
Young blood does not reverse aging in old mice, UC Berkeley study finds - metric10
http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/11/22/young-blood-does-not-reverse-aging-in-old-mice-uc-berkeley-study-finds/
======
darawk
> In many of these experiments, older mice that received younger blood saw
> either slight or no significant improvements compared to old mice with old
> blood. Young mice that received older blood, however, saw large declines in
> most of these tissues or organs.

> The researchers think that many benefits seen in old mice after receiving
> young blood might be due to the young blood diluting the concentration of
> inhibitors in the old blood.

How can these things be compatible? If it were diluting the inhibitors, that
should have shown up as an improvement in the old mice, no?

~~~
tominous
My guess is that the effect of the inhibitors is not linear with
concentration.

Imagine that the effective (deleterious) dose of these inhibitors is, say, 10%
of the amount found in old mice. So an equal exchange between two mice is
enough to provide an effective dose to the young mouse, but not enough to
eliminate an effective dose to the old mouse.

~~~
ttflee
If this inhibitor hypothesis were true, an experiment could be set up to
determine which component/combination of components in the old-blood actually
plays the inhibitor role, with injection of separated part by component of
old-blood into the young mice, more or less like a binary search. After
knowing the exact combination, it would be much easier to target the inhibitor
itself.

------
ryanjmo
This seems like this is a misleading way for these researchers to present
their results.

Yes, there study did show that young blood can not stop the effects of old
blood.

However if someone were going to get transfused with young blood the amount of
old blood in their system would decrease, so then, presumably, you would see
anti-aging effects.

I don't know why they didn't present the research like that. It seems like
they don't want to say it or I'm just missing some logical step in my
thinking.

~~~
WhitneyLand
They didn't like how the previous results were sensationalized in the media so
they are proactively downplaying anything that could be used as a sound bite.

~~~
arca_vorago
Isn't that sorta not the point to science at all? Shouldn't findings be
conducted regardless of whatever bullshit the media spews?

------
delinquentme
"Importantly, our work on rodent blood exchange establishes that blood age has
virtually immediate effects on regeneration of all three germ layer
derivatives."

------
mrfusion
I'm wondering if these inhibitors could be toxins from bacteria or bacteria
themselves or another kind of parisite in the blood?

My personal theory is older organisms get colonized by all kinds of bacteria
that might trigger or speed up the breakdown the body.

------
ajarmst
So, if you had a few dozen pints of toddler blood in, say, a bar cooler, what
would be the best way to dispose of that? Asking for a friend.

------
toodlebunions
Worth giving a try with humans anyway.

~~~
talloaktrees
Try young virgins next (sarcasm)

------
daveguy
Whew. Thank goodness.

~~~
Filligree
It would have been convenient. But if anything so simple could work, then
nature would likely have already done it.

~~~
m3ta
Perhaps. Dying very easily is sometimes a good thing for a species from an
evolutionary standpoint.

~~~
hackinthebochs
Yup. I'm of the opinion that aging just is a "feature" of evolution. A
population with aging has a significant fitness advantage over a population
without aging so its not surprising that everything ages (the next generation
is almost always more fit than the previous gen so the faster a population
transitions to the next gen the more fit it is). But if aging just is a trait
rather than some inevitable result of entropy, it leads one to be optimistic
for reversing aging at least in principle.

~~~
vinceguidry
Aging as a feature doesn't make sense to me. It seems more likely to me that
immortality simply hasn't been 'cracked' yet, intelligence that could create
immortality would seem more likely to evolve first than immortality itself.

You have to get so many things just right for immortality to 'work', i.e. to
actually be useful in a survival context. It does no good for creatures to not
age if they lose a significant amount of viability.

But real immortality in the complete reversal of aging, I think would be an
immense advantage. Instead of having to teach your young over a very short
period of time the tricks they need to be viable adults, creatures could
super-specialize. One creature could supply all the food needed for a huge
colony. They'd just get better and better at exploiting their niche and other
creatures could find other niches.

I think if intelligence hadn't 'gotten there first', immortal creatures would
be running the show.

~~~
throwanem
> One creature could supply all the food needed for a huge colony.

We call this a "single point of failure".

~~~
vinceguidry
Other creatures could provide security.

~~~
throwanem
Against a really clever predator, perhaps with wings? Against accident and
illness? Against a change in circumstance such that those overspecialized
strategies no longer work sufficiently well or at all?

~~~
vinceguidry
A colony could stockpile food for the interrim period where the backup could
be trained up.

~~~
throwanem
Trained up by whom? All that's left of the colony's institutional knowledge on
the subject of provisioning is an owl pellet's worth of tiny bones and hair.

~~~
vinceguidry
With immortality, institutional knowledge doesn't have to go away. Everybody
can know everything, and the specialist that has all the experience dies, then
a new one can just be selected, and the whole colony can pick up the slack
until the new specialist is experienced enough to do it all himself.

Everybody becomes T-shaped.

~~~
throwanem
So immortality implies perfect recall, such that skills not exercised cease to
grow rusty and fade with time?

------
arrel
> found evidence for tissue rejuvenation in older mice when they are
> surgically joined to younger mice

That's terrifying.

~~~
elptacek
"Mice Splicer" on your resume, though? That'd be an interesting interview
conversation.

~~~
throwaway101416
I had to do exactly these surgeries on rats for a few years as a lab tech.

Also did some other fun things such as mass killings of rats using mini-
guillotines, harvesting bones and doing amateur brain surgeries while other
rats watched restlessly and anxiously peeped from the smell of blood.

This kind of stuff can mess with your sanity. For me it was a converse of how
serial killers injure animals when they were children.

Still have nightmares sometimes.

~~~
Qantourisc
Why let the other rats watch/smell ? That's just cruel, and the stress might
actually skew your testing data, screwing over your experiments.

~~~
projektfu
Most likely they grab a box of 2-3 rats, take it to a procedure room, and
perform surgeries on all the rats in sequence. It's a bit on the lazy end,
since you could always do a surgery on one rat, take it back to the housing
room, and get the next one. Some labs do not permit animals to observe
another's surgery or euthanasia. The rules are more lax for _Mus musculus_ and
_Rattus rattus_ , than for other mammalian species, in the US.

------
lorenzop
sad day for peter thiel

~~~
greeneggs
It's sad to imagine a day when Peter Thiel, Donald Trump, the Koch brothers,
Fidel Castro can live forever. Even non-evil billionaires like Bill Gates
living forever could be tragic, in that it greatly reduces the motivation for
significant philanthropy.

~~~
lawless123
I think if i was going to life indefinitely i would want to ensure the society
around me is strong ,stable , healthy and happy to protect myself.

~~~
JonnieCache
If anything, once you've cheated death amassing more personal power might feel
like a bit of a waste of time. Waste of time probably isn't the right phrase
but you get my drift.

