
Progress of anti-aging therapies by clinical trial stage - apsec112
https://www.lifespan.io/road-maps/the-rejuvenation-roadmap/
======
herodotus
Quick summary of the meaning of Phases in medical trials:

Phase 0: exploration of effectiveness

Phase I: is the treatment safe?

Phase II: does the treatment work?

Phase III: is the treatment better than existing alternatives?

Phase IV: After approval, monitor the long term effects of the treatment.

~~~
lucb1e
Just to be clear, which of these phases is the "clinical trials" stage? Are
all of them clinical trails and we're starting at zero now? (Not that Roman
numerals have zero, by the way :).) The dictionary says clinical trials are
about "safety and effectiveness" so I guess that is indeed early phases?

~~~
herodotus
NIH Definition of a Clinical Trial:

"A research study in which one or more human subjects are prospectively
assigned to one or more interventions (which may include placebo or other
control) to evaluate the effects of those interventions on health-related
biomedical or behavioral outcomes."

A phase 1 clinical trial is used to determine safety (including dosage) and
involves far fewer people than a stage III clinical trial.

For Biotech startups, the companies value usually increases with each
successfully completed trial. Conversely, the cost of conducting a trail also
increases at each stage.

------
sien
There is a real possibility that in the next few decades some of these
therapies might work.

The book Lifespan by Dr David Sinclair is really interesting. Sinclair is a
professor at Harvard. He's highly optimistic that something will come of the
various ideas looking at slowing aging.

[https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age_and-Dont-
Have/dp/150...](https://www.amazon.com/Lifespan-Why-Age_and-Dont-
Have/dp/1501191977)

~~~
peanutz454
So when it happens, will we stop having kids? Because our current population
and lifestyle do not seem sustainable. I only see population increasing and
lifestyle being more burdensome on environment.

~~~
tomerico
Ironically, if people that care about the planet don’t have kids to save the
planet, you will be left with more people that don’t care about the planet
down the road

~~~
newnewpdro
I don't know about you, but some of my teachers and favorite musicians had far
more of an impact on my attitudes toward the environment and having children
than my parents ever did.

This fallacy that the only way to fix the world is to make kids of your own
that will make it better is ridiculous.

------
xiphias2
While I'm taking NMN, as it's proven to be safe, I know that HGH + DHEA is the
only drug from the list that has already proven to make healthy people
younger.

I'm seriously considering it in a few years after it has more time to be
proven safe enough.

For now I'm planning to measure DNA methylation in my body to understand the
reason for my chronic illnesses better. I already got my DNA sequenced, but
now that methylation can be measured cheaply as well, I don't see a reason why
not to.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
> I know that HGH + DHEA is the only drug from the list that has already
> proven to make healthy people younger.

If you have any ready-researched and outlined sources or links for this,
please post them here for reference. I know that we all can google, but I
think linking here will help a lot of people, me included. HN articles are
sometimes used as an online notepad of sorts, a repository of well researched
and compiled information with built-in peer review from (hopefully, since they
are on HN) somewhat competent even if amateur internet researchers.

~~~
jonplackett
Is HGH + DHEA available to buy like a supplement? I would have presumed
something containing hormones would be more regulated?

~~~
JimboOmega
Not only is HGH regulated, it even is specifically addressed under law (in the
US) that lead some to believe that even prescribing it off-label it is
illegal. See:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGH_controversies#Law](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HGH_controversies#Law)

------
kpfleger
See also: AgingBiotech.info Specifically AgingBiotech.info/companies (esp. the
clinical stage & clinical trials columns).

------
bhouston
Looks interesting, but how could I ever afford to buy ~12 designer drugs which
I figure likely cost at least $1-2/day if they are effective? Cost per year is
$4K- $8K?

I'm guessing I'll wait 20 years until they are off patent?

~~~
chrisco255
Not all of these are new drugs. NMN, for example, is a supplement that you can
buy now. It's a bit expensive but the price is dropping as it becomes more
popular.

