducing life expectancy is because we have technology to "save" people who would otherwise die. Heart attacks in particular. We're not really healthier, it's just slightly harder to die.
I'd really be curious to see what the life expectancy trend is of people who were healthy at age 18, not just a live birth.
"No fair, you changed the outcome by measuring it!" - Professor Hubert J. Farnsworth
you can already see what a strain an 'ageing population' is putting on our western economies (AUS USA EU etc) the economist in me can't recommend this....
I don't see how loss of fertility is a drawback of increased lifespan... it seems to be a desireable side effect. Imagine the overpopulation nightmare otherwise.
I like my dinosaurs feathery, and my pterosaurs hairy (or is it pycnofibery?)
I think it's too late to stop a population boom. 10 years ago the world population was 5 billion, now it's six billion so there's 1 billion kid's under 10 out there. In another 10 years they're going to start having their own children and their grandparents (not to mention parents) still have 30 years left of the natural life span left!
Man it's too late, exponential growth. Can't keep going forever though - naturally there will be a calamity, wars or combination of like circumstances (greenhouse gases, oil shortages, water shortages, desertification, environmental contamination, etc.) that will lead to a die-off.
Shh.
130 year old porn... no thanks!
Hmm... This reminds me of that Stargate SG-1 episode, where some aliens (can't remember), introduce age-longetivity in humans in the future, but in the process, destroy fertility rates of humans, thereby killing the whole human race in a generation.
Isn't it possible that by introducing longer ages for humans, we destroy ourselves?
Insightful? Ignorant mods more like.
There are different types of sugars in different proportions, depending on where it comes from. They are metabolised differently and have different effects on your body. Go ask someone who is fructose intolerant.
The sugars in coke and pepsi are typically invert sugars hydrolyzed from sucrose and cellulose, mostly glucose and fructose. Both hit your bloodstream very very quickly indeed.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
maybe once they get boosterspice figured out, we can start working on ringworld.
The long-lived mice in the new experiments tend to be less fertile.
This sounds like a fair trade off to me. The world is already overcrowded and the population is growing exlosively. If suddenly everyone was living to be 130, not only would the population grow from that, but people may also have more children than they currently do.
Advice for my fellow geeks: before seeking out that threesome you dream of, you might see what a TWOsome is like first.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
If you read the article, you see that this gene apparently increases bone mass and musculature while perhaps increasing the risk of diabetes. A gene by itself doesn't do anything. It has to be expressed in some way. So, what does this gene do? It sure seems like it must play a key role in the regulation of growth hormone. Previous trials of human growth hormone have shown benefits in the geriatric crowd of increased bone mass, increased musculature, and a hightened glucose intolerence. Why not skip the gene therapy and get the growth hormone injections instead?
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Not trying to be an ass, but I thought you might want to know that begging the question doesn't mean what you (or many other people for that matter) think it does...
There's no place I can be, since I found Serenity.
*yawn* This is old news. It's already well-known that certain organisms, such as the C. Elegans, have genes which are switched on and off to prevent aging. Some of the causes of aging (mitochondria breaking down, cells life span (already saw a link about that above), and do forth) are already known. Then again, mice cells are known to be different than ours- where we can create immortal cells in mice via enzymatic telomerase action, that same doesn't necessarily work in humans. Additionaly, in humans, we already know of aging genes. There are specific genetic diseases (can't recall their names off the top of my head) such as one which cause a 5 year's body to be that of a 30 year old's.
But then, who'll read email in South Korea?
put the what in the where?
The long-lived mice in the new experiments tend to be less fertile.
That's good. I hope it continues to be true. Live forever, or breed, but don't do both. There's only so much planet to go around, and there aren't any other really good ones in the neighborhood.
"Research is what I am doing when I don't know what I am doing." -- Wernher von Braun
Being able to live much older than before through the creation of an anti-aging drug (more than a decade away from possible creation, according to http://www.sciencentral.com/articles/view.php3?art icle_id=218392210&language=english) would be cool, really cool considering that in the article link I posted they say that such a drug could "45-year old at the age of 90, and could eventually help you live to be 200? " if the research they do is successful, but wouldn't it seriosuly fuck up the retirement age and stuff like that?
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
People wil get old and die, cell division cannot be stopped. Fix problems like MS, MD, or something first. This fountain of you junk is a dead end. You're just gonna get hit by a bus anyways.
Media Artist - 3dhansen.com
I saw this movie...
Highlander lives forever, but can't have children.
I like science because it is a fun subject to learn and you get take part in expermints so it is easier to learn things.
Probably, yes. But when people get impatient they sometimes short-circuit the ineluctable but cruel free market. They come to believe that the reason only the rich have the goodies is because they're greedy hoarding bastards, and all that's needed for everyone to share is a proletariat revolution followed by expropriation.
Then, alas, it's always found that (1) there wasn't a secret stash of cheap goodies, and (2) you've ruined the engine that might have made the goodies cheap and widely available by and by.
