All Things Permanent Health

[Benko]

Thanks for the info MG.

Mountaineer,

Complicated stuff and you could spend a book chapter if not a book on each of the nine areas*. If you look at the different boxes (as a place to start) you'll see a number of things that you're probably already familiar with e.g. inflammation and gut flora (bottom right box) as well as other topics e.g. DNA repair, teleomerases, autophagy (benefit from killing off damaged cells), mitochondria (powerplant for cells), NAD+ and Sirt 1 relevant to health/improved aging, etc.

*MG knows way more about this stuff than I. But all the complicated stuff doesn't supercede the basics e.g. sufficient sleep/rest and stress reduction, diet, exercise (aerobic, lifting), "basic supplementation", etc.

[Mountaineer]

Thanks for the info MG.

Mountaineer,

Complicated stuff and you could spend a book chapter if not a book on each of the nine areas*. If you look at the different boxes (as a place to start) you'll see a number of things that you're probably already familiar with e.g. inflammation and gut flora (bottom right box) as well as other topics e.g. DNA repair, teleomerases, autophagy (benefit from killing off damaged cells), mitochondria (powerplant for cells), NAD+ and Sirt 1 relevant to health/improved aging, etc.

*MG knows way more about this stuff than I. But all the complicated stuff doesn't supercede the basics e.g. sufficient sleep/rest and stress reduction, diet, exercise (aerobic, lifting), "basic supplementation", etc.

Thanks, that helps. I think I'll just boil this down to "all things in moderation including food and drink", sleep 8 to 9 hours per day as much as possible, stop doing things that physically hurt an old body, stay mentally sharp by reading this forum, get a new set of parents to fix the genetic stuff, and I'll be good to go .......

[MachineGhost]

Ok, maybe that was too high brow, but I plan on cooking up a spreadsheet eventually with among the best of the current bioagents to target those nine hallmarks of aging. There may be overlap with the Permanent Supplement Regime which is focused on preventing or ameliorating cancer, since cancer is largely a disease of aging. The difference now is we're treating aging itself as a disease to be eradicated, rather than its symptoms. Curing cancer would only add three years to your lifespan, so it's much ballyhoo over nothing.

[Benko]

MG,

The whole 9 box area is so complicated and so broad that it might be worth e.g. picking one of the nine boxes at a time, create a thread on that topic, say a few sentences about the box/area to briefly explain it, and then talk about the supps.

And diet plays a role e.g. kiwis (and other food) induce DNA repair enzymes, fish oil (perhaps EPA over DHA?) helps with inflammation, blueberries are good for brain aging, etc.

And I'm not sure everyone agrees e.g. is there certainty that e.g. lengthening teleomeres is beneficial, is optimal IGF high or not so high, etc.

[Maddy]

Agree-- I'd love to really dig into this.

[Maddy]

Curing cancer would only add three years to your lifespan, so it's much ballyhoo over nothing.

MG, Would you mind explaining this statement? I take it to mean that statistically (i.e., averaged over large populations) cancer does not contribute meaningfully to shortened lifespan. This seems counter-intuitive. Is this because most cancers arise in older or sicker people who aren't going to live more than a few years more in any event?

[MachineGhost]

Curing cancer would only add three years to your lifespan, so it's much ballyhoo over nothing.

MG, Would you mind explaining this statement? I take it to mean that statistically (i.e., averaged over large populations) cancer does not contribute meaningfully to shortened lifespan. This seems counter-intuitive. Is this because most cancers arise in older or sicker people who aren't going to live more than a few years more in any event?

I'm not really sure, but if I had to guess its because we're able to keep people "alive" in a poor quality state now via "baby out with the bathwater" extremist treatments (hack, slash and burn) and earlier detection, so the gap between that and cancer-free is not large. It is even arguable for a lot of cancers, but I digress. But I do know the figure must be an average... it certainly would be welcome news for, say, pancreatic cancer, than something slower growing like melanoma.

