The Immortals Among Us
Let us define immortality as being a state of agelessness, which seems a common colloquial usage these days. More precisely this means that the risk of death due to intrinsic causes such as wear and tear damage of vital organs remains the same over time, perhaps due to advanced medical interventions. Falling pianos are still going to kill you, and a hypothetical biologically young immortal in a hypothetical environment maintaining today's first world extrinsic mortality rate would have a half-life of 500 years or so, meaning that at any age, there is a 50% chance of evading a life-ending event for another 500 years. There are no human immortals by this criteria of a static intrinsic mortality rate, it seems, though for a while it looked like very old humans might have essentially flat but very high mortality rates in the same way as very old flies do. Immortality in a state of advanced frailty and coupled with a 90% or higher yearly mortality rate isn't the sort of circumstance that most people would aspire to, of course. It barely improves on the actual circumstance that the oldest of people find themselves in, all too briefly.
However, let us think beyond the box. Consider the small horde of children that you'll find playing and running in any junior schoolyard here and now. By the time the survivors of their cohorts reach a century of age, the 2100s will have arrived. If the current very slow trend in increasing adult life expectancy continues, adding a year of remaining life expectancy at 60 for every passing decade, then something like 25% of these present children will live to see that centenary. But I don't for one moment believe that this trend will continue as it has in the past. Past increases in life expectancy were an incidental side-effect of general improvements in medicine across the board, coupled with increasing wealth and all the benefits that brings. Across all of that time, no-one was seriously trying to intervene in the aging process, to address the causes of aging, or to bring aging under medical control. Times are changing, and now many groups aiming to build some of the foundations needed to create exactly this outcome. You may even have donated to support some of them, such as the SENS Research Foundation. The trend in longevity in an age in which researchers are trying to treat the causes of aging will be very different from the trend in longevity in an age in which no such efforts are taking place.
You don't have to dig very far into the state of the science to see that the first rejuvenation treatments are very close, their advent limited only by funding. If funding were no issue for senescent cell clearance, for example, it would absolutely, definitively be in clinics a decade from now. Other necessary technologies are more distant, but not that much more distant - the 2030s will be an exciting time for the medical sciences. For the occupants of today's junior playground, it seems foolish to imagine that by age 60 they will not have access to rejuvenation treatments after the SENS model at various stages of maturity, many having having been refined for more than 30 years, at the height of their technology cycle, and just giving way to whatever radical new improvement happens next.
Take a moment for a sober look at the sweeping differences and expanded technological capabilities that exist between today, the 1960s, and the 1910s. So very much has been achieved, and that pace of progress is accelerating. Those junior playground athletes of today will live to see a world even more radically different and advanced than our present time is in comparison to the First World War era. These are the immortals among us. The majority of them will have the opportunity to attain actuarial escape velocity, to keep on using ever-improving versions of rejuvenation treatments until they are gaining life expectancy at a faster rate than they are aging. Their cellular damage, the wear and tear created by the normal operation of metabolism, will be repaired as fast as it is is generated. It is the rest of us, those of us who are no longer spring chickens, who are faced with much more of a race to the goal. The degree to which we can successfully fund and advocate the necessary research is the determinant of whether we can scrape by into the age of rejuvenation treatments, or whether we will gain modest benefits but still age to death - because we were born too soon, and because the rest of the world didn't get its collective act together rapidly enough in what is now the very tractable matter of building a cure for aging.
Yeah, we are in the frontier between mortals and immortals. Which side we finally fall upon depends on our actions.
Reason, it's interesting you mention the senescent cell clearance and how if it had funding it would be in clinics within a decade. Why does it not have more funding? Were the senolytics that were shown earlier in the year not proof enough to attract more funding? Maybe Michael has an opinion on this?
@ham - I'm sure you already know, but the SENS Foundation have invested seed capital/debt into Oisin Biotechnology, who have tested a method of senescent cell removal in vitro, and are now presumably trying to repeat this in vivo.
At what point this becomes interesting to a Biotech or Pharma company who would then probably look to do a milestone based partnership, I can only guess.
Maybe you'd need a demonstration in primates and not just mice?
What disease named by the FDA would you initially be trying to treat? Some form of progeria?
