Fight Aging!

Over at the Methuselah Foundation forums Michael Rae adds a lot more detail to news of lysosomal manipulations that halt liver aging in mice: "I think that we should regard this [as] supportive evidence for LysoSENS, rather than as an intervention that we should seek to translate for human use. I don't want to give the impression that this is anything less than an amazing result - I'm very impressed with the work itself, and excited by the actual effects on the animals --however, I think it's important to also see how [even] this sweeping result still suffers the standard flaws in the 'gerontological' approach to anti-aging medicine. ... note that in order to get the full effects of the intervention, the transgene had to be activated when the animals were 6 mo old - quite young ... because such 'gerontological' interventions slow down, but cannot reverse, the accumulation of aging damage, they are necessarily less effective the older people get. [This is] both because of their progressive rise in pre-existing aging damage, and the impairments in ability to adapt to and exploit such improvements due to other, independently-acting aging processes, making it hard to really benefit people who (as Dr. de Grey often puts it) 'have the misfortune to be already alive' - and especially people who are significantly older, in whom the need is greatest." You'll also find a detailed discussion of the science to back up those points.

Link: http://www.mfoundation.org/forums/showthread.php?p=4153#post4153