But its true that cancer is primarily a disease of old age. The body's repair machinary is not perfect even though it is fantastically impressive with a low tolerance for transcriptioning errors. But as we all know, small errors compound over time until a critical mass is reached.

But perhaps cancer-cured people would still die relatively soon of old age either way. Curing cancer just wouldn't square or extend the mortality curve.

Besides, only about 25% of cancers come from DNA or transcription errors, the other 75% is due to poor diet and toxic environmental exposure.

EDIT: I found the source...

While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lead to only a three-year increase in life expectancy at birth. A cure for heart disease would be equally welcome, but we would gain only four-and-a-half years as a result. Gains in longevity from cures for diseases are much smaller today than one might expect because aging bodies face multiple lethal conditions—an effect known as competing causes. Competing causes in aging bodies means that those saved from dying from one condition will eventually face an elevated risk of dying from something else. Death is a zero sum game for which there is no cure.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... _time.html

[MachineGhost]

Here's clarity on CBD oil legality...

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the 400+ ingredients found in marijuana and is not psychoactive. Many states have passed laws allowing for the use of a CBD extract, usually in oil form, with minimal tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and often for the treatment of epilepsy or seizures in seriously ill children.

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view ... eID=006473

And a human interest story...

A spectrum of illnesses afflict the children coming to Colorado for medical marijuana: cancer, autism, Crohn’s disease. Most, though, are seeking help for incurable forms of childhood epilepsy — diseases with names taken from medical-journal bylines: Dravet syndrome, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Doose syndrome.

The migration began just over a year ago, when CNN aired a documentary featuring a Colorado girl named Charlotte Figi, whose constant seizures caused her to stop speaking for months. While taking a form of the marijuana treatment, the seizures subsided, and she bloomed anew into a happy child seen laughing and playing in video clips. News stories began reporting that other children were seeing similarly miraculous results. To parents of kids with severe disorders, the articles seemed almost out of a storybook. So it was fitting that the brothers who grew the marijuana for the kids named their product Charlotte’s Web.

Smaller numbers of children in California and other states have also begun to use marijuana to treat seizures. But what makes Colorado the epicenter is the state’s large medical marijuana system, which allows for kids to be registered patients; the growing community of families with sick children; and the feedback loop of publicity that surrounds the treatment. Every happy story about a family seeing success with cannabis in Colorado pushes another family to move here.

Today, there are 427 children under 18 on the state’s medical marijuana registry, including 13 under 2 years old. That total number is up from just 60 in August 2013, when the documentary aired. More arrive every month.

http://extras.denverpost.com/stateofhope/#part1

And surprise, surprise! Big Pharma is lobbying hard against medical marijuana. It's not just "law and order" narco-political apologist cronies like craigr and Reub that are against it.

Our next several blogs will catalogue the various ways drug companies have ruthlessly promoted our nation’s deadly opioid epidemic. This first installment on just the latest outrage- political lobbying to block the legalization of medical marijuana. Future blogs will each tell other aspects of this sordid story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-fra ... 87182.html

[Reub]

Here's clarity on CBD oil legality...

Cannabidiol (CBD) is one of the 400+ ingredients found in marijuana and is not psychoactive. Many states have passed laws allowing for the use of a CBD extract, usually in oil form, with minimal tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), and often for the treatment of epilepsy or seizures in seriously ill children.

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view ... eID=006473

And a human interest story...

A spectrum of illnesses afflict the children coming to Colorado for medical marijuana: cancer, autism, Crohn’s disease. Most, though, are seeking help for incurable forms of childhood epilepsy — diseases with names taken from medical-journal bylines: Dravet syndrome, Lennox-Gastaut syndrome and Doose syndrome.

The migration began just over a year ago, when CNN aired a documentary featuring a Colorado girl named Charlotte Figi, whose constant seizures caused her to stop speaking for months. While taking a form of the marijuana treatment, the seizures subsided, and she bloomed anew into a happy child seen laughing and playing in video clips. News stories began reporting that other children were seeing similarly miraculous results. To parents of kids with severe disorders, the articles seemed almost out of a storybook. So it was fitting that the brothers who grew the marijuana for the kids named their product Charlotte’s Web.