Yeah, I guess the struggle might be for what specific disease it treats with the FDA at least. Especially because "general health improvement" isn't enough for a green light. I was more wondering the same thing about at what point it gets picked up by a big biotech or pharmaceutical company though. Or what specifically it could be used to treat so it can enter trials.
Hi all,
I am somewhat skeptic but with a gleeful (but dying) flame of optimistic hope (or is it more hole-less / false hope ?). I really want to maintain an optimistic outlook and do not wish to be a party pooper on the great technological advancements. But the thing is, Great technological advancements ? Really, not that much when you think about it from another POV; I was recently reading old medical published papers like dating back to 1920s or hell even farther...and one word came to my mind (damn), they were. not - that - far off and yet this is like 100 years ago. Oops, my optimis dropped when I realized that the stuff they talked about back then it still stuff being rebrought up / rediscovered (as if it never existed, yet old litterature tells otherwise) and retested (like retesting old theories from eons ago). It's like, you think OK so we are here talking about immortality...and like here I have 100 year old paper that talks about stuff that regularly spoken today and the terms concord and they knew quite a lot - more - than we give them credit back then. Sure a lot has been discovered since, but so what, really, how is that so different than back then; we are not - that - much more advanced. We are advanced but people are fooling themselves to think we are SO so so far in advance to what was already available then. So if extrapolate this to our century and to the acceleration of progress/internet advent etc...trillions of dollards being poured in, immortality should be next right ?...Nope. Not in a 100 years (as said we just need to extrapolate what was there back then and what there is now, what there will be in 100 years from now ...it's highly doubtful it will be like in the movies (Back to The Future..with flying cars.....) in a 100 years, it will be quite similar to today, sure they may be many new technologies and building, maybe a couple a Martian colonies (perhaps, see the movie The Martian for now), but this stuff of cryogenics, biorejuvenation therapies, etc, until it is shown and Tangible, as in done, produced, reproduced in humans, in animals, etc for real, in a 100 years...we may very well keep on talking about SENS or any other therapy that tried for some 150 years to make humans live longer than 122 years MLSP.
We have to keep hoping but be real too, immortality may be a pipe dream in our lifetime...and especially for the people who are above 50 years old, aging graphic curves show that there chance is slim to none to go above 120 unless some miraculous therapy reverses all aging sign and they backtrack to biological age of 20 (like that Telomerase Therapy a few weeks ago on Telomeres size), Even then, there are sooo many variables in the body/aging that is extremely hard to defeat this. I still place my bets on SENS's lipofuscin therapy as the fastest way to immortality (telomerase as failed so far, controling these telomeres and DNA is so iffy in results), if only massive colonial-nanorobots inside system (think Microcosm movie) are not fantasy on paper but reality later on. Let's keep keepin' on.
@CANanonymity: SENS is not 100 years old, it's only 15 years old. I read this historical paper: https://www.fightaging.org/archives/2015/08/a-history-of-life-extensionism-in-the-twentieth-century-is-now-freely-available-online.php and, frankly, LE research a century ago seemed more like homeopathy and other snake oil than real medicine.
Hi Antonio !
Thank you for that. You are absolutely right, it was quite basic back then and as you say more like homeopathy. You are right also to say that SENS is very recent and is just 15 years old so we have to let it grow as it is in infancy stage. That is what I also hope on. I just hope that it will not be in vain (trying for the next 50-75 years only to then find some therapy that slows aging like say 20% or something...if that would happen (and there is a possibility of that happening, I sure hope not) then your point of homeopathy a century ago will now be 2 centuries later still valid, meaning
there future therapies will remain therapeutic, homeopathic - just like a 100 years ago it was. Snake oil or not, that is what I fear, that the results will be marginal. As Reason often said, but this could apply - also - to these biorejuvenation therapies or any other therapy in the making right now (that could very well take decades....).
But all hope is not lost, things start small and perhaps we may really have powerful biorejuvenation therapies in say 50 years time (hope we are still alive by then...), 50 years sounds a real time span that could make very powerful things emerge.