Others mentioned include HGH, which has been around for decades. Only problem
there is that it's a controlled substance so getting a prescription for anti-
aging purposes may be difficult.

~~~
LinuxBender
I am not saying there isn't a use case for HGH, but you can increase your own
natural HGH production through intermittent fasting, l-glutamine, and cycling
up/down a few other molecules. I learned this by mistake, from trying to
repair damage to my gut. The weird side effect was quite a bit of muscle
development and I don't even work out. On top of that, I dampen mtorc1 with
Berberine, Sulforaphane, Myrosinase, TransResveratrol, DIM+Quercertin and that
should slow HGH production, but has the opposite effect and increases it.

And I second the NMN being expensive. I use about 800mg a day and it is by far
the most expensive thing I take.

~~~
DennisP
I could really use that weird side effect. What other molecules did you cycle
up/down?

~~~
LinuxBender
I owe HN community a blog update on this process and I promise I will do that
in the coming couple weeks. I've been a bit busy as of late. When I do, I will
add it to my profile. It's not quite as simple as what to take, but also when
to take, in what combinations and why. And it probably isn't the most
scientific process, so I'm sure I will catch some flak for it.

~~~
pstuart
It might be worth posting to reddit.com/r/longevity as well. I'm looking
forward to it.

------
brooklyndude
You will get old. You will die. Just face reality. This trying to always put
off aging is hopeless. Utterly futile. Enjoy every day, don't waste a second.

You will die. And you ain't ready for it. But Mother nature is.

~~~
Erlich_Bachman
You have misunderstood what this is about. Yes we all know that we will die.
And yes we still think that if you can add 1 or 10 or 50 or whatever healthy
years by using some simple to use technology - then that is very valuable to a
lot of people, and is a very worthwhile scientific pursuit.

And no, it is not hopeless or futile. There are animals that live 300 years,
what basic biology class did you miss in order for you to think that it would
be futile to modify humans which are biological machines with genetic
programming to make them live at least that long?

------
MMTP
These guys do some neat things like this roadmap and their main news site is
really quite interesting too over at
:[https://www.leafscience.org/](https://www.leafscience.org/)

------
lawrenceyan
Proper sleep, a complete diet, minimizing stress (I'm personally biased
towards meditation), intermittent fasting, and vigorous cardiovascular
exercise complemented by strength training will by far have the most impact in
maximizing your natural lifespan.

You shouldn't look at doing anything else until you've at minimum mastered all
of the listed items above. Nothing else will have as much outsized impact.

~~~
throwaway_tech
>Proper sleep, a complete diet, minimizing stress (I'm personally biased
towards meditation), intermittent fasting, and vigorous cardiovascular
exercise complemented by strength training

Yes, but the problem is this is such a broad brush stroke.

For example, most people who are chronically stressed will generally never be
able to obtain relief. There is a common joke about abs being made in the
kitchen not in the weight room, and another one about not being able to outrun
a poor diet. The truth is the best diet in the world, cardio and strength
training will never overcome the damaging effects of cortisol as a result of
chronic stress.

The same for proper sleep. Its not just about 6-8 hours, its about quality. If
you aren't getting quality sleep, most people don't have a solution. Then when
they look for solutions its generally a bombardment of sleep products (from
beds, to pillows, to supplements) that are backed by million/billion dollar
companies that are targeting you when you perform a search for
information/help.

As to intermittent fasting, that has become a major fad since the Nobel Prize
for Autophagy (with the most popular implementation being a 8/16 time
restricted eating "fast"). In other words the goal is to trigger the body to
begin consuming/recycling dead cells and other cellular waste; however, this
typically isn't triggered by time restricted eating, but requires longer
periods of fasting (usually kicking in around after 20-24 hours of fasting).

