Slashdot Mirror
Blood of World's Oldest Woman Hints At Limits of Life
porkchop_d_clown (39923) writes "When Hendrikje van Andel-Schipper died in 2005, she was the oldest woman in the world. [New Scientist reported Wednesday] that, at the end of her life, most of her white blood cells had been produced by just two stem cells — implying the rest of her blood stem cells had already died, and hinting at a possible limit to the human life span."
Isn't this old news?
If this is a critical factor for maintaining longevity it would seem to be a simple task to save up and grow a supply of stem cells when one is younger. The cord blood industry is essentially doing this now.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
Since the summary didn't mention it, and I'm sure others were wondering.
If you live long enough most of your cells end up dieing or critically damaged by the formation of inclusion bodies caused from misfolded proteins. As far as we can tell the cells are otherwise fine they are just slowly accumulating that damage over time. This is also what alzheimer's is. The problem is that misfolded proteins are kind of contagious to other proteins in the cell and that is what leads to the inclusion bodies.
We are making progress though on being able to clean out the inclusion bodies. Your cells do have the ability to take them apart but somehow they end up not doing it. Give us some time though and we will fix this problem also and clean out these inclusion bodies in all of your cells and then your cells will work much better.
The other issue we need to fix is activating telomerase to extend our telomeres. The basic issue is that natural selection does not really select for anything after reproductive age so humans are filled with a bunch of small defects and we are getting better at repairing the damage. I really look forward to what can be done with CRISPR-CAS9 to repair DNA damage and replaced damaged genes.
Computer modeling for biotech drug manufacturing is HARD!
I find the conclusion that there is an absolute limit to the human life span because at some point the stem cells producing white blood cell all die out quite strange.
A few centuries ago, we could have concluded that there is an absolute limit to human life span because at some point someone can't eat anymore while he lost all his teeth. Any similar logical train of though could lead to the same conclusion.
And now, what if you find out why the cells die and manage to prevent it? Then the next thing that kills us will limit our life span, until we find out how to fix that as well. Absolute limits are difficult to set.
Look, if you know what you're talking about, I'm not sure you fit in here....
Who dares to love forever,
When love must die.
---Queen
Momento Mori
>> Millionaires will live forever
Not sure you've been keeping up with the cost of living, but you pretty much have to have a million dollars in the bank to even think about retiring these days. ($1M divided by 20 - a common rule of thumb for maintaining a nest egg in retirement - is just $50K/yr.)
I don't know about how anyone else feels but I do not necessarily want long life unless I can maintain my youthfulness. I'm 34 now and still stay active but obviously my body is already on the decline (comparing myself to myself at age 24). I do not expect to stay in peak condition when I'm age 80.. but I also don't want to live 40 more years if I have to rely on someone else to do standard tasks
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
I'm not so sure that prolongs your life. If history is any indicator, such things usually led to significantly shortened lifespans. Usually involving mobs with pitchforks.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
> Further, I see a lot of pessimism on Slashdot regarding super-longevity. I don't get it.
You don't understand that super-longevity would be bad both due to over-population and entrenched interests that will not allow progress, or you don't understand how hard a problem life extension is?
Over population? Space, the final frontier...with humans genetically and technologically augmented to live off world in varied conditions. I put forward that many would take this to task. It is not often said here that we need to move a lot of the population off world for the species to survive. That has to happen somehow and sometime or we will die.
Also, at the pace that the science of super-longevity is unfolding, it is in parallel to, if not in tandem with, technologies that will allow ourselves to be freed from our biological and most importantly, cognitive limitations. We have reached a point where we can scarcely guess at scientific and technological advancements and achievements a few years in advance. In a matter of decades, it will no longer makes sense to bother guessing at a point we will not be able to see past. All human problems have constructive solutions.
Brought to you by Carl's Junior.
Genesis 6:3 says in the New Living Translation:
Then the LORD said, "My Spirit will not put up with humans for such a long time, for they are only mortal flesh. In the future, their normal lifespan will be no more than 120 years."
It seems that if they can figure out how to reduce or stop the "stem cell exhaustion" then you probably could significantly extend a persons lifespan, problem is you need to do it early in life. the old rich guy will be too late, he will stay old rich guy. But start with a newborn and suddenly things change. if you can even reduce the exhaustion rate by a tiny 20% at birth, you are looking at a 20 year lifespan extension from a 100 year life, not a lot but the benefits would be throughout the life. the no longer healing as well when you hit 35, the feeling not as fast when you hit 40... etc.. Imagine the regenerative abilities you had as a kid, deep nasty cut healed within days, at 45 a deep nasty cut heals in a few weeks. extending the super healing of the body from stopping in the teens to stopping in the late 20's would be remarkable.
And that is if you only find a way to slow the burnout, if you found a way to have stem cells regenerate themselves, I dont think you found immortality, but you would have 70 year olds with the body of 40 year olds but with 30 years more wisdom.
My question is what new diseases will we discover? I am sure there are things lurking that we call harmless, but maybe have a 70 year gestation period....
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.