Smaller numbers of children in California and other states have also begun to use marijuana to treat seizures. But what makes Colorado the epicenter is the state’s large medical marijuana system, which allows for kids to be registered patients; the growing community of families with sick children; and the feedback loop of publicity that surrounds the treatment. Every happy story about a family seeing success with cannabis in Colorado pushes another family to move here.

Today, there are 427 children under 18 on the state’s medical marijuana registry, including 13 under 2 years old. That total number is up from just 60 in August 2013, when the documentary aired. More arrive every month.

http://extras.denverpost.com/stateofhope/#part1

And surprise, surprise! Big Pharma is lobbying hard against medical marijuana. It's not just "law and order" narco-political apologist cronies like craigr and Reub that are against it.

Our next several blogs will catalogue the various ways drug companies have ruthlessly promoted our nation’s deadly opioid epidemic. This first installment on just the latest outrage- political lobbying to block the legalization of medical marijuana. Future blogs will each tell other aspects of this sordid story.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/allen-fra ... 87182.html

Well, thanks for the compliment!

[WiseOne]

EDIT: I found the source...

While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lead to only a three-year increase in life expectancy at birth. A cure for heart disease would be equally welcome, but we would gain only four-and-a-half years as a result. Gains in longevity from cures for diseases are much smaller today than one might expect because aging bodies face multiple lethal conditions—an effect known as competing causes. Competing causes in aging bodies means that those saved from dying from one condition will eventually face an elevated risk of dying from something else. Death is a zero sum game for which there is no cure.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... _time.html

And I wonder what their source is!

The numbers are probably about right, although increases in life expectancy from a starting point of, say, age 60 would be a better piece of information than life expectancy from birth.

It's a good point though. You gotta die of something, so the idea that a preventative regimen of some sort (statin, cancer screening etc) can "save lives" is just stupid, because no one's life can be "saved" in the end - only extended.

I once trolled through the literature looking for reports of how much life is extended by CABG (coronary artery bypass graft). A colleague wanted to compare life extension by CABG to that from epilepsy surgery. Turns out that CABG extends life expectancy by just 3 months. For epilepsy surgery, the calculation was 5 years. Not to mention that CABG actually has a worse cognitive impact than epilepsy (brain) surgery, because of the shower of microemboli to the brain that inevitably occurs during a CABG. This of course has no bearing on how likely a particular treatment is recommended, or reimbursed by insurance.

[Reub]

EDIT: I found the source...

While eliminating smallpox and curtailing cholera added decades of life to vast populations, cures for the chronic diseases of old age cannot have the same effect on life expectancy. A cure for cancer would be miraculous and welcome, but it would lead to only a three-year increase in life expectancy at birth. A cure for heart disease would be equally welcome, but we would gain only four-and-a-half years as a result. Gains in longevity from cures for diseases are much smaller today than one might expect because aging bodies face multiple lethal conditions—an effect known as competing causes. Competing causes in aging bodies means that those saved from dying from one condition will eventually face an elevated risk of dying from something else. Death is a zero sum game for which there is no cure.

http://www.slate.com/articles/technolog ... _time.html

And I wonder what their source is!

The numbers are probably about right, although increases in life expectancy from a starting point of, say, age 60 would be a better piece of information than life expectancy from birth.

It's a good point though. You gotta die of something, so the idea that a preventative regimen of some sort (statin, cancer screening etc) can "save lives" is just stupid, because no one's life can be "saved" in the end - only extended.

I once trolled through the literature looking for reports of how much life is extended by CABG (coronary artery bypass graft). A colleague wanted to compare life extension by CABG to that from epilepsy surgery. Turns out that CABG extends life expectancy by just 3 months. For epilepsy surgery, the calculation was 5 years. Not to mention that CABG actually has a worse cognitive impact than epilepsy (brain) surgery, because of the shower of microemboli to the brain that inevitably occurs during a CABG. This of course has no bearing on how likely a particular treatment is recommended, or reimbursed by insurance.

