A Taxonomy of Motivations Relating to Longevity
When considered in the grand scheme of things, there is presently little that can be done to alter the personal trajectory of longevity. A recent study on survival to 90 years of age well illustrations the bounds of the possible: given today's medical technology, personal choice on lifestyle and fitness can shift the odds in the range between 1% and 30%. Which is to say that even given an optimal life, two thirds of enthusiasts will not make it to their 90th birthday. We can shift the quality of late life, and we can add or subtract just a handful of years of life expectancy.
Even the advent of the first rejuvenation therapies does not greatly change this picture, as they each tackle only one facet of the cell and tissue damage that causes aging. I think it plausible that we'll find out - much later - that first generation senolytic therapies are capable of adding, say, five years to life expectancy. That sounds reasonable for something that can significantly reduce the chronic inflammation of aging. This is a big deal in a world in which the only other available strategies, such as exercise, or staying thin, also seem to be able to move life expectancy by a single digit number of years. Perhaps three, perhaps seven, certainly not more than ten. But these are small numbers against the bigger picture of the passage of centuries.
Medical control of aging to the degree that will enable a life span of centuries is possible to achieve, given suitable advances in biotechnology. The SENS research program tells us how to go about achieving that goal - it is just a matter of time, funding, and will. The will might be lacking in the broader population. Studies suggest that most people want a little additional longevity, something that falls within the bounds of conformity. They want to live a little longer than their peers, to be that little higher in the hierarchy, but not so much longer that it becomes gauche. Yet all of these individuals will make use of rejuvenation therapies when those treatments are available and widely accepted by the medical community, regardless of how many years are added. Therein lies one of the challenges in assessing attitudes towards longevity.
Motivation for Longevity Across the Life Span: An Emerging Issue
In an attempt to integrate some of the different lines of reasoning and research findings, we submit that there exist three widespread classes of attitudes, expectations, and preferences with regard to a possible extension of human lifetime in modern societies that may reflect different schools of thought, such as essentialism, medicalism, and stoicism. The different primary motives that are associated with the three perspectives on longevity and life-time extension are infinite life (striving to overcome biological degeneration and health declines), healthy life (motivation is conditional on physical and mental health), and dignified life (a wish for dignity and meaning even when there is loss and vulnerability). We submit that these three primary motives can be used to characterize different scientific approaches on longevity, as well as individual attitudes and preferences toward longevity in everyday thinking. We refer to such perspectives as mindsets that involve sets of representations, attitudes, and ways of thinking about the meaning and value of a prolonged life.
An essentialist mindset views aging as a degenerative process that is inevitably associated with physical loss. It reflects the idea that aging is a determined and undesirable process, and that the human mind is held captive in a deficient biological organism. Accordingly, pathological aging cannot be differentiated from normal or healthy aging. One implication is that aging per se is viewed as pathological and ought to be pushed back, for example, with antiaging medicine. Consequently, radical extensions of the life span are expected when antiaging research is successful. Recent studies suggest that the prevalence of essentialist mindsets can be estimated in the range of 3-10% of respondents who wish to live forever or wish to "overcome" the natural aging process.
A medicalist mindset involves that human aging is viewed as burdened only when pathology occurs, and that pathological aging is different from normal aging. In this perspective, aging is associated with age-related health risks, and defined as a medical challenge. One implication is that successful aging may be defined as an absence of disease and disability. On an individual level, medicalism is reflected in an appreciation for an extended lifetime if health functioning can be maintained, and degenerative diseases such as dementia can be avoided. Another implication might be that when endorsing a medicalist mindset, individuals may prefer to avoid the vulnerability of old age and wish to die rather than to become chronically ill or demented.
The stoicist mindset for living long reflects the idea that withstanding the challenges and risks of a long or prolonged life is part of the conditio humana, which involves striving for meaning in life, and for acceptance of one's actual life condition. The challenges, needs, risks, or tasks within the aging process may thus appear manageable or at least bearable as long as there is meaning in life and a sense of grace. Preserving dignity and meaning in a prolonged life is pivotal to a stoicist mindset. Thus, having a worthy and dignified life may be emphasized over the absence of chronical diseases in late life. Regarding the desired extension of lifetime, we submit that holding a stoicist mindset may involve that individuals express a valuation of life per se and "as it comes." This may also involve a discomfort or unwillingness to reflect about lifetime extension rather than about dignity and meaning in life.
I want to be perfectly healthy for as long as I live, and since people don't die from good health, I'll be happy dealing with the indefinite longevity side benefit.
Hi there! Just a 2 cents.
''One implication is that successful aging may be defined as an absence of disease and disability.''
