

Scientist Claims Menopause Will Not Exist in 20 Years Time - davidiach
http://guardianlv.com/2014/09/scientist-claims-menopause-will-not-exist-in-20-years-time/

======
tokenadult
The article reports, "There are some however, who regard the pioneering
scientist [Aubrey de Grey] to be something of a maverick." That's an
understatement. After an earlier discussion about Aubrey de Grey here on
Hacker News, I spent an afternoon at a university library looking up
publications by him, about him, and about his hypotheses about human aging.
Basically, there are a lot of people who think his mitochondrial free-radical
hypothesis about aging has already been demonstrated to be wrong.[1] His
biography article page on Wikipedia is an interesting example of a page about
a living person that is mostly edited by fans, as it has been full of
statements over the years that cannot be verified by any published source,
contrary to Wikipedia policy for articles about living persons. I would not
count on de Grey's program, which is hardly ever published about in any
journal except the journal he owns and edits, to produce the big gains in
longevity that he predicts.

On the other hand, incremental progress by thousands of more careful
researchers has already led to major gains in healthy lifespan. Girls born
since 2000 in the developed world are more likely than not to reach the age of
100 (not 1,000, as de Grey is mentioned as saying in the article submitted
here), with boys likely to enjoy lifespans almost as long. The article "The
Biodemography of Human Ageing" by James Vaupel,[2] originally published in the
journal Nature in 2010, is a good current reference on the subject. Vaupel is
one of the leading scholars on the demography of aging and how to adjust for
time trends in life expectancy. His striking finding is "Humans are living
longer than ever before. In fact, newborn children in high-income countries
can expect to live to more than 100 years. Starting in the mid-1800s, human
longevity has increased dramatically and life expectancy is increasing by an
average of six hours a day."[3]

An article in a series on Slate, "Why Are You Not Dead Yet? Life expectancy
doubled in past 150 years. Here’s why"[4] Provides some of the background.

Life expectancy at age 40, at age 60, and at even higher ages is still rising
throughout the developed countries of the world.[5] Steady, incremental
progress like this is likely to matter for more improvements in healthy
lifespan in our lifetimes than hypotheses (not really "theories") not as
tightly tied to empirical experience.

[1] [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-free-radical-
th...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/is-free-radical-theory-of-
aging-dead/)

[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20021368](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20021368)

[http://news.discovery.com/human/aging-free-radicals-
antioxid...](http://news.discovery.com/human/aging-free-radicals-
antioxidants.htm)

[2] [http://www.demographic-
challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2...](http://www.demographic-
challenge.com/files/downloads/2eb51e2860ef54d218ce5ce19abe6a59/dc_biodemography_of_human_ageing_nature_2010_vaupel.pdf)

[3]
[http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity....](http://www.prb.org/Journalists/Webcasts/2010/humanlongevity.aspx)

[4]
[http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_...](http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science_of_longevity/2013/09/life_expectancy_history_public_health_and_medical_advances_that_lead_to.html)

[5]
[http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box...](http://www.nature.com/scientificamerican/journal/v307/n3/box/scientificamerican0912-54_BX1.html)

------
lutusp
This is such nonsense. Disregarding all the other absurdities in the article,
try to get women to agree to do the same thing on any schedule -- or, for that
matter, men.