"You gotta die of something"? Really now, WiseOne! I expect more from you.

[MachineGhost]

Well, thanks for the compliment!

So you WERE paying attention!!!

I've heard the three year claim about curing cancer for years, but I do wonder what the actual source is. It could be an urban legend by now.

If we got to die of something, then I rather it be by my choice or by my hand than because of our inability to transcend Mother Nature. With CRISPR gene editing technology and organ replacements grown from stem cells, I expect most of us alive right now are going to reach 120+ in relatively fantastic shape. I suspect our greatest threat for forestalling death will be coming from the Byzantine bureaucrats and bioethicist do-gooders.

[WiseOne]

What causes the shower of microemboli?

It happens when circulation is switched to a bypass machine during surgery. Blood + metal = clotting. Actually if it's only microemboli you're lucky. The unlucky ones get larger clots that cause out and out strokes.

MG - welcome to the human race! Ain't none of us getting out of here alive, I'm afraid. No supplement regime is going to change that. Or should we rename you "Lazarus"? My goal is to stay healthy and functional as long as possible, then when the time comes I hope it won't be a long, drawn-out affair.

I only wish the gods of modern medicine would officially recognize this.

[MachineGhost]

I only wish the gods of modern medicine would officially recognize this.

If I were to be cynical, then the long, drawn-out affair is for purposes of full employment.

[MachineGhost]

Wow, check this out...

Dr. John Meara had a challenge in front of him. His patient, 4-month-old Bentley Yoder, needed to have part of his brain put back into his cranium.

The bones of his skull hadn’t fully formed, and his brain was pushed through the bone, forming an eggplant-sized mass above his head. Meara, of Boston Children’s Hospital, had a few ideas about way to approach the surgery, but he’d only get one shot at it in the operating room.

If only, he thought, there was a way to practice the procedure ahead of time.

As it happened, he was able to do exactly that before Bentley’s surgery thanks to a 3D printing program Boston Children’s Hospital started in 2014.



http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hospit ... m_swu=6852

[Maddy]

The problem with life extension technologies isn't so much the difficulty of getting organs and organ systems to keep going, but whether these technologies will have any practical utility given the seemingly inherent inflexibility of the human psyche and the limitations on its capacity to adapt. As I approach my 60s, I am acutely aware of how fast the world is changing and feel increasingly left behind. (As an aside, I'm not sure that even the youngsters who purport to be able to adapt are faring so well, considering the number of kids on psychotropic drugs and the increasing prevalence of sociopathy in both children and young adults.) The whole concept of neural plasticity is far beyond my level of understanding, but it is nonetheless clear to me that there is a limit on the amount of change an organism can adapt to in a single lifetime, and that adaptation gets harder and harder the older we get. So although I'm as eager as anyone to be as healthy as I possibly can be, I can't say I'm especially interested in an extraordinarily long life. Who wants to live to the ripe old age of 125 if the world as you know it is gone, if your most deeply engrained values are foreign or even repugnant to the society at large, if your skills are no longer valued and needed, if you lack the technological savvy to navigate even the most basic transactions, and if the pace of life has exceeded the pace at which you can function without constant stress?

[Mountaineer]

The problem with life extension technologies isn't so much the difficulty of getting organs and organ systems to keep going, but whether these technologies will have any practical utility given the seemingly inherent inflexibility of the human psyche and the limitations on its capacity to adapt. As I approach my 60s, I am acutely aware of how fast the world is changing and feel increasingly left behind. (As an aside, I'm not sure that even the youngsters who purport to be able to adapt are faring so well, considering the number of kids on psychotropic drugs and the increasing prevalence of sociopathy in both children and young adults.) The whole concept of neural plasticity is far beyond my level of understanding, but it is nonetheless clear to me that there is a limit on the amount of change an organism can adapt to in a single lifetime, and that adaptation gets harder and harder the older we get. So although I'm as eager as anyone to be as healthy as I possibly can be, I can't say I'm especially interested in an extraordinarily long life. Who wants to live to the ripe old age of 125 if the world as you know it is gone, if your most deeply engrained values are foreign or even repugnant to the society at large, if your skills are no longer valued and needed, if you lack the technological savvy to navigate even the most basic transactions, and if the pace of life has exceeded the pace at which you can function without constant stress?