There is only 1 implication,
Successful Aging = No Aging.
That,
is, successful 'aging'; it's absence of it, leading to absence of death and everything else (disase/disability).
There is nothing 'successful' about, aging, in and of itself. Because it leads you to your death and that is a failure, not some 'grand success' like all ethicists want you to believe or like these studies continue saying 'successful aging'...they use a friendly tone to hide the direnesss of death, but it's so full of hypocrisy - you, still, die; it's just said in a 'nicer way'. I prefer 'healthy aging'...even than I despise because it's like ignorance pure/oblivious.
Successful Aging = (the most friendly (but moronic)) 'Oxymoron'.
Just a 2 cents.
It is normal to be afraid living longer than 200 years. After all, we have no good examples of people living to that age and even less of keeping their integrity. Honestly, when you are 15 the idea of dying at 60 doesn't sound that terrible. You kinda know that someone can live up to 120-125, but 40-something people seem like ancient to you. It is also perfectly normal not to want to admit that you are so selfish to want to live forever, especially when facing peer and social pressure. Of course if given the choice of living to 90 and feel and look like 30-40, or even 50, nobody in their right mind will reject it, unless it involves bathing in blood and eating human babies, of course.
And the problem at hand is that if you follow the logical trail, once you can keep somebody young at 50 to be say like 30, then it is not such a leap of imagination to keep somebody at 90 to be the new 50s, or even 20s. And now if we do a couple of more inductive steps, we go to 150 being young. And from that point why not 900 or 2000 or any limit whatsoever. While LEV is a very exciting concept it should be de-emphasized when promoting anti-aging research. We just have to find an age-related syndrome or a group of syndromes that are generic enough, classify them as root causes of diseases and complications and find ways to remove the said root syndromes.
The syndromes can be [re]grouped in the 7 SENS classification groups or not. There are probably no more than 20 main ones, depending how you classify them. And each one of them is leading to debilitating conditions as an end-point.
Now, if we wave a magic wand, and discover the perfect compound that stops aging, or even reverses it to the equivalent of 20-35 years old.
If we keep our current risk profiles the average life expectancy will be about 800-2000 (depending on how we pick variables). The people will be dying only from suicide, murder and freak accidents. After 1000 years 1/4 friends probably will have died by traffic accidents, falling from ladders, lightning strikes and choking on ping-pong balls. Each one of those accidents is very improbable but with time, they will be happening. Not getting older doesn't imply living forever. And we are not even going to the point that after a few hundred years your conciseness might get tired of living and just self-destruct.
I can also imagine another scenario. There are a few forms of accidental damage which is not age related. You might be accumulating enough dusts in your lungs or scar tissue that it becomes life threatening. That would be the naive model of aging we had before of linear damage accumulation. But that one probably will be taken care of in 50-70 years with artificial organs and regenerative medicine.
Of course , those are remote concerns. For now we are scratching the surface and just proving that it is even possible.
I would even go that far to say that there is no such thing as aging but rather we have bunch of syndromes that develop over time and correlate with the age. And the researches that try to separate Alzheimer Disease from "normal mental age-related decline" are ill conceived . What does mean "normal" is it normal just because it is the common norm ? There were times where dying from infections or war was considered normal too. After all being eaten by a lion is a natural cause of death too. Just because something is so common that it becomes the norm it doesn't mean we should not try to do anything about it.
@CANanonymity
>Successful Aging = No Aging.
That's it. There might be graceful aging like having no disability. But show me an aged person that has no disease (Sarcopenia is disease, presbyopia is a disease which a few hundred years was a borderline disability, losing teeth is a disease too, wrinkles are also a side effect of a disease - the same one that stiffens the arteries or leads to loss of colagen ). It just happens that we have good treatments, protsesys or compensation for many of those conditions, so the old people may lead an active live and take care for themselves.
Hi cuberat! Thanks for that. Just a 2 cents.
Absolutely, extrinsic causes of death will still eventually catch us (in general) because we expose ourselves to so many 'hazards/odds'...they might be micro-odds (like getting hit by the lighting...but they happen...like just recently someone got hit by the lightning...on bicycle...that freaked me out, when you go out there you expose yourself and your 'average life expentacy' drops the minute you leave your door), in other words 'you take your chances' (risks vs rewards), I prefer calculated risks than blind risks ('one ounce of safe is better than one pound of sorry'/'better safe than sorry'/better safe than dead). IT's like playing russian roulette every day, we do that; otherwise, you can live as a monk/recluse hermit and you drop your 'Bad Odds'..and will live longer (it's no surprise why some of the longest lived people are 'inactive' 'recluse' Hermits; they just avoid the exposure risk/dangers 'of living fast/accidents 'on the open'')). Russian roulette with 6 blanks, than 1 live, lots safer. Even then still not safe (gaz from fire exhaust up close is just dangerous (just like a firecracker can explode/cause disfigurement (people died when firecrackers explode in face); thus 6, empty, chamber ever better). Or, you know, even more better, just not play it at all.