I'd say the history of Russia after its wealthy class tasted the sweet fruits of industrialization in 1900-1915 are a sobering caution.
I'd gladly accept reduced fertility, and even diabetes, if I could gain an extra 50% of lifespan (39 years for a man).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Moderation of this post be dammed.
I think that setting our sights to space would be a good way to ease our worries about overpopulation. This doesn't nessecarily mean colonizing the moon, or Mars right away (although that would be a good place to go eventually), but large scale space stations in orbit around the earth that would serve as our first setp off the planet. People would migrate to these areas, allowing the population of the human species to continue to grow without nessecarily threatening directly the earth, although supplying the stations would put a strain on the earth's resources until technology allows for the growth and creation of food in space, and the construction of things without the need of earthly resources.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
PFFT...! more like 'work expectancy' :P
try www.mprize.org (The Methuselah Mouse Prize web site, which supports research into finding the causes and reversing of aging by offering prizes to researchers (you can contribute to the prizes too).
Theres also:
www.betterhumans.com a news site into longevity research and longevitymeme.org and http://www.kurzweilai.net/ (Ray Kurzweil's site devoted to longevity research).
The thing is, once people realize that we are able to tweak the biology right now to get it to manifest interesting effects, there is the possibility that massive funding (a manhattan styled project, could find and fix the causes of aging).
Since the slashdot crowd also undestands and is interested in complicated machines, this should be of some interest, remember that the cell is a form of evolved biological processing machine and that in the future, by developing the appropriate nano tools, we will be able to go into each of our cells, and repair/modify any part of the cellular machinery we want too(in the next decades), we will be able to slow/stop and reverse the aging process. Most of what is happening today in biotech would not have been possible without the development of computer technology in the last 50 years (and the vast ammount of people who can work with this tech) and now that we are getting to be able to manipulate atoms and molecular systems and have a better understanding of the human geneome, the growth of this field looks pretty cool for the future. The interesting thing is people have been looking for a fountain of youth for most of history and have been willing to spend vast ammounts of money on cosmetic creams/hair dyes/hair rugs etc, to look younger (things that have never worked), but it makes a lot more sense to do it the right way and go to the bilogical source insided of our cells and fix the aging process by whatever means (fixing, replacement of cell parts or re-engineering each of our cells by networked nanotech repair bots that float around our bodies).
I would like to know how Klotho's cognitive skills are after such treatment.
-Does it *degrade* at the same rate? [Troz!]
-Does it even degrade? [Zorf!]
-Does Klotho show higher or lower cognitive abilites compared with it's litter mates/other mice?
This study seems more focused on physical/phenotypical aging, but what about nerve cells?
Are you thinking what I'm thinking?
The long-lived mice in the new experiments tend to be less fertile. Hell, this is Slashdot. If this is the only catch ... we'de be getting something for nothing... bring them on...
You can increase the human life span with a very simple procedure; castration.
Rats have been shown to live longer when castrated,
and this is possibly related to the activity of the pineal gland or by lowering testosterone, which is carcinogenic, as well as lowering the metabolic rate. Metabolic problems, in particular, are linked to aging. Resveratrol from red grape skins is a lipase inhibitor, helps prevent the body's absorption of fat. It effectivly reduces a person's calorie intake, and as long as food is held constant it has been linked to increased lifespan (as has good old fashioned starvation to the point that a person's reproductive system shuts down.)
Many human studies seek to explain the lifespan differences in people due to environmental factors such as reduced disease transmission.
While eunichs can still have sex, chronic low-level inflammation by pathogens like chlamydia have been strongly linked to atherosclerosis, as well as diabetes. Some oncogenic viruses have been linked to cancer.
I have to wonder just how well the rash of diabetes in a population correlates with mean and median number of sexual partners in that population.
___
It's the end of my comment as I know it and I feel fine.
Mislimov was reported to be 168 years old by National Geographic magazine. Young stated that he personally interviewed and photographed Mislimov. However, this is not possible.
First, the Azerbaijan authorities did not permit any western journalists or medical men to interview him because they felt that Mislimov was too frail. Second, Mislimov died in 1973. How did they get the photo? Was it through some other source, such as an Azerbaijan journalist? And does that stop them from working ad-hoc with him to get an interview/medical report/etc? No. I'd also like to congratulate the author of that article for completely undermining my confidence in him and you by saying that Mislimov died in 1973. The article came out in January of 1973. Research like that can take months. So it's safe to say that Mislimov was found in maybe December of 1972. How this stops him from being 168 I don't know.
Maybe you should have a look at what you're giving me. And our genetic potential has been identified to be 160+ years. It doesn't matter whether he got vitamin supplements or not, as long as he got all of them and the necessary trace minerals, he could have lived to be 168.
I'll subscribe to Slashdot when I see a month without a dupe, a typo, or an article the "editors" didn't read.
Given enough time, they may produce a mouse which is effectively immortal. The ensuing sword-fights between immortal mice should prove entertaining.
