The Health Optimizer's Point of View

Below find linked a profile of one of a number of modest health optimization initiatives that are driven by the desire to raise the odds of living to see the arrival of real, working rejuvenation therapies, such as the anticipated results of the SENS research programs. There is a large marketplace to serve people who are convinced they can do better than the 80/20 of calorie restriction and regular moderate exercise in personal health and longevity. This seems like a valid hobby for someone with time and money to burn, but I don't believe that that it is in fact possible to know whether or not you are in fact doing better or worse than the 80/20 approach. At least not at the present time. The data is far too uncertain and the possible gains too small for near all possible optimizing action that people might take today beyond calorie restriction and exercise. You are better off taking that time and effort and directing it to support progress in SENS research.

Your risk of death each year doubles every eight years. I've got one in a thousand chances of dying of natural causes this year. In eight years' time, it's two in a thousand. In 16 years' time, it's four in a thousand. Today, we're just trying to find those extra few years. In 20 years time, finding an extra five years will be huge. Maybe in those extra five years, they can cure aging. The idea is that increasing your life expectancy every year so you can live a bit longer massively increases your chance of living forever.

Rule number one: Stop smoking. If you smoke, you give up half your chances of getting there. And there's normal things, like diet and exercise. There are things you can do at home, like reducing blood pressure and heart rate, that have a huge impact on your general health. But that's all science and research-based. I'm certainly hoping there will be more radical approaches as well. There's also going to be things like storing your stem cells. I'd like to investigate who's offering that service. I want to be storing stem cells today - before the outside starts aging - so when we develop the technology to grow my own parts, I don't have to get a replacement organ and I can actually repair my own heart or repair my own lungs using my own stem cells. I'll be doing it with my 40-year-old stem cells rather than my 60-year-old stem cells. There are definitely going to be clinics out there offering longevity solutions without any science basis at all. I want to weed those out and avoid those ones as well.

Plenty of people have that ethical debate about whether or not you should extend life. But do people want to live forever? I think the answer's no. The people who do, really do. You don't half-want to live forever. If you want to, you definitely want to. There's this online survey, where they ask that question every year, and around 35% of people say yes. I thought that was amazingly low. Imagine a 90-year-old - a bit in pain, not doing anything exciting. If we cure aging, then it'll be a few years after that when we can reverse aging. If you could have a 20-, 30-year-old body again, which is going to be far more useful for you and certainly pain free, then you'd want to live forever. Still, an awful lot of people think that death is a natural thing and we shouldn't fight it.

Link: https://www.inverse.com/article/8123-adrian-cull-s-live-forever-club-is-buying-time-until-we-cure-death

Comments

"There’s this online survey, where they ask that question every year, and around 35% of people say yes."

Where is that survey?

Posted by: Antonio at November 16th, 2015 10:12 AM

@Antonio: No idea, doesn't match up with the numbers for anything I recall, like the Pew survey in 2013.

Posted by: Reason at November 16th, 2015 5:48 PM

Why do they always tell people to start storing their current stem cells? I thought the hope was that bioscience will figure out how to make stem cells younger, so that storing them would be unnecessary. That'd be pretty gosh-darn disappointing for those 80-somethings who end up being told that they're screwed because they didn't save their stem cells. ;)

Posted by: MissKaioshin at November 16th, 2015 6:09 PM

@MissKaioshin: I've long said that storing stem cells to get access to younger ones only makes sense on a short timescale (i.e. prior to near future advances making the point of that storage moot, looking more likely the more that is found out about induced pluripotency). You wouldn't need those cells on that same very short timescale, of course, since yours would still be comparatively fine.

Storage makes sense from other infrastructure points of view if there were some ecosystem of services that needed cell samples produced frequently enough to make it a pain to take it from you personally, but that ecosystem doesn't yet exist outside of the narrow world of hospitals and critically ill individuals.

Posted by: Reason at November 16th, 2015 6:24 PM

@Reason: Any thoughts on "I've long said that storing stem cells to get access to younger ones only makes sense on a short timescale"how short timescale you are thinking of. I realize it may not be definitive, but curious on yours or others ideas when storing the stem cells may not be relevant.

Thanks

Posted by: Robert Church at November 16th, 2015 6:32 PM

@Robert Church: If you're in middle age and storing for older age twenty years out, that seems pointless. I think that the problem of generating young cells from old cells will have been 80/20 dealt before then, given the present pace of progress and what is known of induced pluripotency and embyronic rejuvenation.

Posted by: Reason at November 16th, 2015 6:39 PM

That 35% number while low, seems surprisingly high to me, given how many people speak out against longevity. I can't find anything on that survey either though.

The part where he mentions in the article about ethical concerns and getting politicians involved and talking about extending life in the next 10-20 years is my biggest fear with this whole field. Maybe it's just me, but I could see politicians shooting that down without so much as an afterthought. Especially when you talk about "living forever". Well, at least if the majority of voters aren't interested in it anyways. Maybe I'm just worrying for nothing and whatever procedures enable longevity will be legal. I'm hopeful but not optimistic. We'll see.

Posted by: Ham at November 16th, 2015 8:14 PM

Obtaining viable stem cells from older patients is rapidly becoming a viable option, I am not sure banking cells will remain a useful thing in the near future as it is becoming easier to obtain quality iPS cells from patients. I suppose a small pool of cells might be kept for everyone born to help with diseases later in life.

One of the MMTP researchers Jean Marc Jean-Marc Lemaitre originally took cells from 100 year olds back in 2011 and removed the aging markers and the process is only improving. The Blasco Lab recently improved the quality of the cells with a simple inexpensive procedure and this improvement is only going to continue.

Posted by: Steve H at November 17th, 2015 10:19 AM

@Ham: I'm not concerned about prohibition at all. Population ageing is a huge economic problem in most of the developed countries. Once rejuvenation is available, politicians will allow it, even if the general public opposses it.

Posted by: Antonio at November 17th, 2015 2:49 PM

I hope you're right. You make valid and obvious points, but people like to talk about playing god, being unnatural, etc so there's a little more to it. But even if there was a holdup, I'm sure tourism would be available if you had the cash and the means to get there.

Posted by: Ham at November 17th, 2015 3:26 PM
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