''But life will be boring..you have to take risks...and 'live'...'on the edge' (of death...and life)....''
No thanks, I wish to keep my life; the thrill of the 'living dangerously', not worth it; you have to content yourself somehow in another way; suffice yourself and be happy - without exposing you/your life to these dangers.
Jeanne Calment lived to 122...or so we believe...she was, at least, a centenarian...but she had sharp mind, I don't think we necessarily will become 'blasé' bored or tired 'of living'...''When am I going to die ????!...I'm waitinggggg..Come on! Make it Happen, tired waiting...end me''.
If you do become 'tired of living'...you have to 'relearn' 'of living'...just like a child. Studies said that old people/elders become a lil bit like 'children' again...they relearn to 'love to live 'for the first time'....
thus we will have to 'readapt' the mind and force ourselves 'to start anew'...this way we will not be tired.
I hope that pollution doesn't kill us over a long term...but she lived 122...in a area that was midly to not very polluted (Arles)...so it's not so bad, we will just have to excrete the polution crap in our lungs somehow. After all..she smoked cigs until 110...so...she lived to 122 as a chain-smoker...
Some of the longest lived people are cigarette/cigar smokers....yet...75% of the rest the people die of lung cancer caused by carcinogens is cigs....goes to show...in some people, their genetics is able to transform a pollutant into a 'hormesis benefit' (oxidative stress caused by pollutant = NRF2 hormesis/methylation compensation = oxidative stress Resistance)..such as these people eating crap/smoking/etc...and not dying and living to 100+. While others doing the Same Thing...and dying very young. It's all genetics. I am positive that we at least have the chance to live to 200 or so, and even possibly reach 500; maybe a 1000, not holding breath; but we do have a capacity to live 2 or 3 centuries ; I hope we see that, LEV would be better of course.
Just a 2 cents.
@CANanonymity
>I am positive that we at least have the chance to live to 200 or so, and even possibly reach 500; maybe a 1000, not holding breath; but we do have a capacity to live 2 or 3 centuries ; I hope we see that, LEV would be better of course
If we love to be 150, the leap to 200 in not that big in principle. The nature of the progress is if not exponential, at least having potential for an explosive growth. And if we reach 200, that would be a whole different world. The difference between 1919 and 2019. It might be more subtle but will be nevertheless as profound. The point is to have the first successful anti-aging treatment. After that it will unleash an avalanche of funding and interest. And after that even if every pundit starts persuading the public that aging is good and natural that wouldn't slow the research even the tiniest bit. Now we are in the times were the phase transition is happening. We, collectively , can speed it up or slow it down because now even the tiniest success or failure could nudge the trend in either direction.
My immediate hopes are within OISIN. But there many others in the pipeline. The moment we have working home senolitics we will wake up in a very different world. Overnight.
RE
It's sure that senescent cell removal will have a great impact on healthspan and overall health improvement by erducing SASP/p16-positive cells....but I am bit cautious on this (again not to sound negative nelly but just not think it is silver bullet magic cure), I have read articles that said that senlytics are total bollock and that people are fooling themselves 'in the seno-hype train'. I don't know what to think of them but I heed them even so, senescent cells accumulation is of course causal to diseases...but will it really affect Maximaul Lifespan, not so sure.
Healthspan/average life - yes, for nearly 100% sure...because you remove these cells that causes systemic inflammation and contribute to degeneration in old age - you are basically doing the 'autophagy' clean up (of junk/damaging cells) in a sense...which is good...but, autophagy does not make you live 200...CR does autophagy and it failed to increase lifespan in certain animals, it even dreduced total number of p16 cells and senescence cells....again...it's ambiguous and muddy, CR Does increase Maxmimum Lifespan...but not much in High Order Long Lifespan Animals...certainaly not much more than 122 like Jeanne Calment.
She was 'taking senolytics' arleady...we take them...nearyl every day..while eating food...does not stop everything. She drank tons of porto red wine, full of quercetin, resveratrol...polyphonels etc...all them act to reduce senecence...and destroy senescent cell (ok, not as good as SENS senotherapy of course...but we are alraedy doing that..that's I fear (redundancy, meaning not much effect))
And
Senescent cells are overall in low numbers during lifespan...so if we reduce them to 0...it means that Overall, indeed, senescent cells are pretty impactful on health - but les useful on maximal lifespan extesion because - we don't have much of them...their 'impact' on longevity is lesser than on health.