I suggest, contrary to the perennial paranoid populist fantasy, that companies over the long run do what they need to do to survive, namely give the market what it wants. Do you think the demand for one-time genetic fixes is going to be indefinitely weaker than the demand for indefinite drug therapy?
"I'll take Diabetes for 1000 (years) Alex."
To use a little Jeopardy.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
There are more healthy foods than their tasteless salads. Maybe if they put as much effort into designing healthy juices and foods as they put into designing fancy burgers they'd have sold out.
People do want healthy food, if it tastes as good as unhealthy food.
Well, I think the problem with your argument is that you have forgotten the existence of competition.
Suppose I, drug overlord for Merck, accept your argument and decide fooey on research into a genetic cure for diabetes -- instead we'll just sell recombinant insulin to keep our customers paying and paying. I chortle, rub my hands together with glee, and all seems serene, my pension is safe...
Except...until some smartass hungry upstart entrepreneur realizes he can steal all our customers by finding and selling an actual genetic cure for diabetes. Who will buy a lifetime's supply of insulin from Merck when he can buy a one-time cure from UpStart Biotech, Inc.? Sure, Dr. UpStart will make less money than I was planning to do, but he'll still make a bundle and retire filthy rich.
Is this fantasy? Hardly. The competition among pharma companies for clever new therapies is fierce, in part because of competition with generics and the interesting vagaries of patent law, both domestically and internationally. You just can't count on making money out of a new drug for very long, because your competitors are going to engineer their own patentable microvariations, not to mention the Chinese who couldn't care less about American patents, and anyway your patent is only good for 17 years and then every cheap drug factory can horn in.
So what do you do? You strive to find new amazing stupendous drugs that do what no other drug can possibly do, something that people are going to demand, and for which, for a while, you are going to be the sole source.
So, while I agree big pharma would love to pursue the policy you suggest (develop chronic treatments rather than cures), I don't think they can do so. There are just too many smart people snapping at their heels, hungry to get a slice of the market.
Life expectency is not the same as Life span:
if you increase life expectancy you get twice as many 100 year olds.
If you increase life span you get 200 year olds.
Life expectancy has gone up dramatically. However, Maximum lifespan is still around 120.
Yes, we have more folks in the 120 or so age group, but I'm interested in being the first 240 year old.
(no, I don't count the biblical record. Sorry.)
No, nobody else has had any trouble finding it. That's because the show sucks so bad that nobody else is even looking for it.
Remember, not all sci-fi is worth watching. In fact, the vast majority of it sucks.
Asshole!!
It makes sense, If I'm going to be immortal I probably shouldn't be able to have kids, things might get confusing in the following hundred years
We live in a world stuffed to the gills with six and a half billion mindlessly horny other humans, many of whom are living a laughably unsustainable lifestyle, complete with fertility specialists and Cialis and Viagra and children born to fifty-something mothers... and making them all less fertile is a bad thing???
Drawback my flabby ass.
For all virile octagenerians with sweet tooth who want to outlive their Social security.
I doubt that we will ever figure out - and I suspect that even if we did figure out we couldn't do much about it
But there may be downsides with Klotho. The long-lived mice in the new experiments tend to be less fertile. And the gene may also predispose people to diabetes.
So really, it just makes you feel like you're older.
well, it's a fairly popular show. And what makes him the asshole? you're the one being a dick and calling people names.
First, sanitation, sewers and such do help longevity but the two important operators are better dentistry and improved birthing sanitation. Better dentistry is the single most important factor affecting adult longevity. "Natural" human populations have typical average life spans of between 30 and 40 years, during which decade their teeth wear out and malnutrition, absesses, brain infections and number of other really nasty diseases take them down. Through better dentistry adults now live long enough to die of cancers, the ill effects of a diet of abundance on a phyiosology evolved to deal with periodic starvation, and the neurological problems of Alzheimers, senility and such things.
Better birthing sanitation means more children survive and more mothers do as well, meaning that each surving woman can have more children. So populations will increase on two fronts, more living kids and live moms, and more living oldsters.
The bad news, if you look forward to longevity, is that we are evolving strains of bacteria that are resistant to the best modern medicine can come up with, and doing so faster than medicine can come up with its best. That of course is when we aren't simply giving the barn away using antibiotics to produce chunkier chickens and stockier steers. Also, the huge surpluses of agriculture are dependent upon energy inputs from oil.
As oil prices increase and resistant bacteria proliferate, you will probably find it unnecessary to make many choices about who lives and who dies.
------ The only greater hazard to your liberty than n politicians is n+1 politicians.
You're dealing with the human race who has driven several species to extinction without considering the potential harm, often not even realizing they were driving the species to extinction. *wry grin* Or look at some of the Asian companies where they're having to import people because there's not enough population to do the menial labor. Heck, in China a few years ago, they were facing a situation where the one-child-only requirement and the preference for boys led to them pretty near not having enough females to perpetuate the next generation.
Given human history regarding population control, I don't find it at all implausible that we could sterilize ourselves away intentionally or unintentionally.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.