That made me think of my grandparents, born in the 1890s, and what happened during their lives: cars, airplanes, several terrible wars, the great depression, moon landings by humans, satellites, weather forecasts that were semi-accurate, the cold war, two presidents assassinated, computers, rural electricity, refrigeration, interstate highways, antibiotics, and the list goes on.

[MachineGhost]

The problem with life extension technologies isn't so much the difficulty of getting organs and organ systems to keep going, but whether these technologies will have any practical utility given the seemingly inherent inflexibility of the human psyche and the limitations on its capacity to adapt. As I approach my 60s, I am acutely aware of how fast the world is changing and feel increasingly left behind. (As an aside, I'm not sure that even the youngsters who purport to be able to adapt are faring so well, considering the number of kids on psychotropic drugs and the increasing prevalence of sociopathy in both children and young adults.) The whole concept of neural plasticity is far beyond my level of understanding, but it is nonetheless clear to me that there is a limit on the amount of change an organism can adapt to in a single lifetime, and that adaptation gets harder and harder the older we get. So although I'm as eager as anyone to be as healthy as I possibly can be, I can't say I'm especially interested in an extraordinarily long life. Who wants to live to the ripe old age of 125 if the world as you know it is gone, if your most deeply engrained values are foreign or even repugnant to the society at large, if your skills are no longer valued and needed, if you lack the technological savvy to navigate even the most basic transactions, and if the pace of life has exceeded the pace at which you can function without constant stress?

Well, that is mostly an issue for the Greatest Generation, because they're not going to be able to take advantage of cybernetics over the next couple of decades.... they're simply too old and in sickly condition and just won't be around. I'm honestly not sure about the Baby Boomers -- they're dangerously close to being near or over the cliff edge, but they're also the major driving force for anti-aging technology at present, so who knows? But what you're not perceiving about the future at a "ripe old age" of 125 years is that up to that point we are not going to just simply sit by and remain increasingly limited by our biological boundaries and decay, including the brain. No, we're going to continue to evolve into transhumanists and cyborgs to keep up with the ever increasing pace of development. But, you still have the freedom of choice at present. Either take the necessary steps to prepare yourself for the new paradigm or resign yourself to eventual obsolecence and death.

I'm not saying it'll be easy (nothing ever worthwhile is), but the rewards will be worth it in ways we can't possibly imagine once we ascend out of the tired old work-breed-die paradigm that is so, so limiting. Don't you want to be living on Mars or a moon or Star Trekking around the solar system by 2050? Well, you can't if you're sickly or dead!

And considering what PS posted recently, it's quite obvious that children will be the competitive force for the rest of us.

[MachineGhost]

And who exactly is going to pay for this? Each individual, or the nanny state? What if you can't afford it? Should the financial burden be placed on the ever shrinking number of productive citizens?

You will. It'll be cheap 'cuz thats what technology and mass production does. Combine that with a Citizen's Dividend where no one needs to work anymore unless they want to and I don't see an issue. All the teeth gnashing about it in the beginning will be as silly as protesting against the initial price of color TV.

It currently costs $50 billion to send just 5 people to Mars. When it costs $50,000 to send 100-300 people are you going to still be complaining?

Why do I always have to defend the future agaisnt Negative Nellie's? Y'all should know better! Rich people always get what they want in the beginning. Either get rich or wait your turn.

[Maddy]

Well, that is mostly an issue for the Greatest Generation, because they're not going to be able to take advantage of cybernetics over the next couple of decades.... they're simply too old and in sickly condition and just won't be around. I'm honestly not sure about the Baby Boomers -- they're dangerously close to being near or over the cliff edge, but they're also the major driving force for anti-aging technology at present, so who knows? But what you're not perceiving about the future at a "ripe old age" of 125 years is that up to that point we are not going to just simply sit by and remain increasingly limited by our biological boundaries and decay, including the brain. No, we're going to continue to evolve into transhumanists and cyborgs to keep up with the ever increasing pace of development. But, you still have the freedom of choice at present. Either take the necessary steps to prepare yourself for the new paradigm or resign yourself to eventual obsolecence and death.