When so many therapies today have been tried and failed (calorie restriction, telomerase therapy, carnosine/benfothiamine AGEs reduction, etc etc....) and remain homeopathic 'slightly slow aging' themselves, you have to ask yourself questions about the other therapies' claims of rejuvenation 'because it's all inside in the genes (when many other of these fruitless therapies - touch the genes - too' but hold on to that hope nonetheless, just not be blinded by false one.
Has telomerase therapy really been tried and deemed a failure yet? Also, I fear marginal results as well, as that's all most scientists are really shooting for and talking about, but i don't know if that's just to not draw criticism for taking about greatly extending life. We all know Aubrey's stance on this. I know the head of Google Ventures was talking about living to 500, so hopefully Google is going to be doing more than the traditional therapeutic approach, but we'll see I guess. There's different ways to skin a cat, and as such, I would expect the initial extension of life to come from a mix of SENS type treatments, genetics, and traditional therapeutics. I think it's going to be patchwork for a while probably. 50 years is a lot of time, and with the increasing amount of companies getting involved in the field, I can't believe there will be NOTHING to show for it.
CANanonymity said: "then your point of homeopathy a century ago will now be 2 centuries later still valid"
I don't think so. I said that they were like homeopathy because they were not based on science at all. SENS (or rapamycin, for that matter) is very different.
@Ham
Hey Ham,
Thanks for that, too true, I feel you.
We don't want to feel bad about this, we really want to feel optimistic and full of positivism (is that a word ? in this industry), the results will speak for themselves when they happen and our optimism will be strengthned (I said 'when they happen' because right now, we are not there). In the mean time, let's keep the hope alive. There is not a thousand things we can do, we accept defeat and harbor defeatist attitudes/negative etc about it all (and yes, there is some truth behind this stance), but we can also dose our pessimism and say, hey sure it seems as if what we say is nice vapor coming from our mouth and only ourselves believe anything we say; while the others laugh at our credulity and foolishness for being so deluded/in la-la land with our Grand visions - when the reality hits us like a fright train; they will have the last laugh on us with a 'I Told You'; 'it was Pie-in-the-Sky aka bs'...but we will keep our optimism it's all we have and no it will be not be in vain when you think about it; we learn even in defeat (I know the fatalists will say 'yes you learned, in defeat, to have some SENSe and not believe in any non-SENS-ical therapy, and now become one of us, a fatalist! Now embrance your mortality; immortality can wait for you in the next life - it is a good one (albeit you're dead)''
A slight detail...
You are totally right, it will be a culmination and combination that will really make something strong; it's highly unlikely an individual therapy by itself will make magic, it's just not potent like that alone; as aging is multifactorial and so massively complex/redundant/interconnected that we are like a little fly trying to evade itself from the clutches/being dinner, sticked and stuck in a spider's mega-hyper-ridiculously 'ratmaze' and intricately complex ultracobweb - we are f....have you seen the movie The Shining, the little boy can't get out of the 'pan's labyrinthian clusterfck' garden maze, running around like mad and getting stuck in dead ends on and on (makes anyone go batsh*t crazy, just give up, accept defeat and die on the spot), that's where are right now.
Evolution says : 'you wanna survive, keep that hope alive - oh and yourself alive too'.
The Google ventures is a great opportunity and I wish them success. Frankly, when talking about 500 year lifespan (only one single 'animal' reaches that age; the Quahog bivalve clam from Iceland which reaches a nice 508 years old; how can it reach that; i've my stanced on that possibility - Redox.
without redox protection of the gene network and other pathways with it; it would not reach that age. The fact is other Arctica islandica from other places (there is a paper by Doris Abele that explores greatly environnement and A.Islandica lifespan correlation) like say German Bight, Kategat or some areas around Northern Europe near Scandinavia do not live that long lifespan (like say 50 year lifespan...yet not far away in precisely Iceland, they found specimens reaching 400 to 500 years; why just there ? Simple, salinity stress is different there, temperature is more temperate but cool enough to maintain slow metabolism, etc...other factors but the Most important factor is that they maintain Stellar Redox homeostatic balance in their cells for many many many years, it seems as if they are 'frozen' in a state of 'youth' while they still continue piling the years. plus there is another factor, they still are less complex then us, in another post and news, we talked about how complex beings have a trade-off, the more complex animals have limited lives due to the ressources demanded for their complexity; small uncomplex organisms (clams, polyps, medusa, certain pine trees, that are basically immmortal) get immortality. So it will be very interesting how far we can rigg this. I think 500 is a number that is feasible and semi-realistic; we could do it but as said it will be very hard to reach 500 without some random accident in that time.