Finally "a complete diet", not only is there no general consensus what that
is, you generally can't even have a conversation about diet without triggering
a flame war. It doesn't matter if you are WFPB, keto, vegan, vegetarian,
paleo, carnivore...not only will people oppose your diet, they will
aggressively attack it. I remember I once mentioned "detoxing" and couldn't
believe people referring to it as voodoo, and telling me there is no such
thing as detoxing the body, but then when I ask them what the function of the
liver and kidneys are, and they had no idea.

~~~
rsync
"In other words the goal is to trigger the body to begin consuming/recycling
dead cells and other cellular waste; however, this typically isn't triggered
by time restricted eating, but requires longer periods of fasting (usually
kicking in around after 20-24 hours of fasting)."

I can't comment on how long it takes to achieve autophagy - I am happy to
stipulate that you are correct.

However, digestion is a very all-encompassing, rigorous and expensive activity
for your body. If we believe that there are more "cleanup" mechanisms than
just autophagy, it's not much of a reach to suggest that we engage in extra
digestion at the expense of these maintenance tasks.

~~~
throwaway_tech
>However, digestion is a very all-encompassing, rigorous and expensive
activity for your body. If we believe that there are more "cleanup" mechanisms
than just autophagy, it's not much of a reach to suggest that we engage in
extra digestion at the expense of these maintenance tasks.

Make no mistake I think there are potential benefits to IF fasting such as
these. For most people yes it will let their digestive system rest and even
potentially reduce the overall intake of calories. Again it is all potential
though, obviously not everyone needs to do IF to restrict calories if that is
their goal, and there are ways to consume calories while simultaneously not
digesting solid foods (that are typically outside the accepted scope of IF or
fasting).

My point is the reason IF became a phenomena so widely discussed and
implemented (edit: for increasing life span/expectancy) is directly related to
the Nobel Prize in 2016; however, that work is related to autogaphy and
fasting, not IF and IF related benefits. Edit:

------
jcadam
They need to hurry up with this, I'm not getting any younger and I haven't
saved enough for retirement :O

~~~
chrisco255
Yeah but if they extend your life won't you need even more for retirement?

~~~
jcadam
If I'm healthy enough to keep working, retirement isn't really necessary.

Also, given enough time, I ought to be able to amass a self-sustaining pile of
wealth and then I can retire :)

~~~
ben_w
If everyone does that, nobody is making the things you want to buy with that
wealth pile. Not until we also get enough automation to _also_ have UBI.

~~~
ItsDeathball
I don't think that's a problem in their scenario, since the situation is
leveraging life extension to work past retirement age. Working until age 80
and living out retirement until 120 would mean a vastly expanded labor pool,
unless you're assuming everyone stops having kids.

------
macawfish
I personally believe that it's not aging and death that are the disease, but
our powerful fear and abuse of them.

------
dannykwells
Interesting but a bit confusing since most of these drugs are for other
conditions, and are not seeking approval based on ability to slow/stop
/reverse aging. Thus any approvals would require having a particular condition
to get a prescription (or an unethical doctor), and this aren't immediately
useful.

Would be nice to be able to select only those drugs seeking broad spectrum
approval based on specific aging biomarkers.

~~~
1996
> any approvals would require having a particular condition to get a
> prescription (or an unethical doctor)

Wrong on both counts.

Let me introduce you to indian online pharmacies, where you can get mostly
anything already. I get my eyedrops from less than the US deductible,
delivered at my door. I have a prescription, but they didn't even check.

Even better: some molecules are on any restricted list, and thus legal to buy.
IIRC, mk667 is very popular for weightlifters.

So I think everybody will be able to get their hands on these as soon as their
efficiency is proved.

~~~
Afton
Other than the condescending tone, this comment is probably worth keeping.

summary: there are extralegal, cheap, and convenient methods of collecting
supplements/drugs that will be available to everyone with a credit card and
the right risk tolerance, regardless of e.g. FDA approval.