I'm not saying it'll be easy (nothing ever worthwhile is), but the rewards will be worth it in ways we can't possibly imagine once we ascend out of the tired old work-breed-die paradigm that is so, so limiting. Don't you want to be living on Mars or a moon or Star Trekking around the solar system by 2050? Well, you can't if you're sickly or dead!

So your vision of the future is that our brains will be reconfigured in such a way as to afford infinite flexibility and an ability to bypass all the hard-wiring and psychological edifices that together make up our identity and sense of security in the world? It's a hard-to-imagine paradigm, but the proposition is so extreme as to make the idea of "me-ness" pretty much meaningless.

Consider that it's the archetype of "home" and the security of familiar tonal and rhythmic patterns representing a "return to home" that makes a Mozart symphony enjoyable to listen to. Query whether the same brain that could adapt to life on Mars would find a Mozart symphony and a cacophonous clatter of sounds equally meaningful.

[Maddy]

Taking this one step further, why would it make any sense to send people to Mars if technology could give them the ability to experience it virtually? Isn't this the more likely possibility?

Think of it. . . All those technophiles lined up suspended by wires like in the movie Coma, with 3-D goggles and electrodes implanted in their heads, each experiencing whatever kind of life they always wanted. Other than the need to change their catheter once in a while, the expense to society of maintaining these people would be minimal.

[MachineGhost]

So your vision of the future is that our brains will be reconfigured in such a way as to afford infinite flexibility and an ability to bypass all the hard-wiring and psychological edifices that together make up our identity and sense of security in the world? It's a hard-to-imagine paradigm, but the proposition is so extreme as to make the idea of "me-ness" pretty much meaningless.

Consider that it's the archetype of "home" and the security of familiar tonal and rhythmic patterns representing a "return to home" that makes a Mozart symphony enjoyable to listen to. Query whether the same brain that could adapt to life on Mars would find a Mozart symphony and a cacophonous clatter of sounds equally meaningful.

You're projecting another extremist vision of doom porn. Why would we want to destroy what makes each of us unique as individuals other than for purposes of in-group-signaling-cum-conformity which I would hope would drastically diminish in a pluralistic world of endless variations and possibilities? Enhancing memory and senses with cybernetics isn't gonna elimate your haughty ego! If you want to be in a state of techno-nirvana or to be like the Borg, I guess no one is stopping you when that is possible, but I'm not interested and neither would billions of other people. Reality is unique like a snowflake in that each of our own unique perceptions create it. Uniqueness is fittest. We are each "God's" eyes incarnate.

Look, Millennials already deludedly believe they can multitask when all the scientific evidence is the brain completely fails at it. But since their delusion is based on faith, it will provide the impetus necessary to develop a cybernetic implant that will actaully allow a brain to do it. How are you going to fight that? It's both faith and facts in one.

[Maddy]

You're projecting another extremist vision of doom porn.

I don't think so. As I explained earlier, I don't think the human psyche is capable of adapting, within a single lifetime, to the kind of change you're suggesting. To render it capable of that kind of adaptation would require a rewiring of the brain.

I would hazard a guess that for most people, alienation (in the Marxist sense of having lost the feeling of "connectedness" and meaning in what we do) is a far bigger problem than boredom or whatever else it is that propels technophiles to be constantly pushing the envelope. I predict that one of these days, there will be a backlash against technology and people will be signing up in droves for Outward Bound-type experiences and classes in hog butchering and candlemaking. Above all, people want to feel REAL, and technology is driving us further and further away from that.

[Maddy]

Rich people always get what they want in the beginning. Either get rich or wait your turn.

Well when the elite go to Mars, could we just keep them there?

[Reub]

Rich is someone that has one dollar more than you have.