I'm not sure exactly what Google is planning, there really is no super magic therapy that hasn't been hear of;
their talk of 500 year lifespan is outlandish but very cool; what they are tackling is beyong anything they could fathom. Aging is That big of a deal to dismantle (yes even after Google pours in 1 trillion of a trillion quadrillion dollars only to find out - darn, it's not easy cracking that code).
@Antonio
I fully understand what you mean. Based on science or not, homeopathic results remain homeopathic results. When they transfer to tangible results - from today's science (SENS and rapamycin, and rapamycin is homeopathic calorie restriction pathway effect working SIRT/Foxo/DAF-16 pathway...) that is when, I believe (just my 2 cent), that things will be really moving forward in terms of potential; right now it's mostly base level homepathic stuff in results (taking homeopathic herbs sometimes give just as good results; that's because they alter gene pathways, just like rapamycin does or calorie restriction does; they are common pathways that are activated in the same manner); same result different make up is all.
But don't let my certain grain of salt skepticism put you down ;) you have have all the right to entirely believe in it. I have to be more positive too (it's a natural defense mechanism - like anxiety in believing too much things that end up being false promise).
@CANanonymity,
Yeah as far as a defeatist attitude goes, in the end, everything is going to die, including he universe, so ultimately none of this matters. So I guess theres that. But I don't know how outlandish the claims of slowing aging or extending life really are anymore as more scientists are thinking it's possible. It's going to be difficult for sure, but there are so many approaches now. Not to mention, look how many things were considered impossible right up until the time they became possible. Not saying this is going to happen here, but you never know. The effects an aging population is going to have on worldwide economies makes new hopeful more research will be pursued. Money makes the world go round, and with the projected percentages of gdp that are going to be spent on healthcare by the 2050s, something needs to be done. It's only a matter of how long it will take governments to realize this. If they ever do.
That said, like you mentioned before, I've begun to get more of a sinking feeling regarding this field. I understand what a monumental task this is. I try to keep positive, but it's difficult sometimes. I'm 29, so theoretically I should have a fair amount of time for things to unfold, but I'm impatient and anxious. I donate to SENS monthly, and I advocate whenever I can. But nothing feels like it's ever enough. I see so many articles on awesome things that work in mice or something, but never progress past that. Senolytics potentially show great promise, but what's going to come of those? Regulatory hell forever because of arbitrary guidelines? Or will it just not be pursued. I just want to see things move forward and snowball into support. It's hard to not having a sinking feeling. Some days I read news and think "wow this is awesome", and then others...
And as far as living forever or even 500 years, I'm not even asking for that. It would be nice for sure, but I just want to live longer and healthier of course.
Not to mention all the concerns and objections about the field in the first place that I worry about. More and more people are screaming about climate change, wealth inequality, overpopulation and resources now, and that's only going to get worse. While I don't necessarily think that all of these will become worse with longevity, it seems like the masses do. People here and some researchers don't seem to think this will hold up progress but I'm not so sure. People don't tend to view this in a positive light, and that's something I think that will cause holdup. Maybe it's me worrying too much again, but that's something I tend to do.
@Ham
It's great because I can relate to you, we are about the same age (just a lil older, I'm 35) and thus I can really feel/relate to your concern over the seemingly sluggish/stagnant situation that keeps permeating. Ok, I'm not the from the States (I'm in Canada, Montreal (am a French Canadian but learned English, I am a visitor to fightaging! Hello California!) btw sorry for my language typos!), but still up here we greatly follow what's down south of the border; and we wish to contribute to the great American medical technological revolution advancements; there can not be anymore 'one' particular country pulling it alone...it is a world team effort to beat aging we must share, internet helped dramatically with that (communication/information exchange = acceleration of progress and cooperation around the world), every country needs to chime in and attack aging - fight aging !; especially the big western countries (of course having more wealth for research/testing and large population/thus high exponential odds/opportunity) like USA, Canada, UK, France, Spain, Italy, Germany.. Even the other eastern ones (Japan, China, Korea, India, Russia, etc are extremely important) or southern ones too (Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc)...Of course the bulk of the advancement work is your country which is a marvel, USA (having a population of 400 million people helps, it is like 2nd to China and India, Russia in population...it makes for dramatic possibility of advancement...up here in Canada with our meager 35 million people, its not helping, we still manage to pump some proprotionately cool stuff (to our dismal population size).