What I mean is that we may remove these senescent cells, it will not impact the methylomen problems strongly...things will continue its course - senescent cell or not. People that are very healthy with very lil senescent cells - still have these problems too - rendering senescent cells an extra problem. Senescent cells are like an 'extra layer' we don't want that happens with age, the under layer, is the intrinsic aging mechanisms in mitos/telomeres/epigenome/ chromosomes.
That's what I fear. It's why I bank more on the other therapise..like mithochondrial fixing and nuclear fixing with telomere preservation, and we need epigenetic repropgramming this is the doorway to ultralong lifespan because it's where/how life is dictated much (the rest, like junk...we'll have to remove those or stop them completely (lipofuscin, amyloid, progerin/prelamin A, ceroid, A2E, glucosepane, pentosidine, furosine, transthyretin, tau, etc; the synergy of it all will certainly slow aging strongly)).
Just a 2 cents.
PS: I'm also saying this because studies on long lived animals have shown that, if there is not intervention to 'help you live longer' and to make you stay 'young' biologically'...then it is impossible to go above the maximum 122.
Meaning, in order, to reach above 122...currently, without any therapy that 'revert your body to a young body'....the Only way to live to 122 and above...is to do an interevntion in your young age;
aged people cannot obtain lifespan extension above 122 - if they do not have access to a therapy that makes their 'REvert' to a young body. IT's impossible, that's what the studies concluded; your 'early life' determines your 'late life'.
If you keep your early life - longer 'as young' - you obtain a longer lifespan - later.
It's why, for example, they were capable of seeing that the longest lived animals were teh ones that stayed the 'youngest' Whole Life; while animals that died younger 'reached adulhoood' and 'accelereated processus of aging'...while those who lived longer - slowed the process and 'staying young Biologically'. For example, Centenarians had 8 years of decrease in DNA methylation age vs regular population...this is Clear demonstrator that All Time Points...centenarians were Younger biologically then someone who dies earlier.
Thus, it's why, the studies concluded that in Order to Go Above 122..you must Be Younger in Your Total TALLY of Life...'in your young years...'. In other words...if you stay 30 years old biologically...but you are 51 in age chronologically (real time years that have passed in your life)...you are effectively youger and CAN then reach Above 122. And this explaines why Old People above 70 cannot ovecome Maximal lifsepan *if they do not have access to a therapy that makes them revert biologically Immediately to a younger body*; they will die before or reach the max 122. The main message is : For the Young people, Keep Young, very crucial. And for the elder, get it quick (once available that is) to revert because won't overcome MLSP. I was surprised but it makes sense, the 'cumul' of lifespan (in early part) is what dictates (late(r)) lifespan outcome..if you 'cumulate' a 'young body' forever..you could thus live forever (theoretically, of course).
Just a 2 cents.
@CANanonymity
You might be right that senolitics will not increase the maximum lifespan alone. There some indication that for the knee arthritis they aren't the whole story, for example , and there they are not leading to a spectacular cure but rather incremental improvements.
But in the other hand, we are already loving long enough to hit the limits Edith the help of the modern medicine, so any systematic improvement like senolytics , which improves the health span should spill in the max span too. If course, we will know for sure only many decades after they arrive. Wikipedia says "As of 5 July 2019, the oldest known living person is Kane Tanaka of Japan, aged 116 years, 184 days".
So even if she starts talking senolitics today there at least 8-10 years to prevent that she managed to break the max lifespan record. And most likely she will not take them early. So a group of supercentarians , say at the age of 110 will start telling senolitics in 5 to 10 years. Then 15 year after we will know. So the answers will lattice no earlier than in 20 years.
Re Re
I hope that would happen...and senolytics are stil the best thing that could happen (because there is not much else, so we'll take it). From the studies on p-16 ablated-cells mice it seems that it is important to start young - they only corroborate what the other study said....if you start senolytics at 110 years, the effects will be minimal - Very 'late' and thus...a bit too late. There will an improvement of health and these people will then have a chance of breaking the 122...but I think it will not be incredible....because Jeanna Calment Was Already taking Senolytics (in some form/foods)...and Yet, she died at 122....thus, they could gain maybe 1-5 years lifespan - at this late point by senolytics; to reach 115...they could reach 116 maybe if they started at 110. I don't see many beating 122 because, as said, Mrs. Calment was already 'having some' and she made it to 122. The other reason is that Centenarians have very short telomeres, in general, in their cells...thus, they are at the 'end of the road'...senolytics cannot stop that, thus I don't see centenarians reaching 150 on senolytics, they may beat 122 - it will be a Very Very Very Fit Individual - a Woman who was 'very young' her whole life (like she looked 20 when she was 55), nearly 100% sure (like Calment); otherwise, no the chance of a man reaching 122 are slim (if not impossible but less possible), even with senolytics thrown in. The fact that that centenarian reached 116, is another woman, demonstrates that it is, most likely, women who might beat the 122; or, if not, will obtain most benefit if they do senolytics after 110.
