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Experimental Drug Targeting Alzheimer's Disease Shows Anti-Aging Effects (nextbigfuture.com)

Posted by timothy on from the light-in-the-darkness dept.

schwit1 writes with news that researchers at the Salk Institute have found that an experimental drug candidate aimed at combating Alzheimer's disease has a host of unexpected anti-aging effects in animals. Says the article: The Salk team expanded upon their previous development of a drug candidate, called J147, which takes a different tack by targeting Alzheimer's major risk factor–old age. In the new work, the team showed that the drug candidate worked well in a mouse model of aging not typically used in Alzheimer's research. When these mice were treated with J147, they had better memory and cognition, healthier blood vessels in the brain and other improved physiological features.

"Initially, the impetus was to test this drug in a novel animal model that was more similar to 99 percent of Alzheimer's cases," says Antonio Currais, the lead author and a member of Professor David Schubert's Cellular Neurobiology Laboratory at Salk. "We did not predict we'd see this sort of anti-aging effect, but J147 made old mice look like they were young, based upon a number of physiological parameters."

4 of 101 comments (clear)

  1. Easier to address aging than its symptoms. . . by Idou · · Score: 5, Interesting

    End of life care is expensive and ineffectual because it is targeting the symptoms of the problem, not the underlying problem, which is age. Eventually, the technology will be at the point that it will just make more economic sense to have people preemptively reduce aging instead of going to the doctor for an age related illness.

    Yes, people will have to work longer but you will not work yourself to death to save up for retirement (just for the occasional break). There are plenty of problems in the world, so having more able people to address those problems is probably a good thing. Also, people will put off having kids longer and everyone is going to start to care a lot more about the "longterm" of things. Seems like a positive direction for humanity. . .

    --
    Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
    1. Re:Easier to address aging than its symptoms. . . by Idou · · Score: 3, Interesting

      There has actually been a lot of thought put into that. Here is one example.

      A short explanation is to point out the well documented fact that people have fewer kids and tend to have kids later in life the longer they live. Consequently, a cheap pill that allows people to live hundreds of years would cause an immediate effect of a DECREASE in the number of kids born, and would POSTPONE a lot of births that would have otherwise have had happened sooner. So the birthrate would decrease GREATLY over this initial period, while other causes of deaths would continue. As a result, over the "short term" (probably centuries, to immortals) you probably would see a population DECREASE, as a result.

      Eventually, though, people will reach some equilibrium of having kids, so the initial period before this is crucial. Basically, we will have an army of well educated, experienced, and healthy people to tackle some key technologies (e.g. space elevators, etc. . .). After the initial period (again, probably centuries long), we send armies of people to settle the rest of solar system, or make a Dyson sphere, or whatever else help ensure the continuation of the species.

      Just because we have learned to live with death does not mean death is some kind crucial component to ensure the continuation of our species. In fact, it is the exact opposite. . .

      --
      Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
    2. Re:Easier to address aging than its symptoms. . . by Idou · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Why not? If 50 million tired and aching U.S. senior citizens were turned healthy and energetic, why could they not help bring entire nations up from poverty? Ending aging would dramatically increase the manpower and working knowledge that could in turn be used to address the problems of the world.

      Besides, I am sure there was much more poverty when people were living to just be 40 years old. . . it seems that living longer gives you more time to claw your way out of poverty.

      --
      Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
  2. Curry is cheaper and tastier. by dsmatthews9379 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This drug is just a synthetic curcumin (turmeric) derivative and the statistics show that the natural substance does protect Indians, who eat a lot of it. (Old news.)