Yes, the people that scream about overpopulation (I would understand them screaming in an area that is dense in population (US, China, India, Russia), here there is screaming too but I guess we still have 375 million 'vacancy' places (lol) available so not much screaming going on. But it is still exaggerated the 'overpopulation, detruction of resources, the End of Times gloom and doom...' it sounds straight out of a cataclysm movie. When you think about it, some species are FAR more worse than us in Numbers they should have destroyed the Earth by now from the ridiculous amount of natality they do (our 7 billion is a joke compare to their numbers). Earth CAN take it, we will have to adapt certain things...this climate change ('end of the world') may have dire consequences but it's not as if humans are not capable of finding solutions and we are extinct like the dinosaurs anytime soon.
You are very generous in your giving (donation) it's only normal to be a bit upset or worried. Nothing we can do much but talk about it and hope we are heard; to make things advance a bit faster.
I often wonder if the situation really is stagnant, or if it just seems that way. Look at all the articles on different things almost daily. I think it's a matter of separating the things that might amount to something from those that won't, of course.
I don't know how much of the world views aging as a problem, which is a problem as far as advancing research goes. Hopefully Asia gets interested in this, fast.
As for senolytics, I too keep my fingers crossed but this senescent cell clearance seems so far to yield mild results; it is not something that will increase human MLSP only average lifespan (it will greatly help seniors evade disease that accelerate mortality, but still will die at regular age - but healthier longer - and below maximum humnan lifespan potential (MLSP 122 years)).
It is a Health extension/Average life extension effect, not really a maximal lifespan extension effect. For me health extension is great, but remains in the homeopathic domain (the stronger one that wil keep seniors quite vigorous and healthy up to 100 years or more; to a max of 122 tops). How so, well
quercetin and dasatinib are senolytics (red wine polyphenol quercetin clear senescent cells, it is CR mimetic); are they miraculous ? ... They too work on the Calorie restriction CR pathways, have you seen marvels from CR, they truly fight and optimize health (red wine does that too, see French Paradox), but no one ever went farther than 122 on senolytics such as quercetin found in foods.
I await so much a therapy or some paper that talks about going above human MLSP, there are basically NONE, that's sad, for now senolytics will have to do.
Jeanne Calment (the French lady who is the longest lived human/dean of humanity at 122 years old (the one who sets the MLSP bar) drank red wine very oftenly...it might have helped all that querceting senolytic she took in).
So let's drink up and eat grapes full of senolytics...just maybe (or maybe just was just real lucky with winning the genes lottery (since her siblings lived long lives too, not just her...inherited genetic lottery indeed is more the real reason she reached 122; since she also - smoked cigarette packs a day from 20 to 100 no less; and did not get lung cancer on top of that (when tons of people drop dead from doing that) - again genes all dictating this really weird outcome). So let's drink the dealcoholized red wine instead to feel less guilty and those pack of cigarettes; well you know that to do with them, if you want to play the russian roulette; it's your call. ; )
Even if something like senolytics alone doesn't necessarily push people past 122, it would still be a massive help if they could help keep people healthy until 90-100ish. That extra time in good health would buy people more time waiting for other developments to happen. As nice as it would be to get past 122, and into the hundreds, a more immediate and attainable goal should be to get people to 100 or 120 in good health, and go from there.
@Ham: Wow, you are 29 years old and worried? How should I be then, since I'm 41 years old? ;)
To add, I'm all for living as long as possible, it's just that no one is going to be 500 years old over night. There's a lot of work to be done in order to ensure people even live regularly to 100 and in good health. However, I do think if we can get people to 120 or so in good health, the sky's the limit. And ensuring 100 became average would give people like you and I for example an extra 15-25 years or so. If we weren't going to live that long on our own already anyways. I'm sure there will be SOMETHING in the next 50 years or so, give or take. Its effectiveness, or if there are multiple different available treatments is another question.