It's better to do senolytics younger, a very obvious thing. Being 'Whole Life' without senescent cells is the goal, then, we might see some people start beating 122 (rare ones...because, as said, Mrs. Calment took senolytics indirectly and, if you look at pictures of her yougn....you realzie something, she looked Much Younger than her real age - exactyly like studies said, keep young = possibly beat 122).
FYI - On a related note:
My recent show with Dr. Steffanie Strathdee PhD., University of California San Diego (UCSD) School of Medicine, co-director of UCSD's new center for Innovative Phage Applications and Therapeutics (IPATH)
If there was a candidate for an "8th SENS" or "10th Hallmark" category, this area is it, as these bugs can undo our lives in a matter of days, no matter how "rejuvenated" we may get
We have been warned for years about the coming nightmare scenario of "super-bugs" and drug resistance, but yet the novel antibiotic portfolios of bio-pharma have remained relatively empty
This is an amazing story of a 90+ year old biotech platform (which most of us have no access to today in 2019) which may save many of our lives if made more widely available
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imWZLzSGqqI
Her related book - https://www.amazon.com/Perfect-Predator-Scientists-Husband-Superbug/dp/0316418080?fbclid=IwAR3dsAPQ6QeuFblz7OCEF7ZdVy2EUS0BGUWYhey5YPBsHMEcmKQX2-LjUHY
Phages are cool. Unfortunately, they get attached by the immune system too.
@Cuberat
True, as does every biologic agent in development (humanized or not) - that's what the immune system does
But not a reason not to be accessible to the world
Reason comes across as a twerp who needs to get outside his bubble more often...
The root causes of aging are defects or errors in ideal metabolism itself, in the broad sense, and by definiton necessarily... An auto-garage approach, of repairing damage ex post facto--as Reason ludicrously claims over and over and over to be the only thing that 'addresses the root causes of aging', does exactly the opposite... Repaing damage, by definiton, fails to address root causes--preventing damage may address root causes... repairing ex post facto responds to resulting damage without altering the underlying processes--root causes--which led to, and will continue to lead to the same damage...
Similarly the bubble-bound attempt at pigeonholing persepectives on health and aging into artifical categories which conform to his fatally flawed view overall is a form of intellectual dishonesty... Try addressing the root causes of that for a change...
I'll be generous to you, John, by saying your insults are unnecessary. If you have a disagreement with the damage-repair approach, that's fine, but please try being more respectful to a man who has devoted a large part of his life into supporting rejuvenation biotechnology.
I think it's more realistic in the near-term to repair the underlining age-related damage that continues accumulating, instead of preventing any molecular and cellular deterioration from happening. Repairing the damage before it reaches pathology will buy people healthy time until better options (synthetic biology, substrate independent minds, ect.) become available.
I try to give people the benefit of the doubt; thinking that better education on the subjects should change their dystopic perspectives on advanced technologies, but yes, you might be right, Chris.
There does seem to be some online commentators (that I won't mention by name as to avoid giving them the undeserved attention they crave) who share nearly identical phrasing; which makes me question how sincere "they" truly are.
I have removed some comments from this post. Please do not feed the trolls.
CANanonymity -- The expression is "just my two cents" or "my two cents worth". This "Just a 2 cents" phrase which you keep using is exceptionally bad English.
This article states that: "Medical control of aging to the degree that will enable a life span of centuries is possible to achieve...it is just a matter of time, funding, and will." But I think we should all bear in mind that it's also a matter of intellectual GENIUS. We need some highly-ambitious scientific and medical RADICALS and REVOLUTIONARIES who will upset the whole field with their brilliant insights and shocking innovations.
The article seems to contain a lot of pessimistic conjecture. It's plausible that the life extension rates found in murine studies of existing therapies should apply to humans as well. Additionally, they likely act synergistically, meaning that maximum life extension should surpass a mere 5 years for people using an array of the latest products.
Radical approaches are needed, but they don't just require new compounds. Fine tuning treatment protocols and dosage amounts can yield big dividends.