Antonio,
I'm a worrier. It's my big flaw. My wife hates that about me lol. It's probably not the most healthy thing either, sadly.
@Ham
You are right Ham, healthy lifespan extension up to 90-100 is still Extremely good (or as we in french here, 'mieux qu'un coup de pied dans le derrière' (better than a kick in the ass) or in other words, basically better than nothing.
Why I am so fixated on that magical 122 number is because I see people who do reach the centenarians (like for example, my own grand-mother lived to 92 years old...no supplements ...nothing...genetics that is what it is...if you have good genes well you are lucky especially later on in late life, where genes dictate wether you will be a octogenarian, nonagenarian or a centenarian. My grand-ma was 8 years shy (if she were alive today she would be in the super-centenarian club of 110 years old ! (she was born in 1906 at very start of the century and saw everything!). Humans today that are in their 10s-20s-30s in age, if with good enough genes, have a much greatly possibilty of reaching 100 than say 50 years ago. It will not be so out of this world to see people reach that age with no supplements or therapy whatsoever, because of medical advancement and care, and nutrition changes today.
I mean you can open a newspaper and go to orbituary section, and see some diseased Elders that are all in 90s bracket and some touching 95-100 bracket. It's far more common now. It's going to be just 'regular stuff' to reach 90 (90 will be the new 50), and so that is why I hope we start talking about pushing the bar soon; it is more important to improve health but we should not continuously postpone postpone talking about pushing the limits. I would extremely love to hear talk about both, meaning to live to a 122, you need to be healthy...don't aim too low (ok aiming lower can be more realistic and give results, but we can talk about aiming a little higher too) and sell yourself short. We now know our theoritical limit is 122, theoritical...so let's push that theoritical limit further when we also know other extreme lifespan animals beat that limit and are quite healthy too. I had mentioned a while ago, I joined this to see big things, small things are cool but I joined like many here to see Life Extension (not 22% extension CR...nice...), and Rejuvenation is the next step, I hope it will break that barrier and we will finally have Super-super-hyper-duper centenarians who reach 150 as a start (again I know some will laugh and say, Not, living in la-la land heheh), how not cool would that be?
' ...see some diseased Elders... ' (well before dying they have been that...sorry typo)
...see some *deceased* Elders...
I find the entire situation frustrating to say the least. There are so many things we could be testing right now and making progress.
The Major Mouse Testing Project I am part of has three labs and top researchers sat waiting for funding to rapid test batches of aged mice with various promising interventions eg, Senolytics and and ALK-5 inhibitors.
We could be making progress which would lead quickly onto higher animals eg, dogs if we could get the funding. As it stands we are stuck scrapping around looking for cheap ALK-5 inhibitors so we can demonstrate the benefits of restoring signalling environment on lifespan and hopefully demonstrate the potential of what might happen if SENS can cleave AGE. If there was something to directly cleave Glucosepane we would love to test that instead but sadly not at the moment.
The whole situation is frankly ridiculous!
We could test things like N-Phenacylthiazolium bromide an alternative to the now no longer produced ALT711 to potentially treat AGE.
We would propose to take 40 or ideally 60 already aged (18 month old) Black 6 mice and treat them with N-Phenacylthiazolium bromide or similar and see if we can encourage an improvement of health and lifespan.
Again we "could" do this right now and we have the labs and the researchers ready and willing to do this and other tests.
Steve,
Can you guys try and do something on lifespan.io to get funding like the mitosens project they had there?
Yes we are looking at Longecity combined with an Indiegogo campaign as soon as we have sourced the test compounds. We are looking at ALK-5 potentially but the cost is considerable if based on the dosage the Conboys used.
I know this article is 5+ years old, but as someone who was close to being one of the "children that you'll find playing and running in any junior schoolyard" when this article was written, having turned 11 a few months prior, and being one who will enter the 2100s at the ripe young age of 95, I am skeptical that I will get to see these technologies come to fruition and reach longevity escape velocity. In fact this blog predates me by 2 years. I understand that I certainly have a better shot than most people alive today, but I am quite cautious in getting my hopes up.
Perhaps my comment is just fluff; sorry about that.